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Dr. Parinandi is an associate professor of political science at the University of Colorado Boulder and a fellow of the Renewable & Sustainable Energy Institute. Young Initiative student workers also had the opportunity to interview Dr. Parinandi on this topic before his lecture.

Before explaining why states adopt novel policies, Dr. Parinandi began his lecture by discussing the significance of policy diffusion to other states and to the federal government level, if deemed “best practices.” In his book and paper, Dr. Parinandi is motivated by the question, “What might motivate a state to be 'courageous' and adopt a policy that has not yet been adopted in other states?”

To answer why states adopt novel policies in the context of renewable energy, Dr. Parinandi has examined Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS). These are state-adopted policies that require electricity providers to sell a certain amount of energy from renewable sources to consumers, although definitions of renewable sources vary depending on the state’s statute. 

According to Dr. Parinandi, there are three pathways to policy adoption, but only the first two are analyzed: state legislature, regulatory commission, and ballot initiatives. In the state legislature, Dr. Parinandi found that government ideology affects what legislators propose; “greater liberalism increases invention.”

The regulatory pathway, on the other hand, yielded particularly interesting results. Regulators like Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) serve as mediators between electricity providers and consumers, so they normally do not propose policies to electricity providers to maintain neutrality. However, many states where PUCs adopted or invented RPS provisions experienced a small period of deregulation, or “window” (between the 1990s and early 2000s). Deregulation meant that energy production was broken up so firms could compete, and the firms that lost their production monopoly—but still maintained distribution rates—became concerned about what they would lose in the future. So in that window, “the PUCs could actually push policy propositions onto the electricity providers in a way that they could not before or a few years after.”

Nevertheless, Dr. Parinandi argues that two states currently serve as models of successful renewable energy integration: a blue state, California, and a red state, Texas. California has pioneered the use of energy mandates, where Californians must produce and consume energy within certain ambitious renewable energy quotas. As Dr. Parinandi argues in the Young Initiative Podcast, mandates can be controversial due to their regulatory nature, but they have generally been effective in integrating renewable energy into California’s economy. On the other hand, Texas has been a leader in renewable energy production, such as wind energy. Texans are incentivized to consume renewable energy with cheaper prices resulting from the mass production of such energy. In contrast to California’s regulatory approach, Texas follows a market-driven one.

Ultimately, Dr. Parinandi’s research indicates that there is no single formula for innovation in state policy, considering the complex and ever-changing realm of renewable energy. Instead, states adopt novel policies through a mix of ideological conviction, institutional opportunity, and economic pragmatism. Whether through California’s top-down mandates or Texas’s bottom-up market incentives, both models demonstrate that political context shapes the path to renewable integration just as much as technological or environmental need.