Market Drivers
Three broad sources drive demand for renewable electricity: policy, voluntary action, and economics.
Certain policies grow demand for renewable electricity by increasing the percentage of renewable electricity that electric service providers, like utilities, must provide in some states. This drives renewable electricity growth by increasing demand among providers of electricity.
Voluntary purchasing also drives renewable electricity growth by increasing demand among electricity customers choosing renewable resources for their environmental, economic, and social benefits.
Finally, the low cost of renewable resources is an ever-increasing driver of renewable electricity growth. In the United States, wind and solar represent many of the lowest-cost new power generation resources. In many cases, building a new wind or solar facility may even cost less than running an already-existing facility that generates power using other resources.
To learn more about the contributions of these market drivers to renewable electricity growth, visit the Regulatory vs Voluntary Market Drivers page.
What can I do to help to transform the market to cleaner power generation resources?
Electricity consumers can play a significant role in transforming the power sector by creating demand for renewable electricity. This not only increases the proportion of total electricity being generated from clean, renewable resources, but also helps to scale the market for these technologies and products, helping to bring per-unit costs down for future renewable projects.
Many product options are available. In general, different options are available to residential, small organizational, and large organizational electricity consumers.
Buying Renewable Electricity: Residential Customers
- Utility Green Pricing Options
- Retail Green Electricity Products
- Community Choice Aggregation
- Self-Supply
- Shared Renewables – aka Community Solar
Buying Renewable Electricity: Small Organizations
In addition to the above product options available to residential customers, small businesses, academic institutions, and other small organizations may also be able to increase renewable electricity demand through the following product options.
Buying Renewable Electricity: Large Organizations
Large commercial or institutional consumers can drive renewable electricity through all the purchasing options described above. In addition, they also may be able to leverage the following options: