Recycling and Innovation

On October 23, 2024, OurEnergyPolicy hosted a discussion on developments in recycling and innovation in critical minerals as part of the Terranaut Minologues series on meeting critical mineral demand for our energy transition.…

Solar Market Insight Report

In Q3 2024, the US solar market installed 8.6 GWdc of capacity, continuing the trend of record-setting quarterly volumes this year. While installations declined 13% quarter-over-quarter, they increased 21% compared to Q3 2023.

Solar accounted for 64% of all new electricity-generating capacity added to the US grid through Q3 2024. US solar now produces enough electricity annually to power over 37 million homes.

Domestic module manufacturing capacity increased substantially again in the third quarter, by over 9 GW to nearly 40 GW. At the end of Q2 2022, prior to the passage of domestic manufacturing and procurement tax credits, module …

Weather- and Climate-Driven Power Supply and Demand Time Series for Power and Energy System Analyses

Reaching net-zero carbon emissions requires large shares of intermittent renewable energy and the electrification of end-use consumption, such as heating, making the future energy system highly dependent on weather variability and climate change. Weather exhibits fluctuations on temporal scales ranging from sub-hourly to yearly while climate variations occur on decadal scales. To investigate the intricate interplay between weather patterns, climate variations, and power systems, we developed a database of time series of wind and solar power generation, hydropower inflow, heating and cooling demand using an internally consistent modeling framework. Here we focused on the European continent and generated country level …

Transition from Operation to Decommissioning: Outcomes of the CDLM-5 Topical Session

The NEA Committee on Decommissioning of Nuclear Installations and Legacy Management (CDLM) was created in 2018 following a request from NEA member countries to enhance NEA focus on nuclear decommissioning and the remediation of legacy sites. The creation of the CDLM reflects the NEA goals of providing governments and other interested stakeholders with authoritative and reliable information on the political, strategic, regulatory and social aspects of decommissioning activities and the management of legacy and complex sites.

The NEA CDLM addressed the subject of the “Transition from operation to decommissioning” in a topical session during its fifth plenary meeting on 24 …

SEPA and NRECA Resilience Planning Playbook for Electric Cooperative Utilities

Electric cooperatives (co-ops) across the U.S. are navigating an evolving energy landscape shaped by increased electrification, the adoption of distributed energy resources, policy-driven decarbonization goals, and the growing impact of extreme weather events. Recognizing the evolving energy landscape, SEPA and NRECA developed the Resilience Planning Playbook for Electric Cooperative Utilities as a resource for other electric cooperatives to navigate new approaches to resilience planning.

This report includes case studies, best practices, and real-world insights from cooperative utilities developed through a workshop and several interviews. This report focuses on the resilience planning approach identified in SEPA’s Resilience Planning Playbook for States …

Guidance on Incorporating Building and Transportation Electrification into Long-Term Load Forecasts

The guide presents a framework for developing a long-term electricity load forecast
that accounts for the impacts of building and transportation electrification. The framework identifies key modeling decisions and provides examples from recent Berkeley
Lab technical assistance. In particular, the framework focuses on how to use publicly available end-use load profiles for eforecasting building and transportation electrification.

For each step in the framework, they provide:
• Guiding questions for users to answer and suggestions for users to follow.
• Examples from technical assistance Berkeley Lab provided to two municipal utilities,
Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) in California and Fort Collins …

Understanding the Climate Impacts of Hydrogen Emissions

Renewable hydrogen (RH2), produced from renewable feedstocks, can replace fossil fuels to help decarbonize some of the heaviest polluting and hardest-to-electrify sectors, such as industrial processes and maritime shipping. However, recent research underscores the risk of hydrogen emissions— the hydrogen molecules that we release into the atmosphere— in warming the climate.

Research from the Environmental Defense Fund and others shows strong climate benefits when using RH2 made from renewable electricity and water in place of fossil fuels, but those benefits vary depending on how much hydrogen is emitted into the atmosphere. The climate benefits from a well-regulated, clean, and renewable …

Department of Energy Hydrogen Program Plan

The Department of Energy Hydrogen Program Plan (the Plan) outlines the strategic high-level focus areas of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrogen Program (the Program). The term “Hydrogen Program” refers not to any single office within DOE, but rather to the cohesive and coordinated effort of multiple offices that conduct research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D) activities on hydrogen technologies.

This edition of the Hydrogen Program Plan reflects DOE’s focus on conducting coordinated RDD&D activities to enable the adoption of hydrogen technologies across multiple applications and sectors. It reflects important changes since 2020, including updated supporting data and analysis, a …

2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report

The Energy Act of 2020 calls for the U.S. Department of Energy to make available to the public an update to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s prior study entitled United States Data Center Energy Usage Report (2016). This report, designed to meet that Congressional request, estimates historical data center electricity consumption back to 2014, relying on previous studies and historical shipment data. This report also provides a scenario range of future demand out to 2028 based on new trends and the most recent available data.…

Insight Brief: Thermal Energy Networks for Utility Carbon Reduction

As natural gas and electric utilities work to reduce carbon emissions, they are evaluating paths to help customers decarbonize building heat. Policymakers in several states recently crafted legislation encouraging utility regulators and utilities to explore the role thermal energy networks (TENS) could play.

TENS are time-tested outside the utility construct–and offer high potential for locally-sourced, low-carbon heating and cooling. However, cost and complexity have limited usage to universities and district heating zones. Utility-led TENs could help overcome these barriers, unlock deployment for targeted decarbonization, and mitigate grid stress of other load growth. Several utilities are now in the process of …