Avoiding Gas Distribution Pipeline Replacement Through Targeted Electrification in California

The costs of maintaining California’s natural gas distribution system are steadily growing,
despite the state’s climate plans showing a clear need to dramatically reduce gas combustion to meet state climate targets. To support safety and reliability, gas utilities replace hundreds of miles of gas pipeline every year. Based on near-term plans and recent trends, California’s gas utilities are on track to replace 8,900 miles of gas distribution mains by 2045 at a projected total cost of $43 billion. A geographically-targeted building electrification program could fully electrify blocks or neighborhoods to avoid some gas pipeline replacement projects. At scale across California, …

Laws in Order: An Inventory of State Renewable Energy Siting Policies

This report identifies which government entity or entities in each state or territory have the jurisdictional authority to make siting and permitting decisions about large scale wind and solar projects. The report also covers established timelines for siting and permitting processes, requirements for public involvement in those processes, and the availability of permitting guides and model ordinances designed to assist local jurisdictions. It details state renewable energy siting policies and permitting authorities across the United States, profiling all 50 states plus Puerto Rico. The report release also includes an interactive map that allows users to easily explore each state’s authorities …

Benchmark World of Lithium Map

Lithium production will exceed 1 million tonnes LCE for the first time in 2024 and will more than double to 2.7 million by 2030. Today the majority of extraction occurs in South America and Australia, though China dominates the processing scene. Here, Benchmark draws on its proprietary lithium data to map out how the global lithium landscape is being transformed by battery demand.…

Metals Markets: Macroeconomic Challenges vs. Energy Transition Needs

Metals and minerals play a pivotal role in driving the energy transition efforts globally. From copper and lithium to nickel and cobalt, these essential resources are powering the development of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries, plus alloys such as steel form the backbone of infrastructure. The energy revolution is expanding the metals and mining ecosystem, bringing together stakeholders across diverse sectors, with renewable energy developers, builders, battery and auto manufacturers, and supply chain carriers all part of this dynamic landscape, that is influenced by global policymakers.

However, while long-term demand for metals continues to rise, there are supply lag …

Scaling Utility-Enabled Distributed Energy Resources in Nigeria

Utility-enabled distributed energy resources (DERs) provide a unique opportunity to address the
persistent challenges of power availability and reliability in Nigeria. Leveraging the momentum
generated by initial “first-wave” projects, this strategic roadmap shows that a more than 20 GW
market opportunity is possible with the rapid expansion of utility-enabled DERs across
Nigeria over the next 10 years. This roadmap recommends solutions to address challenges
encountered by distribution companies (DisCos) and developers in reaching this scale. It
suggests a massive investment opportunity for distributed solar photovoltaics (PV), batteries,
and gas backup technologies that offer clear and tangible benefits for DisCos, project…

Upcharge: Hidden Costs of Electric Utility Monopoly Power

The pairing of private, monopoly profits with the essential public service of electricity delivery has become too costly: to the climate, to consumers, to independent businesses, and to democracy. The problem is utilities abusing their platform monopoly power and the solution is independent, publicly accountable operation of the distribution of electricity.…

Sustainable Cooling in Off-Grid Rural Areas

ESMAP’s Sustainable Cooling Program and SEforALL prepared this report to stimulate discussion and action among stakeholders on the urgent need for significantly more attention to the nexus of access to sustainable cooling with access to electricity in rural off-grid areas. Based on a literature review and electrification experiences on the ground, the report seeks to clarify key concepts related to cooling needs and opportunities in rural off-grid areas and the synergies between access to cooling and to electricity, identify important issues and barriers along with policy tools to address them, and, finally, based on this initial assessment, formulate preliminary recommendations …

Biochar as a Carbon Dioxide Removal Strategy in Integrated Long-Run Climate Scenarios

Limiting global warming to under 2°C would require stringent mitigation and likely additional carbon dioxide removals (CDR) to compensate for hard-to-avoid emissions. The relatively low cost and potential co-benefits of biochar as a soil amendment has gained attention in this context. The authors use a global multisector model to analyze biochar deployment in the context of energy system uses of biomass with CDR under different carbon price trajectories. The authors find that biochar can create an annual sink of up to 2.8 GtCO2, reducing global mean temperature increases by an additional 0.5-1.8% across scenarios by 2100 for a given carbon …

Using New Marginal Emissions Data to Improve State Renewable Portfolio Standards

The majority of US states use a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to achieve clean energy targets. RPS programs typically set annual clean energy production levels, but they ignore the significant variations in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity of the grid at different times of the day and at different locations. Newly available locational marginal emissions (LME) data, which are collected at thousands of physical locations and updated every five minutes, provide insights into where and when the electricity sector produces the most and least GHG emissions. Incorporating LMEs into RPSs would allow states to identify and reward “high impact” clean …

Climate and Air Quality Benefits of Wind and Solar Generation in the United States from 2019 to 2022

Millstein et al. present new estimates of the climate and air quality benefits for wind and solar generation that occurred in the United States from 2019 to 2022. The new approach leverages public data, allows for uncertainty quantification and annual updates, and can possibly be ported to other regions.…