Public policy spillovers from private energy governance: new opportunities for the political acceleration of renewable transitions

Yes – and my article does include some discussion on the renewable procurement obstacles associated with the current US electricity market set-up – obstacles that can be particularly salient for corporate renewable buyers seeking to power their operations from renewable capacity specifically added in response to their clean power demand; getting competitively priced renewable electricity with additionality attributes, that is, can be challenging for many companies with facilities and operations in regulated electricity markets that are dominated by renewables-reluctant monopoly utilities.

So we do have electricity market obstacles to corporate renewable procurement, and partial work-arounds like VPPAs (Virtual Power Purchase Agreements) do remain beyond the reach of many companies – my research identifies these factors as important drivers of corporate engagement in several types of pro-renewables policy and regulatory advocacy – including business advocacy for policy and regulatory changes that facilitate corporate renewable procurement, and business advocacy in favor of broader grid-greening and renewable-market-promoting policies, such as higher state RPS and stricter regulatory controls on utility planning. Brief examples on some of the pro-renewables policies supported by corporate renewable buyers can be found in Table 3 of my related paper. Hope this is useful!