H.R. 890: American Renewable Energy Act
Semester
Andrea Schmitz brought her expertise in the field of energy and her practical experience in management to her student group that focused on the American Renewable Energy Act. Professor Schmitz’s team examined the possibility of a federal renewable electricity standard for electric utilities and the growth of renewable energy. By creating federal renewable energy credits that can be traded among utilities to comply with the standard, the Act encourages utility providers to develop renewable capabilities such as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and landfill gas, marine and hydrokinetic, or new and additional hydroelectric sources. The main challenges of the Act include the following: that state renewable requirements either vary or do not exist, the lack of standardization among regional renewable energy credit tracking systems and incomplete coverage, the difficulty in maintaining the integrity of renewable energy credit, that there may be no national market exchange to trade renewably energy credits, and that renewable sources of energy are intermittent and far from population centers. To address these challenges, proposed program design would begin by helping states transission to the federal program, lead to tracking and verification of renewable energy credits, improve the market exchange of credits, and ensure that issues of supply and transmission of renewable energy credits are addressed. If the Act is successful, there will be an increase in renewable capacity and a decrease in both air emissions and the price of renewable energy.