Thermal Batteries: Electrifying Heating in Chemical Plants

The heating needs of the chemicals and petroleum refining sectors account for 5 percent to 6 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions. Today, most of this heat is generated by burning natural gas or other fossil fuels. As industry faces increasing pressure to reduce emissions, thermal batteries’ potential to abate as much as 99 percent of current heat emissions when coupled with renewable energy make them an attractive alternative for industrial heating.

This guide was designed to help industry and policy stakeholders better understand where and how the chemicals and refining industries can implement thermal batteries today, and how policy …

Dearborn Works: An Integrated Steel Mill Transition Study

Michigan is a recognized leader in the transition toward economy-wide carbon neutrality. But to achieve the objectives put forth in the state’s MI Healthy Climate Plan, Michigan’s emissions intensive industrial sector needs its own leader, and that proposed leader — Cleveland-Cliffs, owner of the Dearborn Works integrated steel mill — needs its own viable transition plan. Disrupting decades of technological stasis and a precipitous decline in quality steelmaking jobs, breakthrough technology in clean steel produced using ‘green’ hydrogen is finally here. With Cleveland-Cliffs expected to commit the next round of major investments in Dearborn Works by 2027, to ‘reline’ the …

Delivering on the Targets and Signals from the First Global Stocktake

As Parties and non-Party stakeholders (NPS) head to Baku, Azerbaijan, for the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), much attention will be focused on the agreement of a new collective quantified goal (NCQG) on climate finance to fund historic damage caused by emissions from advanced economies. However, of critical importance will be the opportunities to take stock of Parties’ progress in implementing and achieving the targets and signals from the conclusion of the first GST at COP28.

Parties must consider the outcomes from the GST when they formulate their new nationally …

Project Decarbonize: The Current State of Corporate Renewable Energy Adoption

The global effort to reduce emissions in commercial and industrial sectors is yielding results. Over the past decade, corporate initiatives have slowed the growth of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to an annual increase of 0.5 percent, while global GDP growth averaged 3 percent.

Yet current efforts must scale to meet climate goals. This paper examines the strategies and innovations commercial and industrial companies are using to reduce their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and achieve ambitious goals. Bringing together insights from sustainability leaders from organizations across various industries — including manufacturing, technology, retail and agriculture — the paper highlights …

Design, Modeling and Cost Analysis of 8.79 MW Solar Photovoltaic Power Plant

Climate change, as a critical global concern, has fueled our efforts to address it through different strategies. In response to the critical worldwide issue of climate change, we suggested a Photovoltaic (PV) system at the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) in Islamabad, Pakistan (latitude: 33.724530 N, longitude: 73.046869, terrain elevation: 552 m). Islamabad is located in a region blessed with enormous solar resources, boasting a daily horizontal solar irradiance of 1503.45 kWh/m2 and an average daily solar irradiance of 5.89 kWh/m2, with an exceptional solar fraction of 98.99%. The ambient air temperature, averaging 23.21 °C, reaches its maximum …

Emissions Gap Report 2024

As climate impacts intensify globally, the Emissions Gap Report 2024: No more hot air … please! finds that nations must deliver dramatically stronger ambition and action in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions or the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal will be gone within a few years. The report is the 15th edition in a series that brings together many of the world’s top climate scientists to look at future trends in greenhouse gas emissions and provide potential solutions to the challenge of global warming.…

Case Study: Microgrid at Amond World Cold Storage Facility

Scale Microgrids partnered with Origo Cold Storage to implement an off-grid microgrid solution at Amond World, a 500,000 square-foot cold storage facility in California’s Central Valley. Commissioned in 2023, the microgrid includes a 1,200 kW solar photovoltaic array, a 1,200 kW battery storage unit, and two 1,200 kW natural gas-powered dispatchable generators to provide reliable, around-the-clock refrigeration at temperatures as low as 32F for almonds and other local crops. Using a microgrid-as-a-service model, the project enabled Origo to bypass a multi-year grid interconnection queue while reducing energy costs by 10-30% and carbon emissions by 30-40% compared to a typical grid-connected …

Assessing Energy and Water Resilience for the Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation Quantico complex completed a resilience assessment using the Federal Energy Management Program’s Technical Resilience Navigator (TRN) Lite in Summer 2023.

This fact sheet provides an overview of the process and a summary of lessons learned that may be helpful to other federal facilities interested in using the TRN or TRN Lite for a resilience assessment at their sites.…

Power Surge: Navigating US Electricity Demand Growth

For the past two decades, U.S. electricity demand growth rates remained relatively flat. Utilities have traditionally helped manage electricity demand and peak electricity demand through forward planning and demand side management (DSM) programs that proactively manage customer energy use. However, the U.S. now faces a sudden surge in electricity demand that requires new management strategies amid utilities’ efforts to lead a clean energy transition.

This report leverages ICF’s cloud-based renewable energy analytics platform, EnergyInsite, to measure and map electricity demand growth across the U.S. and the constraints to addressing demand. ICF finds that by 2028, U.S. electricity demand could increase …

Energy Subsidy Reform in Action | From Ambition to Action: Practical Insights on Energy Subsidy Reforms

Building on ESMAP’s Energy Subsidy Reform Assessment Framework (ESRAF) and drawing on recent research plus a decade of experience with country-specific technical assistance, the report consolidates those findings and presents energy subsidy reform practitioners with a series of steps that can be considered while supporting subsidy reform efforts. The steps include gaining a solid understanding of the background, effects, and socio-economic motivations for energy subsidies. The steps suggest developing several reform options, obtaining a clear understanding of the reforms’ effects on stakeholders, and building mitigation measures and benefits for society and the economy into reform design. They also advise to …