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by and - Fifteen states now have official targets to get at least 50% of their electricity from clean sources. These states represent 28% of U.S. electric power demand, up from just 17% last year.
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by Subrata Chakrabarty, Noëmie Leprince-Ringuet, Ranping Song and Alexander Tankou - December 2019This guidance aims to help countries incorporate more ambitious, relevant, and tangible power solutions into enhanced NDCs for communication to the UNFCCC by 2020.
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by Jennifer Layke - December 02, 2019While the world collectively reduced its coal capacity over the past 18 months, China added 43 gigawatts (GW). The move may ultimately increase the economic costs of China’s energy economy over the coming decades.
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This workshop will examine the Forward Clean Energy Markets policy proposal, which would create a competitive market for clean energy attribute credits. The proposal aims to provide an option that enables states to achieve their policy goals in alignment with wholesale market design. Workshops participants will learn more about the proposed model and have the opportunity to discuss its benefits and drawbacks, potential impacts and pathways for implementation, and relevance to specific regions within the U.S.
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by Norma Hutchinson and Lori Bird - November 2019This paper explores the range of approaches and emerging program designs currently used in the United States to match EV loads and renewable energy, with an emphasis on methods that more closely link the timing and location of the EV demand with renewable energy supply.
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by Amala Devi and Pamli Deka - October 24, 2019Solar panels can help rural doctors in India maintain reliable electricity and save more lives. But remote hospitals remain a largely untapped market for renewables.
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by Heidi Ratz, Lori Bird and Karl Hausker - October 17, 2019Behind the U.S. power grid, electricity markets are just as important as physical power plants and transmission lines. To expand the country's clean energy, the rules of the market will need to change.
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by Devashree Saha and Dan Lashof - October 10, 2019Pennsylvania's planned entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative marks the first time a major fossil-fuel producing state has joined the cooperative, which aims to cap carbon dioxide emissions from electric power plants. It won't solve all the Keystone State's energy challenges, but it's a big step forward.
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by Jack McClamrock, Lihuan Zhou and Giulia Christianson - October 10, 2019We analyzed the effects of water shortages on five publicly traded Indian thermal power companies. In some cases, drought caused significant financial impacts, and investors should start stress-testing their portfolios now for climate impacts.
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Financial Implications of Parched Power: Insights from an Analysis of Indian Thermal Power Companies
This paper provides quantitative evidence to help investors better understand and measure the financial impacts from water shortages in the thermal power sector, drawing on data and analysis of Indian companies. It introduces a new methodology to estimate the water shortage-induced impacts to earnings on five Indian thermal power companies from FY 2014-2017. It also uses outputs from climate models to analyze potential future changes to water availability in India, which could increase the risk of water shortages.
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Developing and industrialized countries commit to decarbonize their building sector to achieve massive CO2 reductions.
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A new coalition of countries, businesses and international organizations today committed to driving a 3% global increase in energy efficiency each year – a move that can help limit climate change and increase global prosperity.
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by Tatsatom Gonçalves and Debbie Weyl - September 17, 2019China's market for new buildings is booming. Constructing zero carbon buildings would enable China and other countries to keep up with demand without further fueling climate change.
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by Renilde Becqué, Debbie Weyl, Emma Stewart, Eric Mackres, Luting Jin and Xufei Shen - September 2019Buildings that emit no greenhouse gas emissions during their operation are vital to meeting the SDGs and Paris Agreement targets. But in the past, zero carbon buildings have been assumed to be only attainable by technologically advanced or wealthy countries. New WRI research finds there are policy pathways to reach zero carbon buildings regardless of location or development status. The report identifies eight pathways countries can take to reach zero carbon buildings by reducing energy demand and cleaning energy supply.
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by Celina Bonugli, Jake Duncan, Kelly Crandall and Cassandra Etter-Wenzel - September 2019This resource is designed to aid cities and utilities in exploring the opportunity to develop a partnership agreement and consider key factors relevant to successfully enable long-lasting and productive engagements. It identifies insights and lessons learned from the experiences of several U.S. cities and investor owned electric utilities in developing innovative agreements in Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin.
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Today, WRI and nearly 20 partners launched, Energy Access Explorer, a dynamic open-source platform which will equip energy planners, donors and clean energy entrepreneurs with the information they need to electrify East Africa.
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by Santiago Sinclair Lecaros, Benson Ireri, Dimitrios Mentis and Emily Kaldjian - September 04, 201911% of the world's population still lives without reliable electricity, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. New data from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda reveals an untapped solution: high potential for wind, solar and hydropower.
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by Dimitrios Mentis, Lily Odarno, Davida Wood, Fabian Jendle, Elise Mazur, Anila Qehaja and Francis Gassert - September 2019This paper introduces the methods and data used in Energy Access Explorer – an online, open-source, interactive platform that uses satellite imagery and local data to visualize energy supply and demand in East Africa, equipping electricity planners, investors and clean energy entrepreneurs with the data they need to close the electricity gap.
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by Cassandra Etter-Wenzel and Lacey Shaver - August 29, 2019U.S. solar power is poised to grow 12% this year, but so far Virginia hasn't been a big part of the boom. That could change as Virginia's cities and counties band together to find ways to implement renewable power and meet their clean energy goals.
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by Devashree Saha - August 15, 2019The United States used more energy in 2018 than ever before. While clean energy powered some of it, 80% came from fossil fuels.