There is much debate about how to define and distinguish renewable energy from non-renewable, and the terms and definitions chosen can have huge impacts on policy and regulatory efforts aiming to promote clean energy resources.
TREIA's definition of renewable energy has been adopted by the Texas legislature, and is as follows:
"Renewable energy: Any energy resource that is naturally regenerated over a short time scale and derived directly from the sun (such as thermal, photochemical, and photoelectric), indirectly from the sun (such as wind, hydropower, and photosynthetic energy stored in biomass), or from other natural movements and mechanisms of the environment (such as geothermal and tidal energy). Renewable energy does not include energy resources derived from fossil fuels, waste products from fossil sources, or waste products from inorganic sources."
