Accelerating toward a Clean Energy Economy

The document outlines the use of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) to model the impact of the Clean Power Plan and federal tax credits. It specifies adjustments made to standard EIA cost and performance assumptions for various energy technologies, including wind, solar, coal, and nuclear, and defines three primary analysis scenarios: a Reference Case, a Clean Energy Transition Case, and a Clean Power Plan Only Case.

• The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) utilized the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) to evaluate the feasibility of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan for the contiguous United States and six specific states.
• The UCS diverged from the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) 'learning' assumptions, which link capital cost reductions to technology penetration; instead, the UCS assumes costs for mature technologies remain fixed and costs for emerging technologies decline independently of penetration.
• For nuclear power, the UCS assumed existing plants would receive a 20-year license extension to operate for a total of 60 years, after which they would be retired, and excluded projected capital cost reductions due to historical cost increases in the US.
• The analysis incorporates specific cost and performance projections for renewables, including a 62.5% cost reduction for utility-scale solar PV by 2020 and 75% by 2030 based on the DOE SunShot Vision Study.
• The UCS adjusted biomass supply projections to 680 million tons per year by 2030 based on sustainability criteria and limited the coal capacity available for biomass cofiring to 10% of a plant's capacity.
• The 'Clean Energy Transition Case' scenario assumes compliance with the Clean Power Plan's mass-based approach, a minimum 1% annual reduction in electricity sales from 2022 to 2030 as a proxy for energy efficiency, and the extension of federal production tax credits (PTC) and investment tax credits (ITC).
• To calculate the monetary value of carbon dioxide reduction, the UCS used the EPA's social cost of carbon (SCC) values, which range from $37 per ton in 2015 to $51 per ton in 2030, assuming a 3 percent discount rate.

APA

Union of Concerned Scientists (2016). Accelerating toward a Clean Energy Economy. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/05/technical-appendix-national-clean-power-plan-analysis-update.pdf

Chicago

Union of Concerned Scientists. Accelerating toward a Clean Energy Economy. 2016. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/05/technical-appendix-national-clean-power-plan-analysis-update.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Union of Concerned Scientists |title=Accelerating toward a Clean Energy Economy |date=May 2016 |url=https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/05/technical-appendix-national-clean-power-plan-analysis-update.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{unionofconcernedscientists2016accelerating, author = {{Union of Concerned Scientists}}, title = {{Accelerating toward a Clean Energy Economy}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, year = {2016}, month = may, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/05/technical-appendix-national-clean-power-plan-analysis-update.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }