Voluntary Carbon Offset Markets

A “currency” to help fund climate mitigation: Voluntary carbon offset credits generate funds for activities that mitigate against climate change and achieve other societal benefits. Good prospects for growth in demand: Over 4,200 companies have committed to SBTi-based emissions reductions, pointing to dramatic growth in the demand for offset credits. Visibility on large scale supply additions: Countries/jurisdictions are working through protocols for very large credit issuance. This has the advantages of scale and reducing the integrity-related concern known as Leakage. Participating corporates also get to “lock in” supply at pre-agreed prices.

A turbulent 2022: The prospects for growth drew more …

The Changing Role of Hydropower: Challenges and opportunities

Despite being the most mature renewable technology, hydropower faces a number of challenges. These include the need to ensure sustainability and climate resilience; ageing fleets and related investment requirements; the need to adapt operation and maintenance (O&M) to modern power system requirements; and outdated market structures and business models that do not recognise the full range of services provided by hydropower. As challenging as the present situation is, it also presents opportunities to modernise hydropower plants and equip them with the means to continue providing critical services to power systems globally.

This report is aimed at policy makers and hydropower …

Internalizing Externalities: Disclosure Regulation for Hydraulic Fracturing, Drilling Activity and Water Quality

The rise of shale gas and tight oil development has triggered a major debate about hydraulic fracturing (HF). In an effort to mitigate risks from HF, especially with respect to water quality, many U.S. states have introduced disclosure mandates for HF wells and fracturing fluids. We use this setting to study whether targeting corporate activities that have dispersed environmental externalities with disclosure regulation to create public pressure reduces their environmental impact. We find significant improvements in water quality, examining salts that are considered signatures for HF impact, after the disclosure mandates are introduced. We document effects along the extensive and …

Transforming Existing Buildings from Climate Liabilities to Climate Assets

Investing in existing buildings makes climate sense; retrofitting an existing building emits 50 to 75 percent less carbon than constructing the same building new. However, we cannot ignore the embodied carbon impact of these retrofits. It is important to consider the upfront embodied carbon emissions that arise from the production, transportation, and installation of materials to prevent a spike in emissions that will negate years of the operating emissions reductions achieved through retrofits.

This report provides data to support using low-carbon and carbon-storing materials in deep energy retrofits to reduce net emissions and transform buildings into climate assets. The study …

Global Solar Report 2023 Edition

Stakeholders in today’s solar industry have the privilege of participating in a world-changing shift toward renewable energy. And yet, as large-scale solar installations multiply, it is increasingly important that all of us ensure the industry is delivering on its promises — in terms of both power production and profitability. A glance at many of the statistics in this report shows, however, that we are progressively losing more power and more money, with an estimated annual revenue loss of $82 million across the 24.5GW analyzed by Raptor Maps in 2022, translating to $2.5 billion in losses for the entire solar industry. …

The U.S. Hydrogen Demand Action Plan

The U.S. Hydrogen Demand Action Plan presents a pathway to rapidly accelerate hydrogen use across regions and sectors through new policies and industrial strategies, with a focus on leveraging regional hydrogen hubs as growth engines. Recently passed federal laws—the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—provide unprecedented clean hydrogen support and are expected to significantly reduce clean hydrogen production costs. This Energy Futures Initiative (EFI) study shows that additional measures are necessary to get from those cost reductions to a national, commoditized clean hydrogen market, and now is the time to take action.…

Quantifying the Financial Impacts of Electric Vehicles on Utility Ratepayers and Shareholders

Widespread electric vehicle (EV) adoption is critical for meeting economy-wide decarbonization goals and, as a result, states are considering enabling policies and rate designs to accelerate EV deployment. EVs can provide possible financial upside to electric utilities and ratepayers in several ways. For example, from the utility perspective, EVs could drive increased electricity sales and new earnings opportunities through increased capital investments. From the ratepayer perspective, increased electric loads from EVs could reduce average all-in retail rates. The degree to which there are net benefits or costs to shareholders and/or ratepayers depends on how EVs are integrated and managed through …

Comparison of Home Appliance Energy Use, Operating Costs, and Carbon Dioxide Emissions 2022 Update

This AGA study evaluates the critical differences in energy cost and emissions for many common home appliances that use natural gas or rely on other forms of energy. AGA based this study on the characteristics of the average American single-family home and the likely energy consumption for each type of end-use home appliance. The analysis then looks at the current average full-fuel cycle greenhouse gas emissions for each energy source to evaluate the impact on the environment from each appliance in the coming year. …

Advancing Equity through 100% Clean Energy: A Review of the Plans of 12 States

Twenty-one states plus DC and Puerto Rico have set goals through legislation or executive orders to achieve 100% clean energy. The majority of Americans live in a state with such a goal. In an encouraging trend, states are giving increasing attention to equity and environmental justice in their 100% clean energy plans. These actions are particularly important, because low-income populations, communities of color, and other historically marginalized groups have suffered the greatest burdens from climate change yet have historically received the least investment in climate solutions.

This report documents state actions to advance environmental justice by reviewing the 100% clean …

Starting with Solar: A Preliminary Assessment of Solar Energy Systems in Residential New Construction

New homes provide a ready option for states hoping to reduce energy use, as evidenced by the steady increase in energy efficiency requirements in new home building codes. A less common approach is to specifically encourage or require new homes to produce their own carbon-free energy, through the installation of a solar energy system. Adopting these practices nationwide might significantly reduce new home energy use, but the drivers of the new solar home market have not been well studied. Partly filling this gap, this report looks at historical deployment trends of solar on over 500,000 new homes built through 2020 …