Dive Brief:

• The energy manager for automaker BMW in the U.S. and Canada wants South Carolina to enact a renewable portfolio standard (RPS). State incentives to use more renewable power "would be huge for us," said BMW's Cleveland Beaufort at an energy summit in Greenville last week.
• Beaufort said Duke Energy should be taking the lead in persuading lawmakers an RPS would be good policy. The German automaker already has solar panels at its plant in Greer and uses landfill gas to provide more than 50% of the plant's power, but would like to do more to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions.

Dive Insight: 

The South Carolina Legislature has debated having an RPS for more than five years, but a key snag has been a concern that those who would participate in an RPS would benefit at the expense of electric utility ratepayers who did not. North Carolina is the only state in the Southeast with an RPS. It requires investor-owned utilities to get 12.5% of power from renewables by 2021 and cooperative and municipal utilities to get 10% of power from renewables by 2018.