Fostering Collaboration Would Help Build Needed Transmission

It is a national priority to expand transmission capacity on the nation’s bulk power system
to improve grid reliability and resilience and deliver clean, low-cost power to consumers.
Building such transmission is notoriously difficult; however, numerous instances of successful
transmission expansion prove that it is possible. Given the challenges of developing electric
transmission and the need for infrastructure expansion in the coming decades, it is especially
critical to learn from hard-earned experience in terms of what drives success. Other reports
have noted the importance of well-tailored transmission planning, permitting, and cost
allocation policies to drive investment in the high-voltage grid. …

Accelerating Residential Building Decarbonization

With growing concerns about climate change, resilience, and housing affordability, the urgency to decarbonize US residential buildings is more pressing than ever. This challenge also presents an unparalleled opportunity for innovation and market expansion in the construction industry.
This report is targeted towards product manufacturers, fabricators, contractors, installers, design professionals, owners, and real estate developers. It provides essential technical insights and cost guidance for scalable zero-carbon-aligned (ZCA) new construction methods and retrofit solutions across various US climate regions.…

Energy Transition Insights Report 2023 Edition

Reuters Events Energy Transition Insight Report 2023 Edition is a deep dive into the key investment and strategy trends and provides a unique perspective into how the world’s largest decision-makers are navigating the energy transition.…

Carbon Dioxide Removal: Driving Systems Change with Breakthroughs in Carbon Dioxide Removal by 2030

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) represents a cornerstone of every pathway to limit average global surface temperature rise to 1.5°C in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. At COP27 in Egypt, the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions launched the CDR 2030 Breakthrough, a suite of ambitious CDR goals to achieve before 2030. As part of the Race to Zero, this Breakthrough sets out what must be done, by whom and when, to deliver the comprehensive change needed to achieve a resilient, zero carbon world.
This report can be seen as a ‘companion’ to the CDR 2030 Breakthrough, providing further …

Distributed Energy Storage: The Missing Piece in North Carolina’s Decarbonization Efforts

North Carolina’s success promoting utility-scale solar offers ample proof that when it comes to adoption of new clean energy technologies, state policy drives investment. However, the state has no comparable policies supporting distributed solar or battery storage.
North Carolina currently faces a pivotal moment: in August 2023, utilities submitted draft compliance plans to meet recently established carbon reduction targets – with distributed storage completely omitted. This ignores a cost-effective opportunity to address energy burden, carbon emissions, localized pollution, and resilience.
This report aims to give policymakers and advocates the information they need to encourage the inclusion of distributed storage policy …

Meeting Clean Energy Goals Will Require the Grid of the Future

The transmission grid is the critical superhighway that connects energy supply and demand. But the grid was designed for the power plants of the past—not for the diverse range of resources and technologies of a clean energy future. Over 70 percent of the nation’s transmission infrastructure is more than 25 years old, and in many areas of the country constraints have already been an impediment to renewable power. To meet greenhouse gas reduction goals, it is needed to expand electric transmission systems by 60 percent by 2030 and possibly triple the capacity of these systems by 2050. The Inflation Reduction …

Feasibility Study for Renewable Energy Technologies in Alaska Offshore Waters

This study was conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for the Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) under an interagency agreement with the U.S. Department of
Energy. The study assesses the feasibility of ocean-based renewable energy sources that may be available to help Alaska decarbonize its energy supply, increase coastal resilience, and build energy security and independence. Throughout this report there are various timelines associated with modeling assumptions and policy scenarios that are being studied. The major elements of clean energy transition considered in this study—which include fixed and floating offshore wind energy, tidal energy, and carbon-neutral hydrogen …

Unlocking U.S. Transmission Upgrades – Are We On the Cusp of Real Progress?

In recent decades, the U.S. has not been able to construct the volume of high-voltage backbone transmission facilities needed to support the country’s move to a ‘greener’ power system. The fact remains, though, that power generation infrastructure in the U.S. is changing fast with the growth of technologies including solar and wind power generation, as well as energy storage. Facilitating that change will require a grid that is able to reliably and cost-effectively deliver power to users. The inability to build backbone transmission infrastructure thwarts customer demands for a ‘greener’ power mix.
This report offers perspectives from a range of …

A Framework for Non-Pipeline Alternatives Analysis and Review of Existing Approaches

States are increasingly interested in gas distribution system planning and the role that demand-side resources can play in maintaining an affordable, reliable, equitable, and low-carbon energy system. In particular, public utility commissions and utilities are exploring the role of non-pipeline alternatives (NPA) – an investment or activity that defers, reduces, or avoids the need to construct or replace a pipeline – in gas distribution system planning.

NPAs are an emerging cost and risk mitigation tool that can provide gas utilities with an opportunity to reduce emissions, gas system costs, and customer risk by avoiding unnecessary infrastructure spending. Rather than address …

The Continued Need for SEC Action on Climate-Related Disclosures

In 2022 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule that would require SEC registrants (both domestic and foreign) to provide climate-related disclosures in certain SEC filings. The SEC Proposal draws on the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, which have become the leading climate-related disclosure framework around the world. The proposal’s primary benefits are increased consistency, comparability, and reliability of climate-related disclosures, which enable investors to make better-informed investment decisions.
This report examines how the California and E.U. disclosure regimes may affect the baseline for that cost-benefit analysis and, consequently, the SEC’s assessment of the …