Kansas

Kansas adopted the Renewable Energy Standards Act in 2009 (K.S.A. 66-1256), establishing a renewable portfolio standard (RPS). This statute requires the state's investor-owned and cooperative utilities to generate or purchase 10% of their electricity from eligible renewable resources in the years 2011-2015, 15% in the years 2016-2019, and 20% by 2020.

Eligible resources include wind, solar thermal, photovoltaics (PV), dedicated crops grown for energy production, cellulosic agricultural residues, plant residues, methane from landfills or wastewater treatment, clean and untreated wood products such as pallets, existing hydropower, new hydropower that has a nameplate rating of 10 megawatts (MW) or less, fuel cells using hydrogen produced by an eligible renewable resource, and other sources of energy that become available in the future and are certified as renewable by the KCC.

While the portfolio standards of most other states are based on retail electric sales (kilowatt hours), Kansas' standard is based on generation capacity: this is generally the gross capacity owned or leased by a utility less the auxiliary power used to operate the facility. The auxiliary power is determined by performing a test of each facility. In the case of multi-unit resources (such as a wind farm), the test will be conducted on only 10% of the units. If it is not practical to perform the test on any particular facility, the nameplate net capacity of the facility will be used.

Each MW of eligible capacity installed in Kansas after January 1, 2000, will count as 1.1 MW for the purpose of compliance. Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) can be used to comply with the requirement by using formulas included in K.A.R. 82-16. Capacity from RECs is based on the affected utility's actual capacity factor of its owned renewable generation of the same resource type from the previous year. For example, if a utility purchases wind RECs in order to meet compliance, it must use the average capacity factor of its own existing wind facilities in order to calculate the capacity from RECs that can be counted towards compliance. If the utility does not have a facility of the same resource as the RECs, then the capacity factor of the utility's overall renewable energy generation shall be used for the REC capacity calculation. If the utility has no renewable energy generation, a default capacity factor of 34% shall be used.

For compliance years 2011, 2016, and 2020, RECs can only be used to meet a portion of the utility's requirement. Utilities may purchase or sell RECs without KCC approval, but each REC can only be counted once. In order to prevent double counting or misuse, each REC sold or purchased by any Kansas utility must be reported into an approved registry that tracks the creation, sale, and retirement of every REC. Any unused RECs remain valid for up to 2 years from the date of generation. After 2 years, the REC is permanently retired.

Utilities may also purchase capacity from other renewable energy producers in order to comply with the RPS. If a utility enters into a purchasing contract of 10 years or more, the amount of capacity counted towards compliance will be the nameplate capacity minus the auxiliary power required to produce the capacity. If the purchase contract is less than 10 years, then the capacity from the purchased power will be calculated using the same formulas used to calculate REC capacity.

The Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) established rules and regulations to administer the portfolio standard on October 27, 2010 (K.A.R. 82-16). To assist in verifying compliance, the KCC decided to use the North American Renewables Registry (NAR). See Managing Compliance with the Renewable Energy Standards Act (RES) in NAR .

K.A.R. 82-16 established reporting and penalty rules for the utilities. The first report is due on or before August 1, 2011, for the year 2011, and an annual report is due on or before August 1 for subsequent years. Failure to comply with the renewable energy requirements results in a minimum penalty equal to twice the market value of RECs that would have been required to meet the requirement. The KCC is not required to assess penalties for compliance years 2011 and 2012 if the utility can demonstrate a good faith effort to comply with the requirement. Penalties may vary after evaluation of mitigating circumstances or evidence of good faith efforts to comply.