A new study
estimates that $2.2 billion in benefits came from reduced greenhouse gas
emissions and $5.2 billion from reductions in other air pollution for
state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) policies operating in 2013. The
report also shows national water withdrawals and consumption were
reduced by 830 billion gallons and 27 billion gallons in 2013,
respectively. The report, entitled A Retrospective Analysis of the Benefits and Impacts of U.S. Renewable Portfolio Standards,
was conducted by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and evaluates the benefits and other
impacts of RPS policies.
RPS
policies require utilities or other electricity providers to meet a
minimum portion of their load with eligible forms of renewable
electricity. They currently exist in 29 U.S. states plus Washington,
D.C., and have been a driver for renewable electricity generation in the
United States over the past decade. Many states are currently
considering whether to extend, eliminate, or otherwise revise existing
RPS policies. “This work is intended to inform these ongoing discussions
by helping states evaluate RPS programs,” said Berkeley Lab’s Ryan
Wiser, one of the report authors.
The study takes care to describe its methods and highlights
uncertainties in its findings. For example, benefits from greenhouse gas
reductions were estimated to range from $0.7 to $6.3 billion,
reflecting differences in underlying estimates of damages caused by
climate change. Similarly, air pollution reduction benefits—which arise
primarily from avoided premature mortality—were estimated to range from
$2.6 to $9.9 billion in 2013, reflecting differences in underlying
epidemiological literature, among other factors.
“Our goal was to estimate the magnitude of RPS benefits and impacts
at a national-level, using established methodologies, while recognizing
that individual states can perform their own, more-detailed
assessments,” adds NREL’s Jenny Heeter, another of the report’s authors.
In addition to evaluating environmental benefits, the study also
assessed other impacts. Specifically, the research estimates that RPS
policies supported 200,000 renewable energy-related jobs in 2013, saved
consumers up to $1.2 billion from reduced wholesale electricity prices
and another $1.3 to $3.7 billion from reduced natural gas prices.
Consumer savings from reduced electricity and natural gas prices occur
because renewable electricity displaces other electricity generation
with higher operating costs, much of which is fueled by natural gas. The
study is careful to describe these as impacts rather than benefits as
they represent resource transfers from some stakeholders to others,
rather than net societal benefits on state, national, or global scales.
This work was a follow-up and complement to an earlier study
by the two labs that focused on the costs of state RPS programs to-date
and that noted the need for a full understanding of the potential
benefits, impacts, and costs of RPS programs. To that end, this most
recent study provides a point of comparison for estimates of RPS program
costs. Based on the results of this national study, benefits from
reduced greenhouse gas emissions equate to 0.7 to 6.4 cents per
kilowatt-hour (kWh) of renewable energy, while benefits from reduced
emissions of criteria air pollutants amount to 2.6 to 10.1 cents per
kWh. Consumer savings from wholesale electricity market and natural gas
price reductions represent another 0 to 1.2 cents per kWh and 1.3 to 3.7
cents per kWh, respectively.
Although the study takes a national view—evaluating all state RPS
programs as a whole—many of the associated benefits and impacts were
highly regional. For example, the economic benefits from air pollution
reductions are associated mostly with reduced sulfur dioxide (SO2)
emissions from coal-fired power plants and are concentrated primarily
in the Mid-Atlantic, Great Lakes, Northeast, and Texas. Reductions in
water withdrawal and consumption were largest in California and Texas
respectively—both states that regularly experience droughts—while
renewable energy jobs from RPS projects were concentrated mostly in
California, where large amounts of utility-scale photovoltaic generation
was being built in 2013.
Having now examined both the costs and benefits of state RPS programs
historically, the researchers are planning a follow-up effort for the
coming year to evaluate the costs and benefits of RPS programs
prospectively, considering scheduled increases to each state’s
requirements as well as potential policy revisions.
A webinar summarizing the results of this most recent study was
held January 13, 2016.
Additional information and research on state RPS policies are available at rps.lbl.gov.
http://tinyurl.com/zpyo3wu
U.S. Department of Energy University of California Lawrence Livermore Berkeley Lab www.lbl.gov
Press Release dated January 6, 2016
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