Funding renewable energy: An analysis of renewable portfolio standards

Gregory Upton and Brian F. Snyder

Energy Economics, 2017, vol. 66, issue C, 205-216

Abstract: Thirty states have adopted renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) that set targets for renewable energy generation by mandating that electric power utilities obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable sources. Our synthetic control (SC) model finds that states with RPSs have experienced increases in electricity prices and decreases in electricity demand relative to non-RPS states with similar economic, political and renewable natural resource characteristics. While both RPS and non-RPS SCs experienced increases in renewable energy generation over the sample time period, we do not find evidence that RPS states have experienced increases in renewable energy generation relative to SCs and weak evidence of emissions reductions.

Keywords: Renewable portfolio standards; Renewable energy; Environmental policy; Energy policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L51 L94 L98 Q42 Q48 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (61)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988317301974
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:66:y:2017:i:c:p:205-216

DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2017.06.003

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Economics is currently edited by R. S. J. Tol, Beng Ang, Lance Bachmeier, Perry Sadorsky, Ugur Soytas and J. P. Weyant

More articles in Energy Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().