Solar and wind renewable energy are now the fastest growing sources of new energy in the world. In the US, from 1984 to 2021, solar and wind increased by 24,691% to about 12% of current electricity generation.  Projections indicate that in 2026 almost 95% of new global power capacity will be renewable energy.    

This article tells the story of the birth and growth of a new legal idea that has charted the path to this sustainable energy revolution: sustainable energy law.  Sustainable energy law grew from a little noticed provision in the Public Utility Regulatory Reform Act (PURPA); PURPA was just one part of the enormous National Energy Act of 1978.  Section 210 of PURPA opened the electricity transmission grid to small renewable energy generators and exempted them from regulation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  PURPA’s primary innovation was its mandate that the electric utility monopolies purchase, at a statutorily defined price, the small amount of renewable electricity the few, small wind and solar generators produced.  Under PURPA small renewable electricity projects could generate electricity virtually anywhere and sell it to customers nearly everywhere. 

PURPA’s sustainable energy law model triggered the transformation of the 150+ year electricity law that had regulated electricity generation, transmission, and distribution as vertically integrated monopolies. PURPA originally only applied to the limited universe of small renewable energy projects.  PURPA eventually created a full-fledged renewable electric power market.  Sustainable energy law created markets that drastically improved renewable energy technology and have driven down the price of renewable energy to the point that it is now the least expensive electricity on the market. 

PURPA did much more than encourage small renewable energy projects. It created a viable sustainable energy business model by transforming traditional electricity law into sustainable energy law. By opening grid access to renewable energy it became apparent that the nation no longer needed fully integrated utilities with monopoly power to supply the nation’s electricity. PURPA’s sustainable energy law model inexorably led to the deregulation of electric utilities and the creation of an new, open electricity market in which generators sell their electricity to the grid’s now common carrier transmission lines and then to local electric distribution companies that delivered the electricity to end users.  As a result of PURPA, renewable energy is no longer limited to a tiny niche of small wind and solar generators.  As a result of this sustainable energy law revolution, wind and solar now account  more new electric supply than all other sources combined. 

Sustainable energy law grew stronger with the widespread adoption of laws and policies that promoted expanded use of renewable energy and the introduction of policies to promote the efficient use of energy.  Strong, widespread sustainable energy law is essential to address climate change and the need to bring electricity to the billions of people without it.  This will require continued legal and policy innovation and implementation, attentive nurturing and steady support from policy-makers and lawyers in the governmental, private, and non-governmental sectors.