{"Page URL":["https://www.appropedia.org/Beyond_Dams/Emerging_Technologies"],"Page description":["While end-use efficiency has huge potential throughout the United States and the world, new sources of energy supply are often still required. Renewable portfolio standards (RPS), in which the government issues tradable credits to retail electricity companies for electricity produced from new renewable resources, promote the development and use of sources that are less damaging than dams, fossil fuels or nuclear power. In order to meet RPS requirements, each company must hold a given amount of credits each year. In 2002, twelve states had enacted their own RPS programs and the U.S. Senate passed a federal RPS. The Senate RPS required that major electric companies gradually increase sales of  sources to 10 percent by 2020, although this provision has met stiff opposition in the House and is far from becoming law. Qualifying renewable resources must be new, so existing hydropower plants are not included. However, provision was made for inclusion of \"incremental hydropower,\" which is defined as adding hydropower capacity to existing hydropower generation facilities. However, definitions of \"renewable\" vary among different incarnations of the RPS. Some programs define \"incremental hydropower\" as renewable, others grant credit to \"small\" dams (e.g. less than 30 MW), while others exclude dams from the list of qualifying renewable resources. The retail electricity price impacts of RPS are projected to be small because the price of buying renewable credits and building the required infrastructure is projected to be relatively small when compared with total electricity costs. Finding sources that are less damaging than dams is highly site specific and variable. Options include wind power, , fuel cells and microturbines, geothermal power, biogas, ocean power,and others."],"Page image":["File:Beyond Dams.png"],"Page language":["en"],"Page parent":["Beyond Dams"],"Page root":["Beyond Dams"],"Page title":["Beyond Dams/Emerging Technologies"],"Page views":[1],"Page year":["Thursday, 01-Jan-26 00:00:00 UTC"],"Modification date":["Tuesday, 18-Aug-26 14:36:42 UTC"]}