Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) require electricity providers to supply a minimum fixed percentage or total quantity of customer load from designated renewable energy resources by a given date. These policies have become increasingly prevalent in the past decade as state governments seek to increase the use of renewable energy sources. As a policy tool, RPS provide a cost-effective, market-based approach for meeting targets which promote greater use of renewable energy in both regulated and deregulated markets. To facilitate the obtainment of Renewable Portfolio Standards, most states allow the trading of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs). RECs represent the environmental attributes of renewable energy generation which are decoupled from the generated power. These credits are created along with the generation of renewable energy, decoupled from energy generation, tracked by regional systems, and eventually purchased by retail suppliers to fulfill their RPS obligations. As of April 2010, RPS have been passed into law in 29 states and Washington D.C. and an additional 6 states have non-mandatory renewable portfolio goals however the U.S. government has yet to enact a Federal Renewable Portfolio Standard. Although the final requirements and details of a Federal RPS are undecided, federal standards would be unlikely to preempt or override state programs which are already in place. A key concern regarding the passage of a federal RPS is that a national REC market would result in a shift of wealth from states with few renewable energy resources and limited resource potential to regions richer in renewable resources. Because of the implications that a federal renewable portfolio standard would have on the economy, the environment, and the equitable treatment of all the states, many issues and concerns must be resolved before federal standards will be passed into law. A theoretical case study for an electric utility generation planning decision that includes obligations to meet Renewable Portfolio Standard is presented here. A framework is provided that allows decision makers and strategic planning teams to: assess their business situation, identify objectives of generation planning, determine the relative weights of the objectives, recognize tradeoffs, and create an efficient portfolio using Portfolio Theory. The case study follows the business situation for Austin Energy as it seeks to meet Texas State RPS and mandates set by Austin City Council and prepares for potential National RPS legislation. / text

La demande énergétique mondiale continue d’augmenter. Les prix des énergies fossiles sont instables et incertains. La libéralisation du marché électrique et une conscience environnementale des acteurs mondiaux sont des leviers au développement des énergies renouvelables. Ces dernières se développent à un rythme rapide dans le monde. Elles ont atteint une maturité technique qui leur permet de devenir un segment important de l’industrie de l’énergie. Leur insertion dans le mix énergétique pose de nouveaux défis par rapport aux sources d'énergie traditionnelles. Avec un potentiel abondant encore sous-exploité, le photovoltaïque et l'énergie éolienne sont avantageux sur le plan économique et environnemental. Cependant, leur caractère intermittent diminue leur efficacité énergétique lorsqu’elles sont exploitées individuellement. L'utilisation de systèmes hybrides (multi-sources) combinant ces sources d'énergie renouvelables, le réseau de distribution national (réseau électrique historique) et les systèmes de stockage classiques, est généralement considérée par tous comme solution d’avenir, à la fois efficiente et fiable. Il est alors nécessaire de repenser la structure des réseaux électriques et des marchés de l’énergie, ainsi que des changements dans les méthodes de gestion de réseau. Dans ce contexte, l’apport envisagé avec ce travail de thèse est de contribuer à la modélisation et l’optimisation de systèmes multi-sources multi-charges pour alimenter aussi bien des sites isolés « énergie de proximité » (campus, village) que des sites étendus tels que des régions françaises à travers leur interconnexion « pooling ». Différents scenarii de gestion et différentes configurations des systèmes sont modélisés, testés et comparés pour analyser l’efficacité et la robustesse de chaque cas de figure. Une analyse technico-économique complète est réalisée, dans le but d’étudier la faisabilité de chaque système. Pour démontrer la validation de ces modèles, des études ont été réalisées sur un campus Universitaire Français, un micro-réseau au Mali et trois régions Françaises. Ces dernières ont fait l’objet d’application à un modèle original d’interconnexion basé sur les réseaux de Pétri pour l’aide à la décision en termes de configurations du réseau et le contrôle des flux d’énergie échangés entre des territoires producteurs-consommateurs interconnectés sans système de stockage / Global energy demand continues to rise. The fossil fuel prices are unstable and uncertain. The liberalization of the electricity market and environmental awareness of the global leaders are levers for the development of renewable energy. These are growing at a rapid pace in the world. They reached technical maturity that enables them to become an important segment of the energy industry. Their integration in the energy mix poses new challenges compared to traditional energy sources. With an underexploited potential, photovoltaic and wind energy are advantageous economically and environmentally. However, their intermittent decreases their energy efficiency when operated. The use of hybrid systems (multi-sources) combining these renewable energy sources, the national distribution network (historical grid) and conventional storage systems, is generally regarded by all as a future solution, both efficient and reliable. Thereby, it is necessary to rethink the structure of electrical networks and energy markets, and changes in network management methods. In this context, the foreseen intake with this thesis is to contribute to the modeling and optimization of multi- load multi- source systems to power both remote sites “closeness energy” (campus, village) and large sites such as French regions through their interconnection "pooling ". Different scenarios of management and different configurations of the systems are modeled, tested and compared to analyze the effectiveness and robustness of each case. A complete technical and economic analysis is performed in order to study the feasibility of each system. To demonstrate the validation of these models, studies were performed on a French university campus, a Micro-grid in Mali and three French regions. These latter have been applied to an original interconnection model based on Petri nets for decision support in terms of network configuration and control of energy flows exchanged between interconnected producers/consumers territories without storage