Consumer Benefits of Clean Energy: Policy Brief

Clean energy offers many benefits to consumers, including reducing consumers’ electricity bills, lowering total electricity system costs, and providing health and resilience benefits. States can accelerate consumers’ access to these benefits with policies that support energy efficiency, demand flexibility, renewable energy and storage. Berkeley Lab developed a series of briefs that explore the consumer benefits of clean energy, and identify actions states can take to promote them.

– Contribute to a least-cost electricity system by using low-cost resources such as end-use efficiency, demand flexibility, behind-the-meter solar PV and storage, and utility-scale renewable energy.
– Greenhouse gas emissions reductions and improved …

Transformational Adaptation for COP29: Issues and Options

Transformational adaptation is a concept with evolving definitions and applications in climate adaptation and resilience literature. There is no single agreed approach to either, although several common features emerge across the literature on transformational adaptation. Most definitions emphasize the depth of change required, often highlighting the need to foster systemic shifts that address the root causes of vulnerability and considering the spatial scale or extent of these changes. Many definitions also stress the importance of the durability of interventions and their potential to catalyze broader systemic changes. However, there is variability in how equity and power dynamics are addressed and …

With or Without Tax Credits, a US-Indonesia Critical Minerals Agreement Could Raise Environmental Standards and Diversify Supply

Automakers must source critical minerals from the United States or free trade agreement (FTA) countries to qualify for the Inflation Reduction Act’s $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles. While the tax credit is likely to be significantly altered, or eliminated altogether, under the Trump administration, the history of the tax credit sheds light on potential supply chain vulnerabilities for the US and ways to address them through critical minerals agreements. And ultimately, it would not be in the interest of US automakers, aside from Tesla, to abolish the 30D tax credit, since abolishment would make it more dicult for automakers …

Turning Data Centers into Grid and Regional Assets: Considerations and Recommendations for the Federal Government, State Policymakers, and Utility Regulators

Over the last two years, America’s demand for electric power has surged thanks to the resurgence of U.S. manufacturing and the emergence of—and demand for—generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), which relies on power-hungry data centers. The emergence of these two substantial new electric loads is unprecedented, and policymakers must address this dual challenge rather than viewing industrial growth and data center growth as competing priorities that require choosing one over the other.

A promising solution is to transform data centers into grid and regional assets that offer flexible demand powered by carbon-free electricity. These centers can reduce energy consumption during grid …

Women’s Employment in the Pacific Power Sector

Pacific Island Countries (PICs) face economic challenges due to their remoteness, limited resources, and gender inequality. The remoteness, size, and limited resources of Pacific Island Countries (PICs) contribute to several economic challenges, including limited economies of scale, high transportation costs, and vulnerability to external shocks. While economies vary across the region, most countries rank relatively low on human development and gender equality indices. To address these challenges, PICs are increasingly focused on sustainable development and economic diversification to build resilience and improve living standards.

The energy sector plays a crucial role in addressing these challenges by providing reliable and climate …

Fighting Fire with Low-Carbon Buildings

Colorado’s forests are vital to the state’s identity. Indigenous peoples used wildfire to manage these forests for millennia, a practice still relevant today. However, climate change, fire suppression, and urban expansion have made severe wildfires more common and more destructive. Forest thinning, the selective removal of small diameter trees, improves resilience to these wildfires, protects drinking water, and conserves wildlife, but is costly. Furthermore, small-diameter trees from thinning have historically had little market value.

Mass timber, which combines wood from small trees into high performance structural elements, offers a solution by offsetting treatment costs and reducing embodied carbon in buildings …

ESMAP Business Plan FY2025-30

In its Business Plan FY25-30, ESMAP aims to support client countries on three overarching objectives:

– Ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services by 2030
– Accelerate the transition towards a sustainable, just, and decarbonized energy system
– Ensure the resilience and adaptation of the energy sector to the growing impacts of climate change and other shocks.

The Business Plan has two focus areas: Energy Access and Energy Transition. The Energy Access focus area helps World Bank clients achieve results on the ground and will employ three approaches: i) catalytic incentives to facilitate private sector investments and …

Resilient Power Funding Programs: 2023 Annual Impact Report

Clean Energy Group’s Resilient Power Funding Programs had a record setting year in 2023, with resilient power technical assistance, capacity building support, and funding provided to more organizations than ever before.

CEG’s grant programs, consisting of the Technical Assistance Fund (TAF) and Resilient Power Leadership Initiative (RPLI), were founded to support resilient power development in communities that had the greatest need for renewable and resilient power infrastructure but were the least able to access it due to decades of disinvestment, environmental racism, and neglect by industry leaders.

This report measures and tracks the growth of their programs over the past …

Emerging Public Health Needs for Climate Smart Technology in Connecticut Affordable Housing

This report describes the pressing need for climate smart technology in affordable housing in Connecticut and beyond. Investing in climate smart technology for affordable housing is crucial to ensure the safety and well-being of residents who rely on home medical devices (HMDs). By enhancing the resilience of these buildings, Connecticut can better protect medically vulnerable people and reduce the strain on emergency services during extreme weather events.

This report was prepared by the Yale Schools of Medicine and Public Health and Operation Fuel in collaboration with the Connecticut Insurance Department, the Connecticut Green Bank, and Clean Energy Group, with funding …

How to Restructure Utility Incentives

Performance-based regulation (PBR) is an alternative to traditional cost-of-service regulation (COSR) that aims to improve the alignment between the incentives utilities face and the interests of customers and society. Though PBR is not new, it has been attracting more attention in recent years due to the growing mismatch between traditional COSR and modern policy goals.

This report provides guidance to regulators and stakeholders on how to use PBR to better achieve important objectives such as affordability, resilience, decarbonization, and social equity. It draws a distinction between incremental and comprehensive forms of PBR, and it defines the latter as resting on …