Topic: electricity

The largest electric power industry trade group, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), produced a slide in 2010 (updated in May 2011) that purports to display an onslaught of new requirements for power plants. WRI has identified four categories of EPA activities on the EEI timeline that are potentially misleading. This fact sheet updates the analysis done in our earlier response to EEI’s timeline of environmental regulations.

The U.S. electric power system is gradually shifting toward cleaner forms of generation. One sign of this transition is the declining use of coal for electric power production. This fact sheet examines the reasons for this transition and potential results.

New rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce mercury and other toxic air emissions will affect dozens of antiquated power plants currently operating without pollution controls. These rules have stirred debate in some circles as to whether retrofitting or retiring outdated plants will cause shortfalls in electricity capacity. How will EPA mercury rules influence the electricity system? This fact sheet updates earlier assessments by taking a close look at recent studies on the reliability of the electricity grid to answer that question.

The story of the Chinese wind power industry is remarkable. From a small number of demonstration projects at the beginning of the century, the Chinese wind power market has grown to become the world’s largest. At the end of 2010, it overtook the United States to become the leader in terms of cumulative installed capacity. Even though China used to import 80% of its wind energy equipment, domestic manufacturing has exploded since 2006 and now supplies more than 70% of the domestic market. In 2010, China’s wind power market attracted investments of RMB 89 billion (US$14 billion) and employed over 150,000 people.

The World Resources Institute, with CDKN, has developed a series of policy briefs that highlight how climate compatible development can be achieved in a range of developing countries.

When decision makers in government, business and civil society speak to us about their aims and needs, they often ask about best practice in other countries or, indeed, mistakes to avoid. Key questions usually include:

What are the leading innovations in integrating climate change planning with economic growth strategies and poverty reduction?

What are the biggest challenges faced along the way: institutional, financial, political, technical?

This series of policy briefs aim to answer these questions by exploring the Inside Stories on Climate Compatible Development.

This brief describes a number of policy tools that can be employed to drive investment in renewable energy technologies and discusses which policy options may be the best fit based on the commercial maturity of a targeted technology.