A key component of climate change policy is the promotion of alternative energy sources. Among renewable energy technologies wind energy represents an important source of alternative energy with a minimal carbon footprint. While utility-scale wind farms have garnered much attention, a more widely dispersed energy resource is “small wind” – installations capable of generating small quantities of electricity in distributed (close to the end-user) rather than centralized form. With less visibility and smaller potential gain for large utilities, small wind technologies provide an interesting study in state environmental policy adoption. This research looks at the status of state small wind policies across the United States, and it tests the applicability of two policy adoption models to explain variability in state small wind policies: (1) internal determinants and (2) regional policy diffusion. Primary data were collected using an online survey instrument distributed to state energy officials across the country, and the results were analyzed using both statistical and qualitative techniques. Additionally, case studies were performed for three states – Oregon, Ohio, and Oklahoma – to provide greater contextual understanding to the survey instrument results and to illustrate the unique circumstances determining small wind policy adoption at the state level.
The findings from the survey analysis suggested that the internal determinants model was better suited to explain state adoption of small wind policies than the regional policy diffusion model, although variables from both models were deemed important. In particular, six primary factors were found to be connected to the development of state small wind policies: a state’s historical commitment to environmental protection and policy innovations; citizen ideology; economic wealth and development; retail price of electricity; degree of legislative professionalism; and interstate competition related to leadership on environmental and energy issues. The case study analyses examined these variables in greater depth, exploring the level of impact of each variable in different circumstances as well as the manner in which these variables interact with each other to influence state small wind policy adoption. Furthermore, the case studies revealed that other variables might be important under specific conditions, highlighting the strength of fossil fuel energy industries in Oklahoma and the value of small wind’s perceived economic development potential in Ohio. The case studies also assessed the practical effect that different policies have on the small wind market, revealing that financial incentives combined with effective public outreach programs were perceived to have the greatest positive impact on small wind adoption in these three states