State Renewable Energy Governance: Policy Instruments, Markets, or Citizens

Abstract

Since the 1990s, state governments in the U.S. have diversified policy instruments to encourage the electric power industry to deploy renewable sources for electricity generation. This study identifies the trends and variations in renewable energy policy governance among states and examines the effectiveness of policy instruments in the deployment of renewable energy sources for electricity production. This study explores 18 state legislative, renewable energy related regulations, programs, or financial incentives existing between 2001 and 2010 in 48 states in the United States. Renewable energy policies were classified into three types of policy approaches: command-and-control, market-based, and information instruments. Results suggest that authoritative approaches are more likely to be effective in the governmental intervention toward a pre-existing market, and information instruments and citizen participation became important in the power industry in the 2000s. In addition, it gives us some evidence that Federal assistance under the ARRA of 2009 influenced the overall growth of the renewable electricity industry, in addition to state government led policy designs.