Renewables Economics and Policy

In addition to addressing the technical issues associated with integrating large quantities of renewable resources into the grid, our consulting team can identify the financial and rate impacts of changing renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and policies. The integration of large quantities of renewable resources such as wind and solar under RPS will impact the rates that consumers will pay, through a combination of capital costs, fossil fuel displacements, and changes in imports. The factors that must be considered include:

• Annual costs of new capital additions (for both renewable energy and thermal plants)
• Cost of new transmission facilities required to integrate renewable resources into the grid
• Costs of ramping and load-following requirements, driven by higher levels of wind and solar generation on the system
• Cost of emission compliance requirements

Nexant's team includes economists who have developed rate models for numerous utilities around the world, both as utility employees and as industry consultants. These efforts include rate modeling that involves all of the complex issues listed above. In addition, our experts can help develop the scenarios and sensitivity cases needed to understand the impacts of various policy decisions.