Toward a Shared Zero-Carbon Energy Future: A Global Analysis of Rural Energy Cooperatives

Community energy models, exemplified by rural energy cooperatives, are playing a key role in accelerating the clean energy transition across many countries. In anticipation of the upcoming 2025 International Year of Cooperatives, this report explores the role of cooperatives as a collaborative model and an emerging player in the energy market. Based on global case studies, it provides an overview of rural energy cooperatives, illustrating various financing, profit, and benefit-distribution models, assessing their environmental, economic, and social impacts, and summarizing current trends and challenges facing their development.

This report also highlights the potential of rural energy cooperatives in driving energy …

Best Practices in Integrated Resource Planning: A Guide for Planners Developing the Electricity Resource Mix of the Future

Most states today require regulated electric utilities to file an IRP every 1 to 5 years, and some utilities voluntarily prepare these plans. Planning needs have changed in recent years due to emerging load growth, plant retirements, rising costs, and more extreme weather events – among other factors. In response, Synapse Energy Economics and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory produced a joint report, Best Practices in Integrated Resource Planning: A guide for planners developing the electricity resource mix of the future. The guide offers best planning practices for electricity systems undergoing a major transition, but also contains a wealth of practical …

The Sherco Clean Repowering: How One Community Turned a Coal Plant Into a Hub for a New Clean Economy

As coal plants begin to retire across the country, one Minnesota coal plant has used this opportunity to create new jobs, improve local economic development, and generate clean energy that will replace the electricity once provided by coal. The Sherburne County Generating Station in Minnesota — informally known as Sherco — was able to overcome the growing electricity demand that has caused some utilities to postpone retirements of other coal plants, and an interconnection queue process that delays new clean energy projects by a median of five years, to transition into the hub of a local clean economy.

The Sherco …

An Assessment of China’s Methane Mitigation Potential and Costs and Uncertainties Through 2060

China, the world’s largest methane emitter, is increasingly focused on methane mitigation in support of its climate goals, but gaps exist in the understanding of key methane sources, as well as mitigation opportunities and their associated uncertainties. We use a bottom-up modeling approach with updated methane emission projections and abatement cost analysis to account for additional sources, uncertainties, and mitigation measures in China’s energy and agricultural sectors. Here we show the significant cost-effective potential for reducing methane emissions in China by 2030, with 660 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent possible with average negative abatement costs of US$6.40 per tonne …

Community Solar Policy Landscape and Pathways to Meaningful Benefits: A Review of Equitable Access and Household Savings

As of August 2024, community solar legislation and policies have been implemented in 24 U.S. states and localities, including the District of Columbia. These policies have driven significant growth in the community solar market. The states that have enacted legislation accounting for over 62.8% of the country’s installed capacity. Community solar policy designs are evolving, with many states expanding programs, enhancing equitable access, and ensuring household savings.

This report focuses primarily on recent policy trends concerning equitable access and household savings. Several leading states have updated their programs to extend access, particularly to low- and moderate-income customers. Seventeen states now …

Reimagining Utility Climate Risk Planning

Today’s grid infrastructure is underprepared for the changing trends in weather- and climate-related disasters. Between 2000-2023, extreme weather accounted for most major power outages in nearly every state. Likewise, utilities are not aligned with a transition to a net zero-carbon economy. Together, such physical climate risks (i.e., risks related to the physical impacts of climate change) and transition climate risks (i.e., risks related to the transition to a zero-carbon economy) threaten the affordability and reliability of clean electricity – the keystone of this future economy.

This insight brief explains how to integrate emerging climate risk assessment frameworks with utility planning …

Mind the Regulatory Gap: How to Enhance Local Transmission Oversight

Amid the combined challenges of load growth and a changing generation mix, the US transmission grid is in urgent need of expansion and upgrading.

However, while spending by US utilities on transmission has quadrupled over the past two decades, spending has moved in the opposite direction of what we need — from high-voltage regional lines to lower-voltage local projects. This is an inefficient way to expand the grid. In addition, the lack of robust review of local projects means they may be costlier and have greater land use and environmental impacts than larger, well-planned regional projects.

In this report, RMI …

Planning for Net Zero: Best Practices for Indian Banks and NBFCs

Indian banks and Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) can help bridge the climate finance gap and ensure financial stability in a changing environment. Regulators have implemented several initiatives to both support and nudge the sector to take action. Though banks are beginning to do so, the sector is still early in its efforts and faces structural bottlenecks. Banks and NBFCs can leverage integrated transition planning approaches to address barriers and meet evolving regulatory and stakeholder expectations. This report highlights 10 lessons from global banks’ experience with transition planning and their potential application for Indian banks and NBFCs.…

Energizing Public Transit for Islands

On track to completely electrify its public bus fleet by 2030, the Government of Bermuda has successfully deployed 70 electric transit buses in its fleet as of 2024, leading to nearly 100 percent electric daily operations. This has provided substantial economic and environmental benefits to the island nation while enabling the Bermuda Department of Public Transportation (DPT) to replace a significant portion of its aging diesel bus fleet and provide high-quality public transit service.

Bermuda’s e-bus deployment has spurred the Government of Bermuda to drive transportation decarbonization efforts such as electrifying government fleet vehicles, developing national electrification policy initiatives, and …

Driving Decarbonization: Trends in Corporate Emissions Management

The corporate emissions management landscape is constantly changing – priorities shift as new regulations are passed and as investors and customers put increasing pressure on sustainability teams to report and decrease their carbon footprint.

So, how are corporations prioritizing their sustainability work, given these market pressures?

Optera worked with a third-party research firm to survey 90 sustainability leaders at large companies about what trends are impacting their climate program, how they are overcoming common challenges, and how they are prioritizing initiatives moving into 2025.…