Electric Company Smart Meter Deployments: Foundation for a Smart Grid

The transition of the electric power system is underway, and smart meters continue to be a key technology that enables customer services and communications and enhanced energy grid operations. Investing in the distribution grid, particularly in smart meters, is the foundation for a customer-facing, modern energy grid. While deployment of smart meters began more than a decade ago, electric companies continue to find ways to create value from the data and capabilities
smart meters enable.

In this report, we discuss some of the innovations, benefits, and capabilities enabled by smart meters; summarize the current status and projected number of smart …

USING RENEWABLES FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLE DEMAND: A REVIEW OF UTILITY PROGRAM DESIGNS & IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES

This paper explores the range of approaches and emerging program designs currently used in the United States to match EV loads and renewable energy, with an emphasis on methods that more closely link the timing and location of the EV demand with renewable energy supply.…

Which emerging market is the most attractive for clean energy investment?

A cool down in China and several other major economies depressed 2018 clean energy investment across emerging nations and kept overall deployment rates flat year-on-year. Meanwhile, coal-fired generation surged in the 104 markets BloombergNEF assessed for its annual Climatescope survey. Both suggest that despite considerable recent progress, developing countries’ power sector CO2 emissions are rising rapidly.

There were silver linings in 2018, of course. For the second year in a row, emerging nations built more clean than fossil-fueled power-generating capacity. Construction of new coal-fired power plants fell to its lowest level in a decade. Excluding China, clean energy installations grew …

U.S. Public Views on Climate and Energy

Majorities of Americans say the federal government is doing too little for key aspects of the environment, from protecting water or air quality to reducing the effects of climate change. And most believe the United States should focus on developing alternative sources of energy over expansion of fossil fuel sources, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

A majority of U.S. adults say they are taking at least some specific action in their daily lives to protect the environment, though Democrats and Republicans remain at ideological odds over the causes of climate change and the effects of policies to …

Climate Change Threatens the Stability of the Financial System

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), humans have already caused the planet to warm by 1 degree Celsius above preindustrial levels. Catastrophic floods, droughts, wildfires, and storms are becoming all-too regular occurrences, and there is overwhelming scientific evidence that paints a clear and devastating picture of the changing climate. Under current projections, the overall social, environmental, and economic impacts of climate change could rise to catastrophic levels. One estimate suggests that if temperatures rise to 4 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels over the next 80 years, global economic losses could mount to $23 trillion per year—permanent damage …

Fiscal Year 2019 Environmental Justice Progress Report

The FY 2019 Report describes how the Agency is working to meet the needs of vulnerable communities to address disproportionate environmental impacts, health disparities and economic distress, including the following examples:

Selected 50 new small EJ grants recipients in FY 2019 to receive $1.5 million in grant funding, with half of the grants going to communities located in or impacting Opportunity Zones.

Awarded $64.6 million to 149 communities with Brownfields grants, which will provide funding to assess, clean up and redevelop underutilized properties. 108 of the communities identified sites or targeted areas within Opportunity Zones. Awarded $46.19 million to support …

Clean Energy Standards: State and Federal Policy Options and Considerations

While market dynamics and current state and federal policies have led to recent growth in clean energy generation—such as the growth in renewable generation driven in part by state renewable electricity portfolio standards and federal tax incentives—projections for the power sector indicate that, absent significant new policies to promote clean generation, the pace of transition to cleaner power generation, needed to meet our climate change challenge, will be insufficient.

Given the imperative of transitioning to cleaner electricity, policymakers have redoubled their attention to a number of significant, climate-focused proposals, including the idea of a clean energy standard (CES) that prioritizes …

The Production Gap

The Production Gap Report – produced by leading research organizations and the UN – is the first assessment of the gap between the targets of the Paris Agreement and countries’ planned production of coal, oil and gas. It provides a new metric for assessing the world’s current pace of fossil fuel extraction and details the steps countries can take to align fossil fuel supply with Paris Agreement goals. This new report finds that the world is on track to produce far more coal, oil and gas than is consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C, creating a “production gap” …

California’s Evolving Zero Emission Vehicle Program: Pulling New Technology into the Market

California’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program is one of the key state-level policies for reducing greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions from the transportation sector. Since its inception nearly 30 years ago, the original goal of the program was to reduce local air pollution caused by gasoline vehicles, but it evolved to also target reduction of GHG emissions. The ZEV program represents a unique policy approach to achieving these goals—to require sales of vehicles with new technologies that have zero emissions. We review the history and performance of the ZEV program and evaluate prospects for the new, more stringent phase of the effort. …

INSIGHTS INTO FUTURE MOBILITY

Personal mobility is a central and highly valued feature of human society—indeed, mobility
is essential for the productive functioning of economies and the ability of individuals to access
the opportunities they need to thrive. Therefore, the benefits of the technologies and systems
that have evolved to enable personal mobility on a large scale are difficult to overstate. However,
even as mobility options proliferate, expanding accessibility for many, there is growing concern
regarding the long-term sustainability of our transportation systems, which have a substantial
physical footprint, require enormous public and private investment, consume significant energy resources, are a major contributor of …