T H E GEORGE WA SHI NGTON U N I V ER SIT Y L AW SCHOOL
PERSPECTIVES
ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY LAW
Perspectives
PROGRAM ESTABLISHED 1970
PERSPECTIVES
California’s Reverse Auction Mechanism (RAM): A Promising Procurement Tool for Renewable Distributed Generation Jessica Wentz, Environmental Program Fellow and Visiting Associate Professor of Law This discussion is excerpted from the forthcoming article, “Balancing Economic and Environmental Goals in Renewable Energy Procurement: A Critical Analysis of California’s Renewable Energy Mechanism” to be published in the George Washington Journal of Energy and Environmental Law.
SPRING 2014 ISSUE PERSPECTIVES 1 WHAT’S NEW 1–3 RECENT EVENTS 4–5 UPCOMING EVENTS 6 STUDENT AND ALUMNI PROFILES 7–9 STUDENT NEWS 10 IN PRINT 11
WHAT’S NEW
Emily Hammond to Join GW Law
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n 2010 Governor Jerry Brown proposed an ambitious plan to promote renewable energy development in California. One of the key objectives in Governor Brown’s “Clean Energy Jobs Plan” is the construction of 12,000 megawatts (MW) of distributed renewable energy generation by 2020.1 This objective complements California’s other energy-related goals, including the state’s greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets, 2 and its Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS).3 In order to expedite the deployment of distributed generation (DG)
resources, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) recently introduced an innovative market-based approach to wholesale DG procurement. The “Renewable Auction Mechanism” (RAM) is a reverse auction, in which developers can submit bids for proposed DG projects between 3 and 20 MW in capacity. California’s three large investor-owned utilities (IOUs) are then required to procure a specified capacity of renewable DG in each auction, by selecting the lowest-cost bids up until they have reached their capacity targets. The CPUC continued on page 13
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rofessor Emily Hammond will join the GW faculty in the fall of 2014, bringing additional expertise in energy, environmental, and administrative law to GW’s Environmental and Emily Hammond Energy Law Program. A former civil engineer who practiced in the environmental field prior to attending law school, Professor Hammond’s expertise is informed by technical realities and shaped by a systems approach to legal and continued on page 3