Washington State’s Climate Commitment Act: A model for ambitious climate policy

On May 17, 2021, Governor Inslee signed the Climate Commitment Act, a bold cap-and-invest bill, into law. This legislation solidifies Washington state as a national climate leader with the most ambitious limit on emissions of any state in the nation. Washington is the second state, behind California, to place a binding, declining emissions limit across all major sectors of its economy and translate its climate goals into a policy framework designed to fully deliver.

The Climate Commitment Act sets a new gold standard for climate policy because it slashes greenhouse gas emissions at the pace and scale necessary to meet …

Electrification Futures Study: Operational Analysis of U.S. Power Systems with Increased Electrification and Demand-Side Flexibility

Increased electrification of the demand sectors—residential and commercial buildings, industry, and transportation—can lead to broad and significant impacts across the energy system. Widespread electrification could transform the end-use equipment stock; alter the mix and quantity of fuel and energy consumed; require substantial growth and change in power system infrastructure; and impact the operation and flexibility needs of the power system. The Electrification Futures Study (EFS) is designed to examine these potential changes and their impacts. This report—the sixth in the EFS series—uses detailed grid simulations to provide a high-resolution U.S. national-scale assessment of power system operations in future scenarios with …

Climate Mayors Green and Equitable Recovery

The United States faces a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address the challenges of rebuilding economies, promoting racial justice, and reducing emissions while building for a more resilient, sustainable future. But it will take careful policy and planning to make this a reality. This Climate Mayors report, co-authored by RMI, lays out proven solutions for a green and just economic recovery in cities across the United States, while highlighting examples of local success.

Climate Mayors Green and Equitable Recovery presents key policy priorities in the mobility, buildings, and electricity sectors, as well as exploring nature-based solutions. This includes success stories from cities …

Colorado Energy Policy Simulator Insights: Current Emissions Trajectory, 1.5°C Scenario

Research using the Colorado Energy Policy Simulator developed by Energy Innovation and RMI evaluates the state’s current climate policies, finding the state will fall short of its greenhouse gas reduction goals with emissions likely to decrease just 18 percent by 2050 unless additional policies accelerate Colorado’s clean energy transition. Implementing additional policies across the transportation, buildings, industrial, land, and agricultural sectors would put Colorado on the IPCC’s recommended pathway to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. By 2050, the policies in this package would reduce emissions more than 95 percent, create more than 36,000 job-years, and add $7.5 billion to …

Building Electrification: Steps to start now amid an uncertain future

Fossil fuel combustion attributed to residential and commercial buildings accounts for 15% to 25% of economy-level greenhouse gas emissions—which means that building electrification will play a strong role in creating a clean energy future. But there is no one-size-fits-all way to electrify buildings. Geography, climate, existing building stock, technology innovation, and governmental preferences have created a complex decision matrix for utilities to navigate.

How can you manage the considerable uncertainty about building electrification cost and feasibility? What can you do now to decarbonize through building electrification with such an unsure future?

In this paper, industry experts Val Jensen and Duncan …

Under Pressure: Gas Utility Regulation for a Time of Transition

The way we use fossil gas as a fuel for heating buildings and other end uses is rapidly changing. Efficiency gains and improved electric end-use technologies are constraining demand for gas. At the same time, the urgency to address climate change is increasing, with the new U.S. national target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than half by 2030 adding to existing state-level decarbonization policies. Increased awareness of the health and safety risks of fossil gas is also accelerating the transition to other sources of energy. These shifts are happening as gas utility distribution systems in many places are …

A Decade of the U.S. Energy Mix Transitioning Away from Coal: Historical Reconstruction of the Reductions in the Public Health Burden of Energy

In the last decade, the transition away from coal and to fossil gas and biomass in the U.S. has had a major influence on greenhouse gas emissions, especially from electricity generation. However, the effect of this transition on the public health burden of air pollution is not well understood. We use three reduced complexity models (RCMs) and emissions inventory data to reconstruct the changes in health impacts due to PM_2.5 exposure from stationary fuel combustion sources in the U.S., from 2008 to 2017. In 2008, the health impacts of air pollution from stationary sources was largely driven by coal …

Power Infrastructure Needs for Economywide Decarbonization

The power sector must play a central role in the decarbonization of the U.S. economy. Other sectors such as buildings, industry, and transportation will be electrifying to reduce their emissions, which means the power sector over the next few decades not only has to be 100 percent non-emitting, but also much larger. It will need to accommodate massive deployments of variable renewable energy resources such as solar and wind, as well as burgeoning numbers of electric vehicles, distributed energy resources, and energy storage technologies. This will require a significant buildout of power system infrastructure, including additional generation, distribution, and transmission …

Low-Carbon Strategies for Utility End-Use Sectors

Energy utilities are challenged to reduce their GHG footprint to do their part in mitigating the impacts of climate change. This paper looks at two key end-use sectors utilities serve: buildings and transportation. Both are carbon-intensive—making them ripe for low-carbon solutions, including electrification.

But these two sectors are very different. While buildings consume most of the nation’s current energy supply, the transportation sector is poised to shift energy use from the oil industry to the electricity industry through the rise of electric vehicles (EV) and related infrastructure. This paper takes a closer look at the strategies that can make the …

Los Angeles 100% Renewable Energy Study (LA100)

To combat climate change while capturing health and economic benefits, the City of Los Angeles has set ambitious goals to transform its electricity supply, aiming for a 100% renewable energy power system by 2045, along with a push to electrify the buildings and transportation sectors. To reach these goals, and assess the implications for jobs, electricity rates, the environment, and environmental justice, the Los Angeles City Council passed a series of motions in 2016 and 2017 directing the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) to determine the technical feasibility and investment pathways of a 100% renewable energy …