Nevada's experience with the Renewable Portfolio Standard

Highlights: • Despite being an early adopter of the RPS, Nevada has been unaggressive at strengthening the policy. • The out-of-state allowance in particular was seen as delocalizing benefits of the RPS. • Changes to the RPS design were perceived as the result of regulatory capture by a powerful utility. • The key driver of in-state renewables is now viewed as customer choice rather than the RPS. -- Abstract: The Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) is widely considered the most important state-level renewable energy policy in the U.S. RPS policies are designed to move the state's electric sector toward renewables while minimizing electricity cost increases for customers but the specific design elements vary widely from state to state. And yet, the impacts of specific policy design features on outcomes has received relatively little attention in scholarly research. This study employs an in-depth case study approach to examine stakeholder perceptions of how and why particular policy design features of Nevada's RPS have changed as the result of social and political dynamics of Nevada's electric sector and the perceived impacts of these changes on policy outcomes. Although most expert stakeholders perceived Nevada's early RPS as critical to spurring growth in renewables, addition of a credit multiplier and allowance of existing and out-of-state resources, the long-term banking of RECs, credits for energy used to operate geothermal facilities, and energy efficiency measures were viewed as undermining policy objectives and delocalizing important economic and environmental benefits. Stakeholders perceived these changes as the result of an electric-sector culture that is resistant to change and a single, powerful electric utility that has significant sway over its regulator.