Release the Decarbonization Pressure Valve

This report breaks down the findings from a recent survey of 150 executives across a wide range of corporate, healthcare, and education organizations conducted by Ameresco and Industry Dive. 43% of the responding organizations have fewer than 500 employees; 23% have 500 to 999 employees; 20% have 2,000 to 4,999 employees; and 14% of the organizations surveyed employee 5,000 or more people. The survey sought to better understand where organizations stand in their efforts to pursue decarbonization, whether decarbonization goals are realistic, and what the next steps are to bring industries throughout the nation onboard in the pursuit of imperative …

State Industrial Decarbonization Policy Handbook for Utilities

Utilities can play three key roles in industrial decarbonization. (1) They can offer programs to industrial customers related to energy efficiency, electrification, hydrogen, renewable energy, waste reduction/pollution prevention, and the circular economy. (2) They can decarbonize their operations, energy sources, and the grid. (3) They can help state and other policymakers to understand barriers to decarbonization and the savings opportunities it offers while offering technical support to industrial end-users pursuing decarbonization.

This handbook offers examples of existing programs at utilities, along with their goals, targets, and policy options in relation to financial incentives and regulatory requirements. It also outlines resources …

Solar’s Opportunities and Challenges Today

This event summary highlights key comments made by industry experts at an OEP webinar on solar energy in June 2023. Featuring panelists from the American Clean Power Association, U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, Distributed Sun, and Sunnova in a discussion addressing the future of solar power in the U.S., barriers to advancement and the key economic, policy and regulatory issues.…

Exploring DC Fast Charging Load Profiles

To meet the energy needs of over 26 million electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030, U.S. utilities need to plan for hundreds of thousands DC fast charging (DCFC) ports. Many of these DCFC ports will be distributed among publicly available, retail charging stations, and utilities and site owners alike will benefit from modeling the utilization of these sites. However, predicting the load shape and peak demand at these multi-port charging stations is complicated, in large part due to the current, and predicted, diversity in charging characteristics among EVs.…

Community Centered Solar Development (CCSD) Study Interviews

Large-scale solar (LSS, defined here as ground-mounted photovoltaic projects ≥1 MWDC) has grown rapidly in the U.S., accounting for nearly half of new electric generating capacity added to the U.S. grid in 2022. All sources of electricity bring positive and negative impacts to hosting communities and the rapid growth of LSS has increased the urgency to understand those impacts. Yet, information about the potential positive and negative impacts of LSS on host communities, and the factors or drivers leading to support or opposition to a project, is lacking. This information gap limits how project developers, municipalities, and local siting authorities …

Electricity Markets Under Deep Decarbonization: Summary of Workshop Conversations

The energy system is going through a remarkable transition. To meet climate and carbon reduction goals, numerous local and federal government policies, corporate goals, and consumer preferences are leading toward a lower-carbon future. A key part of that low-carbon future is a low-carbon electricity supply fleet and the electrification of other sectors such as buildings and transportation. This can create challenges, as the way in which the electric power system is planned for and operated can be significantly different from what it is today. In 2019, the Energy Systems Integration Group facilitated a workshop to review several workstreams representing the …

Top 100 Players in the U.S. Floating Wind Market

The U.S. DoE set out plans for 15 GW of floating wind capacity by 2035, an ambitious target given the current pace of development. With the majority of proposed lease areas currently lacking minimum requirements, combined with the implementation of new and potentially risky technologies, strong leadership will be required to successfully build floating wind farms on the West Coast and maximize ROI.

This report lists 100 players that Reuters Events considers could have potential for leadership in the market. The names that follow have been selected either for their current position in the floating and U.S. offshore wind sectors, …

DOE’s Energy Earthshots: Innovation Unlocks Big Cost and Emissions Savings

In 2021, the US Department of Energy (DOE) launched its Energy Earthshots Initiative, a novel and innovative approach to catalyze decarbonization across some of the hardest to abate sectors of our economy. These ‘Earthshots’ are meant to tackle the toughest remaining scientific and technical barriers to deploying the technologies we need to rapidly reduce emissions. Modeled after the wildly successful 2011 SunShot Initiative, the current Earthshots set aggressive cost targets for seven critical areas: hydrogen, carbon removal, long duration energy storage, enhanced geothermal, floating offshore wind, low-carbon industrial heat, and clean fuels and products. These goals are ambitious, well-thought-out, and …

Transmission Planning and Development Regional Report Card

Effective transmission planning is essential for providing customers with affordable and reliable power. This report evaluates transmission planning performance and practices by region. Overall the grades leave a lot of room for improvement. In this first installment of what we expect to be a regular update, this 2023 issue provides a baseline from which future progress can be compared. California and the Midwest (MISO) score the highest with efforts just over the last two years to proactively plan for the future resource mix. The Southeast region shows the greatest room for growth, while the west (minus California), mid-Atlantic (PJM), New …

Pace of Progress: Electrifying the Machines in our Lives at the Rate Required to Transform the Market and Meet our Climate Goals

There will be an S-shaped curve for the electrification of the 1 billion fossil fuel machines across our 121 million households as well: the cars we drive, how we heat the air and water in our homes, cook our food, dry our clothes, and where the power comes for those activities. It’s the shape of this S-curve that’s important. The learning curves for clean energy are evolving at a rapid clip, with costs forever being revised down. The Inflation
Reduction Act (IRA) is expected to bring climate technology costs down by 40 percent. The more costs come down, the further …