A Comparison of Renewable Portfolio Standards and Feed-In Tariffs as Legislative Mechanisms to Provide Renewable Power Incentives: Impacts on Power Supply, Transmission, and Grid Intermittency

Abstract:     
A federalist form of government is used in several important nations, including the United States, Germany, India, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Malaysia, and Switzerland. A federalist form of government divides political sovereignty between a central federal authority and constituent states or provinces. To implement new government policy regulating private power, the challenging transcendent issues are legal and regulatory, rather than technical. Certain measures in various industrialized countries, when implemented at the state rather than federal level, must be designed and implemented carefully to achieve a legal, regulatory fit in a federalist system of government.

For purposes of comparison, this article considers the recent initiatives in many of these countries to alter the energy infrastructure from fossil-fuel to renewable energy options. While not all federalist systems in the world are the same, the United States offers a rubric for analysis. With close examination of policies attempted to be implemented by states in the United States, this article examines legal issues arising in implementing policies in a federalist system. Many things can go wrong or right, with more regulatory issues than first apparent.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 35

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