Forecasting Credit Supply Demand Balance for the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard Program

This report presents projections for the expected supply of and demand for Low
Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS credits) through 2030, as well as through 2035, based on potential changes to program stringency. This report’s main approach is to apply time-series forecasting methods to project the expected demand for transportation fuels and combine that with the expected evolution of fuel prices and carbon intensities as well as complementary policies’ impact on the fuel mix.

The results imply that the program can accommodate a relatively aggressive target of a 43%
reduction by 2035, but only if everything breaks right and many best-case …

Electricity Grid: DOE Could Better Support Industry Efforts to Ensure Adequate Transformer Reserves

Robust electricity grid infrastructure is critical to the nation’s economic,energy, and national security. Transformers serve a critical function on the electricity grid, managing voltage for efficient power transmission and distribution. Transformers are a source of grid vulnerability, susceptible to natural disasters and cyber and physical threats. Federal agencies such as DOE play an advisory, coordinating, and research role in the effort to ensure adequate transformer reserves.

Congress included a provision in statute for GAO to review issues related to certain disasters. This report examines (1) challenges to ensuring adequate transformer reserves and (2) the extent to which federal and industry …

Retiring Old Capital to Foster Decarbonization

A majority of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from fossil fuel combustion. Combustion nearly always involves some form of durable capital, which includes vehicles, appliances and power generators. Many policies aim to improve environmental outcomes by regulating the efficiency or emissions of this capital. Most such policies focus on new capital. This paper discusses the importance of policies that target used capital as a complement to such regulations. In particular, the paper argues that used capital policies that are designed to accelerate retirement of used capital, either by taxing its use or subsidizing its scrappage, can have efficiency benefits by …

2035 and Beyond: Offshore Wind Technical Report

Plummeting costs and technical performance improvements of offshore wind have dramatically enhanced the prospects for near-term power sector decarbonization. The high resource quality of offshore wind in the United States, coupled with rapidly falling technology costs, makes it possible for offshore wind to provide 10-25% of total electricity generation in the U.S. power system in 2050 without substantially impacting wholesale electricity costs. This report, 2035 Report 3.0, examines the prospect of achieving 90% clean electricity by 2035 and 95% clean electricity by 2050. Three scenarios — Low, Medium, and High Ambition — detail the electricity system impacts of increased offshore …

2035 and Beyond: Offshore Wind Policy Paper

Expanding the United States’ offshore wind industry will create vast benefits. Offshore wind could, by 2050, provide 10 to 25 percent of national electricity, create nearly 400,000 jobs, reinvigorate port communities, diversify our power sources, and shrink the area needed for other land-based power sources without significantly increasing wholesale electricity costs, as detailed by 2035 and Beyond: Abundant, Affordable Offshore Wind Can Accelerate Our Clean Electricity Future.

But supplying 10 to 25 percent of the nation’s electricity generation in 2050 will be no easy feat—it will require 250 to 750 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind. However, even the high end …

Sharing the Sun: Data Collection Methodology for 2023 Project Data Release

This database represents a list of community solar projects identified through various sources as of Dec 2022. In addition, this dataset updated the low-income (LI) and low- and moderate-income (LMI) provisions for both complete and pending projects, based on the most recent program data we collected as of July 2023.…

Strategies for Encouraging Good Fuel-Cost Management: A Handbook for Utility Regulators

Fuel costs have been hazardously high for families across the United States for years, and they have recently gotten worse. From extreme weather events that cause natural gas shortages to global geopolitical catastrophes like Putin’s War in Ukraine, fuel costs have been on a rollercoaster; and they typically hit hardest when folks can least afford it. But the burden is not shared equally.

Utilities typically handle fuel costs through fuel adjustment clauses. Under these policies, 100 percent of the cost of fuel is passed onto customers. When fuel costs spike, only utility customers take the hit. If a utility company …

Geopolitics of the Energy Transition: Critical Materials

IRENA’s analytical work on geopolitics began in 2018 with the formation of the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation, which culminated in a sweeping overview of the geopolitical implications of a global shift to renewables in the 2019 report, A New World: The Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation. In 2020, IRENA created the Collaborative Framework on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation as a forum for dialogue on the geopolitical implications of this shift. In response to priorities voiced by IRENA’s members during those discussions, IRENA undertook a detailed study on the future of hydrogen in the 2022 report, …

The Electrification Era I Scaling Up Electric Vehicles

As more renewable energy sources are used, power systems must become more flexible and adjustable to balance supply with demand. To achieve this, services are required that span from fractions of a second to seasonal time scales. Solar and wind power will become increasingly critical, but their intermittent nature will result in nearly twice the annual variability in residual demand compared to today. EVs have the potential to provide grid-connected storage and in doing so revolutionise the way we use and manage energy.

In this white paper we examine the concepts of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology, the landscape …

Renewable Energy Statistics 2023

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) produces comprehensive, reliable datasets on renewable energy capacity and use worldwide. Renewable energy statistics 2023 provides datasets on power-generation capacity for 2013-2022, actual power generation for 2013-2021 and renewable energy balances for over 150 countries and areas for 2020-2021.

Data was obtained from a variety of sources, including an IRENA questionnaire, official national statistics, industry association reports, consultant reports and news articles. Major trends in the sector worldwide are outlined in the accompanying brief, Renewable energy highlights.

The yearbook also includes statistics on investments in renewables, compiled from the OECD-DAC database and 20 major …