Today the Energy Information Administration released an analysis on the Clean Energy Standard.
“A CES is a policy that requires covered electricity retailers to supply a specified share of their electricity sales from qualifying clean energy resources. Under a CES, electric generators would be granted clean energy credits for every megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity they produce using qualifying clean energy sources. Utilities that serve retail customers would use some combination of credits granted to their own generation or credits acquired from other generators to meet their CES obligations. Generators without retail customers or utilities that generated more clean energy credits than needed to meet their own obligations could sell CES credits to other companies.”
Near the end of the analysis:
“The HCES impact on electricity prices varies significantly across regions (Table 1). In 2035, the HCES impact on average electricity prices ranges between negative 1.6 cents/kWh (indicating that the average electricity price is actually lower under the HCES than the reference case) and positive 8.4 cents/kWh. Regions that are more dependent on generation fuels that are not HCES-eligible, primarily coal, in general experience a stronger price impact.”
