Initial Report on the New York Power Grid Study

New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) requires an unprecedented transformation of the State’s electricity grid to achieve 70% renewable generation by 2030, zero-emission electricity by 2040, and an 85% economy-wide reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2050. The CLCPA specifies minimum amounts of certain types of resources, including 6,000 MW of distributed solar resources by 2025, 3,000 MW of storage by 2030, and 9,000 MW of offshore wind (OSW) generation by 2035. Even greater quantities of various types of renewable generation are necessary to achieve the clean energy mandates for 2040 and 2050. Meeting …

The Biden Administration Brings State Climate Leadership to the White House

This report examines how President Joe Biden’s picks for his “climate Cabinet” will bring state-level climate leadership to the federal government.

There are many reasons to be inspired by the nominees that President-elect Joe Biden has selected to lead his all-of-government mobilization against the climate crisis. The Cabinet is a diverse and incredibly accomplished group that looks like America. It is capable of fulfilling the mandate that Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris won decisively in November: to confront the climate crisis with a clean energy recovery that will create millions of good union jobs and build a just, equitable, …

Side Effects: How Renewable Energy Policies Drive Innovation in Complementary Grid Technologies

Previous research has shown that policies targeting environmentally beneficial technologies such as renewable energy can drive innovation in the targeted technologies. However, there has been little research exploring whether such policies have the positive side effect of spurring innovation in complementary technologies. This report aims to fill this gap.

Using data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, we find evidence for such an impact. More stringent renewable policies are associated with increased innovation in complementary technologies, as measured by patents. The policies with the greatest impact include public research and development (R&D) spending and renewable energy …

The Global Energy Agenda

The Atlantic Council surveyed hundreds of leaders in the energy field, and this report summarizes their responses. The energy agenda for 2021 should be to realize the opportunities created by COVID-19 to build a more sustainable energy system. The energy transition is not inevitable, and the private sector can only do so much; governments, therefore, have a critical role to play in ensuring a sustainable future.…

Mapping Green Innovation Ecosystems: Evaluating the Success Factors for the World’s Leading Greentech-Innovation Centers

Enabling current and future generations to mitigate climate change requires the urgent creation and scaling up of technologies that minimize and reverse the impact of human activities on the environment. The ecosystems that foster innovation in green technologies, and the success factors that enable these ecosystems, must be better understood in order to replicate them around the world.

The new Global Energy Center issue brief, “Mapping Green Innovation Ecosystems: Evaluating the Success Factors for the World’s Leading Greentech-Innovation Centers,” by Peter Engelke, Margaret Jackson, and Randolph Bell assesses the value of greentech-innovation ecosystems. It identifies commonalities between the places and …

Use it When We Have it: How to Use more Clean Energy and Decarbonize the Grid with Demand Flexibility

This report examines the challenges facing demand flexibility programs and focuses on the technologies, policies, market mechanisms, and equity strategies that can enable demand flexibility for all communities, leading toward an equitable and affordable clean economy for everyone.…

Role of Hydrogen in a Low-Carbon Electric Power System: A Case Study

The European Union set a 2050 decarbonization target in the Paris Agreement to reduce carbon emissions by 90–95% relative to 1990 emission levels. The path toward achieving those deep decarbonization targets can take various shapes but will surely include a portfolio of economy-wide low-carbon energy technologies/options. The growth of the intermittent renewable power sources in the grid mix has helped reduce the carbon footprint of the electric power sector. Under the need for decarbonizing the electric power sector, we simulated a low-carbon power system. We investigated the role of hydrogen for future electric power systems under current cost projections. The …

Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator: Opportunities for Long-Term Deployment

In a new whitepaper released today on behalf of the Coalition for Green Capital, economists at The Brattle Group have identified potential roles for a new, federally sponsored financial institution to promote economic recovery via decarbonization: the Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator (the “Accelerator”).…

Emergency deployment of direct air capture as a response to the climate crisis

Though highly motivated to slow the climate crisis, governments may struggle to impose costly polices on entrenched interest groups, resulting in a greater need for negative emissions. Here, we model wartime-like crash deployment of direct air capture (DAC) as a policy response to the climate crisis, calculating funding, net CO2 removal, and climate impacts.…

UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2020

The fifth edition of the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report looks at progress in planning for, financing and implementing adaptation – with a focus on nature-based solutions. …