Renewable Energy Law is a part of energy law, and relates primarily to the transactional legal and policy issues that surround the development, implementation and commercialization of renewable sources energy, namely solar, wind, geothermal and tidal. Renewable energy law also relates to the landuse, siting, and finance issues encountered by developers of renewable energy projects.
Renewable energy lawyers and renewable energy law firms focus their practice on serving the legal needs of renewable energy project developers and companies that develop clean technologies. See clean tech law.
Renewable energy law also encompasses policies that relate to renewable energy and legislative instruments that further encourage its growth. One such form of legislation is feed-in tariffs, which provide economic incentives to the developers of renewable energy projects by setting a fixed price for the sale of energy produced from renewable sources. Feed-in tariff laws also provide financial certainty, are more cost effective and less bureaucratic than other support schemes such as investment or production tax credits, quota based renewable portfolio standards (RPS), and auction mechanisms.[1] In addition, the feed-in tariff generates more competition, more jobs and more rapid deployment for manufacturing, and does not pick technological winners, such as more mature wind power technology versus solar photovoltaics technology.[1]