State Clean Energy Standards: Designing Programs for Effective Emission Reductions

State Clean Energy Standards (CESs), which set carbon-free energy or greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions goals for electric utilities, represent a new approach over traditional renewable portfolio standard (RPS) programs—one that focuses on renewable energy instead of emissions. This policy brief, aimed at state public utility commissioners and their staffs, discusses the critical importance of renewable energy certificates (RECs) to accurately account for zero-emissions generation from renewable resources in CES programs.