In 2004, Black & Veatch completed two economic impact analysis studies of renewable and advanced energy in Pennsylvania spurred by two pieces of legislation in the past two years. This first was a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) mandating that 10 percent of retail electric energy by 2015 come from renewable sources. The second was the recently enacted Advanced Energy Portfolio Standard (AEPS), which requires that 18 percent of retail electric energy by 2020 come from two tiers of renewable and advanced technologies. The studies included a review of the current status of renewable energy development in the United States and Pennsylvania, characterization of renewable power generation technologies, assessment of Pennsylvania’s renewable resources and estimation of economic benefits the state would experience by adopting each policy. The study was performed for the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies, which was funded by the Heinz Endowments.

RPS policies have been a popular mechanism used by other states and countries to mandate a certain percentage of electricity be generated from renewable energy resources. To date, 18 states have implemented RPS policies, and many others are actively considering the adoption of an RPS. These policies have directly initiated the installation of thousand of megawatts of renewable energy and have helped to spur the 20 to 30 percent growth in wind energy capacity in the United States over the past 5 years. The AEPS enacted in Pennsylvania is unique among all other states by its inclusion of energy conservation and advanced fossil fuel conversion technologies, such as waste coal combustion and integrated gasification combined cycle.

RPS Assessment – March 2004
The RPS was compared against a “Business-as-Usual” case of building conventional fossil fuel technologies rather than the renewable energy developed under the RPS. The analysis revealed that the RPS would cost $1.23 billion more than the BAU case on a present value basis, equating to an increase of $0.29 cents per month for the average residential customer. However, the RPS would result in $10.1 billion more in gross state output and $2.8 billion more in earnings over the 20 year time period than the BAU portfolio. Additionally, for this minimal increase in monthly electric bills, 85,000 more job-years than the BAU portfolio would be generated by developing clean renewable energy resources. A comprehensive report was prepared summarizing the findings of the study. The report is organized is into the following chapters:

A. Executive Summary
B. Current Status of Renewable Energy
C. Renewable Technologies Assessment
D. Renewable Resource Assessment
E. Economic Impact Assessment

To download a PDF version of the full study report, please click the following link: Economic Impact of Renewable Energy in Pennsylvania Report

To download a PDF version of the study results presented at the Pennsylvania Sustainable Energy Board Annual Meeting, please click the following link: Economic Impact of Renewable Energy in Pennsylvania Presentation

AEPS Assessment – November 2004
The AEPS assessment was performed to analyze the economic impacts of a new and dramatically different version of the RPS moving through the state legislature. The version of the AEPS analyzed for the study is slightly more aggressive than the version eventually passed (20 percent of energy by 2014 versus 18 percent of energy by 2020). In addition, the models used for the first analysis were updated and improved for this study to produce a more thorough analysis of the make-up of the AEPS portfolio, implementation costs, and economic impacts. The analysis of the AEPS revealed that it would cost about $1.8 billion less than the BAU case over 20 years, which equates to potential electric bill savings of about one percent. In addition to potential electric bill savings, the AEPS was also estimated to increase gross state output by over $9.0 billion, increase earnings by about $2.7 billion, and create over 70,000 job-years over 20 years relative to the BAU case. The AEPS assessment was performed as an update of the previous RPS study and is presented as a Chapter F.

To download a PDF version of the analysis of the AEPS, please click the following link: AEPS Analysis

To download a PDF version of the AEPS study results presented to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, please click the following link: AEPS Study Results

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