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(UPI Science News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Two U.S. researchers have unveiled a strategy for meeting 20 percent of the nation's electricity demand with clean, renewable energy by the year 2020.
The executive director of the Network for New Energy Choices, Chris Cooper, and Benjamin Sovacool of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory say their plan would use a federal renewable portfolio standard, or RPS, involving market-based strategies.
Cooper said the plan doesn't mandate a specific amount of renewable energy. Instead, it sets the RPS goal as 20 percent of electricity demand, thereby creating incentives for utilities to pursue demand-reduction strategies.
The plan also sets national standards for home and business owners who wish to generate their own electricity and sell the excess to the central transmission grid.
Cooper and Sovacool say their plan could decrease retail electricity prices by up to 17 percent, save consumers more than $580 million and utilities as much as $74 billion.
The researchers say it would also decrease the probability of a major blackout in the next 20 years from nearly 100 percent to about 1 percent and make the U.S. transmission grid safer from terrorist attacks.
The plan is detailed in the Electricity Journal.
Copyright 2006 United Press International
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