As Congress considers adoption of the Federal Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP), it is important to understand the impacts on existing renewable energy markets in the U.S., particularly private investment in and use of renewable energy—the voluntary market.

This policy brief from CRS’s Clean Energy Accounting Project (CEAP) provides an overview of the critical role the voluntary market plays in clean energy development, and policy recommendations that can easily be incorporated into the CEPP’s implementation to support a robust and impactful voluntary market into the future.

There are many different ways to design a Federal Clean Energy Standard (CES) for the load-serving entities (LSEs) that sell and deliver electricity to end-use customers. But to implement an aggressive policy quickly, policymakers must choose metrics for measuring electricity that LSEs can meet accurately and efficiently.

This policy brief explores four potential options for an LSE-focused Federal CES, with each option treating electricity contracts and generation attributes differently and requiring different approaches to tracking and verification.

Current proposals for the federal Clean Energy Standard (CES) incorporate existing renewable energy resources and may require the establishment of baselines to measure progress made by load serving entities towards compliance targets.

This discussion draft, released by CRS’s Clean Energy Accounting Project (CEAP), evaluates several key issues for establishing baselines including the criteria used to define eligible generation, establishing a baseline year, disposition of owned generation and specified purchases, interaction with existing state renewable portfolio standards and goals, and use of existing accounting tools.