ABSTRACT
Renewable energy and energy efŽcient technologies are typically characterized by higher upfront costs resulting in signiŽcantly reduced fuel and/or operating costs (although not all technologies Žt this characterization, e.g., biomass energy can involve substantial ongoing costs for fuel and operations). Many early policy incentives at both the Federal and state levels were intended to reduce the acquisition cost of these technologies, frequently through the use of tax credits proportional to capital investment costs. In some cases, such as some of the early deployment of wind generating technology in California during 1980s, it was believed that investment incentives provided insufŽcient incentive for highquality technology or projects that would continue to operate once the initial incentive had been fully realized by the project owner. Such failures, however, may also be attributed to insufŽcient technology qualiŽcation measures, such as technology criteria or screening.1
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