A Clean Energy Pathway for Southwestern Pennsylvania

This report describes the development and analysis of a clean energy pathway for a 10-county region in southwestern Pennsylvania. Due to its abundance of fossil fuel resources, the region has a long history of substantial energy production, often at the expense of local environmental quality and economic diversity. A transition to clean energy provides a compelling opportunity to transform the local energy profile, while ending the region’s over-reliance on fossil fuels, to reduce emissions and pursue a path of sustainable growth.

To date, the prevailing narrative for decarbonizing this region has centered around the perpetuation of the natural gas industry …

Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy (RISE) 2022: Building Resilience

RISE—Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy—is a set of indicators intended for use in comparing the policy and regulatory frameworks that countries have put in place to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) on universal access to clean and modern energy. This fourth edition of the index captures policy and regulatory support that enhances sustainable energy in the form of 30 indicators and 85 subindicators distributed among four pillars: electricity access, clean cooking, renewable energy, and energy efficiency. The RISE indicators, scored on a 0–100 scale, can be used to compare 140 economies that now account for 98 …

The Role of Information in Distributed Energy Resource Deployment and Policy

Distributed energy resources (DERs) play an important and growing role in the electricity grid and the clean energy transition. Technological improvements, consumer preferences, and state and federal policies all make it likely that DERs’ role will continue to grow. However, efficient deployment and operation of these resources still require smart policies. While appropriate compensation for DERs has received considerable attention in DER policy discussions, one important dimension has received less attention: informational gaps and asymmetries. In particular, key information about distribution networks, energy consumption, and marginal emission rates is often either entirely lacking or readily available only to some parties.…

Department of Energy Funding for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Programs

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hydrogen Program, led by the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) addresses the development of applications that use hydrogen in place of today’s fuels and technologies that provide modern energy services. DOE programs also consider hydrogen as an established chemical feedstock, for example, in petroleum refining. The DOE programs include over 400 projects of research and development (R&D), systems integration, demonstrations, and initial deployment activities performed by universities, national laboratories, and industry. These programs cover the hydrogen energy value chain starting with producing …

Projecting the Fuel Efficiency of Conventional Vehicles: The Role of Regulations, Gasoline Taxes and Autonomous Technical Change

The fuel efficiency of conventional private vehicles is a key input in the design of several economic and environmental policies. Reliable projections of the fuel efficiency variable can improve estimates on the future emission savings from policies promoting vehicle replacement, and on future revenues from fuel taxes. This paper examines the evolution of fuel efficiency using data on cars entering the US market from 1984 to 2020. It uses a series of new indexes for the gasoline cost in OECD countries and the stringency of fuel economy regulations. The paper shows that the effect of fuel prices and taxes is …

World Energy Employment Report

The inaugural edition of the World Energy Employment Report is – to the best of our knowledge – the first comprehensive inventory of the global energy workforce.

The report presents new estimates of the size and distribution of the labour force, across regions and technologies, and increases the granularity on the number of workers along the entire energy value chain. This includes fossil fuel and bioenergy production; power sector generation, transmission, distribution and storage; and end uses, including vehicles and energy efficiency for buildings and industry. It also details segments of the value chain where these jobs are located, including …

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS)

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is a hybrid carbon removal solution that integrates both nature- and tech-based processes. BECCS involves capturing carbon dioxide in plants, converting it into power, heat, or fuel, and then storing subsequent carbon emissions in rock formations (a process known as dedicated geologic storage) or using them to make carbon-based products. Not all forms of BECCS result in net carbon removal — many factors must be taken into consideration, including the source and type of biomass, transportation requirements, efficiency of conversion processes, and end use of captured carbon.…

State Energy and Environment Guide to Action: Electricity Resource Planning and Procurement

Most states require utilities to engage in electricity resource planning to substantiate that the utility’s plans for meeting demand for electricity services are in the public interest. Planning varies greatly by state but is typically accomplished through processes set by the state utility regulator, often called a public utility commission (PUC), through a docketed proceeding with public involvement. Plans consider future customer needs, available resources to meet those needs, costs, benefits, and risks over the long term. The planning processes provide stakeholders a forum to submit feedback on resource options and offer states an opportunity to accelerate progress towards environmental, …

State Energy and Environment Guide to Action: Electric Utility Regulatory Frameworks and Financial Incentives

Electric utility regulatory frameworks and financial incentives can address barriers to energy efficiency, renewable energy, and distributed energy resources (DERs) that are inherent in traditional utility regulatory models. Legislatures and electric utility regulators (often called public utility commissions) in many states are refining or replacing traditional utility financial policies to encourage utility actions and programs aligned with state policy goals. These states are adopting regulatory frameworks and financial incentives including revenue decoupling, multi-year rate plans (MYRPs), performance-based regulation (PBR), and performance incentive mechanisms (PIMs).

This chapter discusses state utility regulatory policies and financial incentives that address the throughput incentive and …

Advanced Energy Provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

On Friday, August 12, 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act (H.R. 5376, the “IRA”) passed the U.S. House of Representatives, the final stop in the legislative process before it arrives at President Biden’s desk for his signature. With over $396 billion in direct federal investments in advanced energy, transportation, and manufacturing, the IRA represents the largest climate and clean energy bill in US history – as well as one of the latest pieces of industrial policy. The legislation covers the waterfront of advanced energy technologies, providing support in the form of tax credits, loan guarantees, and grants to bolster the production …