Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Bryan K. Mignone Author-Name: Thomas Alfstad Author-Name: Aaron Bergman Author-Name: Kenneth Dubin Author-Name: Richard Duke Author-Name: Paul Friley Author-Name: Andrew Martinez Author-Name: Matthew Mowers Author-Name: Karen Palmer Author-Name: Anthony Paul Author-Name: Sharon Showalter Author-Name: Daniel Steinberg Author-Name: Matt Woerman Author-Name: Frances Wood Title: Cost-effectiveness and Economic Incidence of a Clean Energy Standard Classification-JEL: F0 Pages: Volume: Volume 1 Issue: Number 3 Year: 2012 Abstract: A Clean Energy Standard (CES) is a flexible, market-based policy instrument that could be adopted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. electricity system over time. This paper uses several well-known energy system and electricity models to analyze a CES that reflects broad principles outlined in President Obama's January 2011 State of the Union Address and in the Administration's subsequent Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future. 1 In particular, it examines three different design options for a CES that would each lead to approximately 80% clean electricity by 2035. These different design options provide broadly similar economic incentives for clean energy deployment and yield similar overall welfare impacts, but they exhibit different distributional outcomes. The most inclusive CES crediting approach favors producers over consumers in competitive electricity markets as well as regions with larger initial endowments of clean energy. On the other hand, the most restrictive crediting approach favors consumers over producers and reduces preferences for regions with larger initial endowments of clean energy. While specific technology outcomes vary across the four models used in this study, key insights about cost-effectiveness and economic incidence are largely robust to the underlying modeling platform. These insights may be important considerations in future CES policy design efforts. Handle: RePEc:aen:eeepjl:1_3_a05 File-URL: http://www.iaee.org/en/publications/eeeparticle.aspx?id=32 File-Format: text/html File-Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to IAEE members and subscribers.