GSIPM

Gireesh Shrimali is the Interim-Director of CPI-ISB Energy and Environment Program at Climate Policy Initiative. Prior to this, he was an Assistant Professor at the Indian School of Business, and has been a Research Fellow at the Program of Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University. He holds a PhD from Stanford University; a MS from University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; and a BTech from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. His research focus is on policy and economics of renewable & rural energy, innovation in the energy sector, and climate change policy in general. His teaching at ISB included an innovative course – The Green Business – which combined concepts from climate policy as well as clean tech entrepreneurship.

Shrimali will be discussing the issue of State Policies and Renewable Electricity Deployment. Renewable energy technologies play an important role in the supply of electricity in the U.S. With federal legislative efforts toward a clean energy target stalled, state government efforts are likely to become more important drivers of renewable energy deployment, and the question of which policies are effective in driving deployment becomes important. We evaluate the impact of six types of state-level policies on the in-state deployment of renewable technologies, using a panel data for 50 states over 1990-2007. Our key findings are as follows. First, required green power options are associated with a 1% increase in the renewable share, and appear to be a moderately effective policy tool for increasing renewable deployment. Second, clean energy funds are associated with a 0.8% increase in renewable share, and seem to not only achieve stated objectives but also leverage a small amount of private investment. Third, renewable portfolio standards with sales requirements are associated with a small 0.4% increase in renewable share and, surprisingly, appear to be driving little in-state deployment by themselves. Finally, state government green power purchases and RPS with voluntary sales goals are associated with little or no effect on renewable share, indicating that voluntary policies do not seem to be driving deployment.

This discussion will be held Thursday, February 16th from 12:00p- 1:00p in CF 452.