A Prospective Analysis of the Costs, Benefits, and Impacts of U.S. Renewable Portfolio Standards

Abstract

PREFACE This is one report in a series that explores the costs, benefits, and other impacts of state renewable portfolio standards (RPS), both retrospectively and prospectively. The first report, A Survey of State-Level Cost and Benefit Estimates of Renewable Portfolio Standards, published in 2014, comprehensively summarized historical RPS compliance costs, drawing in part on estimates developed by utilities and state regulatory agencies. The study also reviewed analyses of the broader societal benefits and impacts of several states' RPS policies, typically conducted for or by the regulatory agencies or RPS administrators in those states. However, the small number of such studies, and their widely varying methods and scopes, ultimately limited the ability to compare benefits across states or to generalize beyond the specific studies performed. That limitation set the stage for future reports.The second report in the series, A Retrospective Analysis of the Benefits and Impacts of U.S. Renewable Portfolio Standards, published in January 2016, analyzed historical benefits and impacts of renewable energy (RE) used to meet all state RPS policies, in aggregate, employing a consistent and well-vetted set of methods and data sets. The analysis focuses on three specific benefits: air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and water use. It also analyzes three other impacts: gross job additions, wholesale electricity market price suppression, and natural gas price suppression. These are an important subset, but by no means a comprehensive set, of all possible effects associated with RPS policies. That report did not include a comparison of costs and benefits of renewables used to meet RPS policies, and nor did it assess the potential costs, benefits, and impacts prospectively based on future increases in RPS targets.The present report fills that gap by evaluating the future costs, benefits, and other impacts of renewable energy used to meet current state RPS polices. It also examines a future scenario where RPSs are expanded. The analysis examines changes in electric system costs and retail electricity prices, which include all fixed and operating costs, including capital costs for all renewable, non-renewable, and supporting (e.g., transmission and storage) electric sector infrastructure; fossil fuel, uranium, and biomass fuel costs; and plant operations and maintenance expenditures. The analysis uses the same framework as the second report to analyze three specific benefits: air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and water use. It also analyzes two other impacts, RE workforce and economic development, and natural gas price suppression.The terminology applied in this series does not align precisely with the traditional concepts of costs and benefits, but rather is a function of how RPS programs have often been evaluated in practice. This analysis series, particularly the present report, evaluates renewable energy used to meet RPS policies in terms of costs, benefits, and other impacts:

Assessing the costs and benefits of US renewable portfolio standards

“…Here we provide a broad overview of our methods, approach and assumptions, starting with our approach to electric sector modeling and cost estimation, and followed by a description of additional tools used to estimate environmental and health benefits. For specific methodological details, see Mai et al (2016a).…”

“…does not specify emissions targets after 2030, we apply the same 2030 target for all subsequent years. See Mai et al (2016a) for details. 6 As noted briefly later in the conclusions to the paper, the scenario construct provides an upper bound on the impacts of the RPS policies themselves because greater 'economic' RE deployment exceeding the cap applied in our Reference scenario is possible in the absence of the policies.…”

“…We contrast each of these two RE policy scenarios with a comparison scenario in which RPS purchase obligations are eliminated after 2014, allowing for an assessment of incremental effects from 2015 through 2050. Each of the three scenarios is described briefly below, with further details found in Mai et al (2016a).…”

“…As detailed in Mai et al (2016a) and highlighted in figure 4, depending on the US census region, specific year and sensitivity case, retail electricity price impacts in the Existing RPS Policies scenario can be as much as roughly 1¢/kWh higher than in the Reference scenario 11 . However, estimated incremental prices vary significantly between regions and years and depend on future RE technology costs and fossil fuel prices.…”

Enabling immersive engagement in energy system models with deep learning

“…The outputs from planning model include cumulative capacity of fossil, nuclear, renewable, and storage resource deployments, the transmission expansions, the generator dispatch and fuel needed to satisfy regional demand requirements and to maintain grid system adequacy, total system cost, electricity prices, emissions, and water consumption. Notable studies that have made significant use of ReEDS include the Wind Vision Study [39], a prospective analysis of state Renewable Portfolio Standards impacts [21], and the National Plug-in Electric Vehicles impacts assessment study [24]. In the work presented here, ReEDS model simulations were performed for 18 515 scenarios using NREL's HPC system.…”