Since 2004, the private sector has invested more than $300 billion in the U.S. renewable energy market, according to "Strategies to Scale-Up U.S. Renewable Energy Investment," a report by the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE), California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF), and Climate Policy Initiative released at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum-Wall Street. The groups highlighted the role of policy at the state, federal, and regulatory level in unlocking private capital in the industry during the past decade.
Further, the paper finds that state policies such as Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) have effectively leveraged over a hundred billion dollars in private investment into the 29 states with RPS policies. These policies have been extremely effective at maximizing the amount of private investment in renewable energy projects, and as a result, all 50 states should aim to strengthen or create a policy framework aimed at leveraging private capital into this industry.
The study also explores how federal policies play an important role in leveraging private dollars into renewables, which has in turn lead to technological advances that have resulted in steep cost reductions of clean energy technologies. These advances led to a capstone year in 2012 when 49% of new electrical generation capacity brought online was from renewables, beating natural gas.
(News sourced from Clean Edge)
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