But if the scheme is well-designed and well-governed, feed-in tariffs are hard to beat. Empirically, the performance has been vastly superior to anything else.
Here's a twist that is - I think - an interesting study. In Washington state we had a feed-in tariff law that was capped at a level that made it a toy, rather than a tool. I think that it was enacted around 2004.
In 2006 we - the people - created, via petition, Initiative 937. Our program contained a proviso that all of the large PUDs and electrical supply corporations in our state have to provide 15% of their electrical energy from renewable sources (defined rather narrowly) by 2020. (This is, of course, now a very modest program; but we were one of the first states outside of CA and New Jersey to implement this approach.)
WA has a fairly significant wind resource in many regions, so wind-power is a viable strategy for meeting the rule. Our attempt at a feed-in tariff was so inconsequential that opponents used it as a put-down of environmentalists' practicality. Our 'modest program' (I-937), though, created a situation that had to be addressed. When need met viability, government agencies, local officials, developers, land owners, utilities, turbine manufacturers, and construction contractors came together in a hurry. (Yes, it's a boom, but it's not a bubble.)
Here's the twist. The producers, investors, and the utilities began very quickly to see the interface with 'peaker power' that Jerome described a few months ago. Although the quantity of wind turbines installed and operational appears to be substantial, it is a small enough segment of the power equation here that the parties in-charge can account for the power where they prefer. It's apparently mutually beneficial to consider it at 'peak' price: a market-derived feed-in tariff, it you like.
It might be that a different configuration of forces may want to manipulate the situation differently, but they will still have to comply with I-937. And I predict that, if a counter-initiative made it to the ballot now, it would lose by significantly more than that by which I-937 won in 2006. In particular rural folks who would have opposed it in 2006 have seen the benefits already and would support it now. paul spencer
