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PJM - States Increase Renewable Portfolio Standards
By Jeffrey Levine, Director, Government & Regulatory Affairs, GDF SUEZ NA
Many states within the PJM transmission
grid interconnection have established renewable portfolio
standards (RPS) that direct suppliers to buy a portion of a
customer’s electricity from qualified renewable resources. GDF
SUEZ Energy Resources buys renewable energy credits (RECs) on
behalf of its customers and even goes beyond mandatory
requirements with a range of options that allow customers to
voluntarily purchase additional RECs. All of the RPS
requirements increase over time, with goals looking as far out
as 2025.
Recently, some states have further advanced their
RPS requirements beyond the originally planned incremental
increases, specifically trying to promote solar and wind
resources. Typically referred to as “carve-outs,” the new
requirements stipulate the use of solar and/or wind resources as
a portion of the existing RPS requirements, which already
include a broad range of qualified renewable generation such as
biomass and hydroelectric.
In the past few months, Maryland
and New Jersey have created such carve-outs for solar resources,
and New Jersey has pending legislation that would do the same
for “off-shore wind,” which is yet to be built. The New Jersey
solar requirements are effective June 1, 2010, while Maryland’s
solar RPS takes effect January 1, 2011. Illinois already has
high wind carve-outs in effect and will implement a solar carve-
out in 2015. Just this year, Illinois committed to buy 20-year
contracts to purchase up to 2 million MWhs of renewable energy
and the associated RECs each year.
Combine these ambitious
public policy initiatives with state commitments to greenhouse
gas reductions (three PJM states – Maryland, Delaware and New
Jersey – are members of the 10-state Regional Greenhouse Gas
Initiative) and protective environmental air emissions
regulations, and it becomes increasingly clear why states need
to examine the costs for such programs to consumers during these
financially stressed times. GDF SUEZ Energy Resources is
well-positioned to manage these escalating cost risks for you
and is committed to keeping you informed of emerging policy
initiatives that could impact your budget.
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