Designing Electricity Rates for An Equitable Energy Transition

This report takes stock of the current situation facing residential customers of California’s large electricity IOUs and describes pricing reforms that could improve economic efficiency, facilitate decarbonization, and improve overall equity. The analysis includes several findings that are pertinent to ongoing conversations about affordability, decarbonization, rooftop solar, and wildfire mitigation.…

Competitive Electricity Markets Spotlight: PJM Interconnection

The PJM Interconnection electric grid system (PJM) is America’s largest electric grid operator and runs the nation’s biggest competitive wholesale power market— serving more than 65 million Americans in 13 states and the District of Columbia.

More than 20 years ago, competitive wholesale electricity markets were established in many parts of the U.S. to help reduce power generation costs, increase competition and choice, open the door to innovation, and enhance efficiency and operations. This new competitive era replaced an inflexible, vertically integrated monopoly utility model that was cost prohibitive and failed to incentivize new technology. As competitive power suppliers, EPSA …

Flipping the Switch: How the Transition to Efficient All-Electric Buildings Will Help the United States Meet Its Climate Goals

Buildings—from single-family homes to office high-rises—are fossil fuel guzzlers that emit massive amounts of carbon and air pollutants. Scientists agree that if we do not act quickly to phase down greenhouse gas pollution, we are unlikely to meet our climate goals and avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis. Replacing fossil fuel equipment with highly efficient electric appliances and running them in energy efficient homes with clean, renewable electricity are key and necessary parts of the strategy to fight the climate crisis.

In addition to burning heating oil and propane, buildings are currently responsible for about one-third of all …

Paris Climate Agreement: Instead of Regulations and Mandates, Embrace Markets

President Biden announced his intent to re-enter the Paris climate agreement. With no enforcement mechanisms in place and no repercussions for failing to meet emissions-reduction targets, the agreement is ill-suited to meet climate objectives. However, the regulations imposed on the American economy as the U.S. submits a new Nationally Determined Contribution will adversely affect consumers and businesses. Instead of a top-down, regulatory approach, Congress and the Biden Administration should remove barriers to clean energy innovation and adoption.…

Greenhouse Gases from Power Plants: 2005-2020

New EPA data shows that greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants plummeted 38 percent from 2005 to 2020, even more rapidly than the goals in the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and achieved more than a decade early.

Driving the decline was a shift away from the burning of coal, driven by technological advances and cheaper prices for natural gas, wind, and solar power, as well as by environmental rules that forced coal power plants to pay for more pollution controls.…

A 1.5 Celsius Pathway To Climate Leadership For The United States

To avoiding catastrophic climate change, we must limit warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, which requires cutting greenhouse gas missions roughly in half in the next decade with emissions dropping to near zero by 2050. Achieving these reductions can only happen by rapidly transitioning from a fossil fuel-based economy to one running on clean energy.

New research using the U.S. Energy Policy Simulator shows a comparatively small group of policies can achieve the emissions reductions required for a 1.5 C pathway, while generating large economic and health benefits. Transforming the economy in line with a 1.5 C target …

Moving from a Linear to a Circular Economy

WWF’s white paper Moving From a Linear to a Circular Economy outlines the key policy priorities we have as we work to end plastic leakage into nature, ensure communities are treated equitably in materials production and waste management, and transition from an economy that creates waste to one that cares for our planet.…

The Commercial Case for Direct Air Capture

This white paper outlines the commercial case for direct air capture (DAC) of carbon dioxide, which will play a critical role in reducing climate change risks this century and mitigating emissions from difficult to decarbonize sectors while also creating new market opportunities. It was developed by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s DAC Advisory Council, which includes leaders from academia, the private sector, labor, and the NGO community. This is the second of a three-part series by the Council that outlines the environmental imperative, the commercial case, and the federal policy case for deploying DAC technologies at scale.…

Assessing Physical Risks from Climate Change: Do Companies and Financial Organizations Have Sufficient Guidance?

The purpose of this paper is to provide companies and financial organizations with a common understanding of climate-related physical risks according to climate science, to identify gaps in the publicly available guidance to assess those risks, and to propose potential resources that would facilitate better risk assessment and, in turn, risk management.

To do so, we analyze climate-related physical risk assessment guidance from leading corporate disclosure initiatives to examine whether existing publicly available guidance aligns with climate science and provides consistent terminology and robust methodologies for risk assessment.

The analysis reveals that the guidance do not share a robust understanding …

The Critical Role of CCUS: Pathways to Deployment at Scale

On December 3, 2020, the Energy Futures Initiative (EFI) convened more than 80 representatives from government, industry, labor, academic, and non-profit organizations to discuss the current state of carbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS) globally, as well as the opportunities, challenges, and solutions necessary to see large-scale CCUS deployment in the coming decade.

This virtual workshop, held under Chatham House rule, featured opening remarks by international experts in energy, decarbonization, and labor. Following the keynote discussion, a range of experts provided insights into a variety of technologies, policies, and business model approaches to enable CCUS in the four main sessions. …