rps

Lawmakers in California’s Assembly on August 28 cleared a key vote on a bill that would require the state to obtain 100% of all retail electricity sales from renewable and zero-emissions resources by 2045.  The state’s Assembly voted 43–32 in favor of SB 100. The bill, which now heads to the state Senate for a […]

While 29 states and the District of Columbia currently have Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS)—goals for power producers to provide a certain amount of power from renewable sources by a specific date—a growing number of states are also instituting standalone targets and mandates for energy storage procurement. Sources: Energy Storage Association, North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center, Lawrence Berkeley […]

An energy transition is underway across the world. Market upheaval, defining events, and recent policy changes have accelerated a shift away from coal toward renewables. Here is how this transformation played out for some of the world’s major economies over the past decade. Graphs show percent of each fuel source of total generation for that […]

A unanimous vote by New Mexico’s Public Regulation Commission (PRC) today determined that Public Service Co. of New Mexico (PNM) will be allowed to provide new renewable capacity to a proposed Facebook facility through a special service agreement.

The U.S., Mexico, and Canada today announced an unprecedented goal to procure 50% of North America’s total power generation from renewables, nuclear, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and energy efficiency technologies by 2025. President Obama, Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, and the President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto, announced the continental goal, part of […]

Diablo Canyon, the two-reactor nuclear power plant on the central California coastline, will be permanently shuttered by 2025 under a renewables-boosting initiative announced today by its owner, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). The company on June 21 unveiled a “joint proposal” with labor and environmental groups that seeks to increase investment in energy efficiency, energy […]

The Oregon Senate passed a bill on March 2 that will require electric companies in the state to eliminate coal-fired resources from their electrical supplies by January 1, 2030. The bill—which passed in the senate by a 17–12 vote—had already been passed by the Oregon House of Representatives (38–20). It now heads to Gov. Kate […]

State renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) provide around $7.4 billion in annual economic benefits and substantial reductions in water withdrawals and consumption, according to a new study from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and National Renewable Energy Laboratory released on Jan. 6. The study, “A Retrospective Analysis of the Benefits and Impacts of […]

U.S. wind power is becoming more widespread and costs are generally on the decline, but the sector is troubled by policy uncertainties, a new report from the Energy Department says.   After a lackluster year in 2013, wind power capacity additions in the U.S. rebounded nearly 8% in 2014, driven by recent improvements in the […]

An interdisciplinary study led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Energy Initiative concludes, among other things, that “state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requirements should be replaced by a uniform nationwide program.” The report—released on May 5—focuses on the future of solar energy, suggesting that a massive expansion in solar capacity to “multi-terawatt scale” is […]