Paying for Electricity in California: How Residential Rate Design Impacts Equity and Electrification

California has ambitious goals to fight climate change while also ensuring that energy is affordable for all of its residents. Unfortunately, the current structure of residential electricity prices in the state makes achieving these goals much harder. Electric utility rates feature high volumetric (i.e., per kilowatt-hour) prices that are designed to recover many costs beyond the direct incremental cost of providing electricity. These high volumetric prices make electrification less attractive to consumers while simultaneously distributing the burden of paying for electricity in a way that is quite regressive.…

Future-Proofing Our Power Grids

Are power grids ready to support the demands of the energy transition? How will the future power grid be different from today? What are the big challenges involved in transforming the power grid to suit a new energy mix?

In this report we explore these and other crucial questions, drawing on in-depth interviews with several industry leaders, plus a survey of over 400 energy industry professionals from around the world.

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PREPARE Action Plan

Announced last year at COP26 and co-led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department, the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE) is a coordinated, whole-of-government approach that brings together the diplomatic, development, and technical expertise of the United States to support more than half a billion people in developing countries to adapt to and manage the impacts of climate change by 2030. Under PREPARE, USAID with 18 other U.S. Government departments and agencies announces more than 60 actions to accelerate international adaptation efforts. USAID’s work under the Agency’s Climate Strategy (2022-2030) also supports …

Mapping County‑Level Vulnerability to the Energy Transition in US Fossil Fuel Communities

The energy transition toward lower-carbon energy sources will inevitably result in socioeconomic impacts on certain communities, particularly those that have historically produced fossil fuel resources and electricity generation using fossil fuels. Such communities stand to lose jobs, tax revenues, and support for public services. Which communities are most likely to be affected, which are more susceptible to being harmed, and how to target adaptive capacity programs—such as economic development and workforce training—accordingly are pressing scholarly and policy questions. In this study, we apply a vulnerability framework to calculate, rank, and map exposure and sensitivity scores for fossil fuel producing regions …

Energy Emergency Response and Preparedness Planning with Rural Electric Cooperatives

On February 23-24, 2022, the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), with support from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (DOE CESER), hosted Fractured Freeze, an energy emergency exercise with concurrent significant regional emergencies. The exercise objectives were 1) to examine the electric cooperative mutual assistance network and interoperability with State Energy Office plans in a multi-hazard, multi-region scenario; and 2) to build and strengthen relationships between electric cooperatives and state energy officials.

Interactions between State Energy Offices and rural electric cooperative statewide storm …

Heat Pump Adoption and Beneficial Electrification Playbook

When it comes to decarbonization and beneficial electrification, the looming electric vehicle wave receives most of the attention. But reducing building emissions is an equally critical part of the solution. In fact, energy use by buildings – both residential and commercial – contributes approximately 27 percent of global CO2 emissions – much of which stems from heating and cooling. Beyond carbon reduction, home and building electrification is now being pursued with added urgency as a matter of global security and economic stability amid both gas price and political volatility.

We’ve developed this Heat Pump Adoption and Beneficial Electrification Playbook to …

Industrial Heat Pumps: it’s time to go electric

Electrification is one of the most promising and scalable solutions to decarbonize heat, especially for light industry. When coupled with the procurement of clean energy, it offers a genuine opportunity to transition to a low or zero-carbon heating system. Heat pumps are a particularly promising means to turn heat electric as they are the only technology capable of achieving thermal efficiencies well over 100%.

Industrial heat represents approximately 29% of total world energy demand and its decarbonization is therefore an essential feature of any credible pathway to net zero emissions. At a time of geopolitical instability and volatile gas markets, …

Global Hydrogen Review 2022

The report is an output of the Clean Energy Ministerial Hydrogen Initiative and is intended to inform energy sector stakeholders on the status and future prospects of hydrogen while also informing discussions at the Hydrogen Energy Ministerial Meeting organised by Japan. Focusing on hydrogen’s potentially major role in meeting international energy and climate goals, this year’s Review aims to help decision-makers fine-tune strategies to attract investment and facilitate deployment of hydrogen technologies while also creating demand for hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels. It compares real-world developments with the stated ambitions of government and industry.…

Large-Scale Solar Siting: Encouraging Ecosystem Enhancement and Conservation While Producing Much Needed Zero-Carbon Electricity

As electricity production moves away from central station, fossil fuel-fired power plants, and toward more spread-out clean energy projects that occupy more land, questions around where to put projects have come to the forefront. Siting large-scale projects also raises questions about changing land use patterns, the environmental impact of large-scale solar projects, as well as their impacts on the host community.

This new Solar and Storage Industries Institute policy brief proposes a siting framework for large-scale solar projects which will produce much needed zero-carbon electricity and can serve important ecosystem enhancement and conservation roles. This paper argues that large-scale solar …

Utility-Scale Solar, 2022 Edition Report

Berkeley Lab’s “Utility-Scale Solar, 2022 Edition” presents analysis of empirical plant-level data from the U.S. fleet of ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV), PV+battery, and concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) plants with capacities exceeding 5 MWAC. While focused on key developments in 2021, this report explores trends in deployment, technology, capital and operating costs, capacity factors, the levelized cost of solar energy (LCOE), power purchase agreement (PPA) prices, and wholesale market value.…