The Heinz Family Foundation today named Hal Harvey the recipient of the prestigious 21st Heinz Award in the Environment category. Harvey’s work in the United States, China and beyond presents results-driven solutions to dramatically reduce carbon emissions and energy waste.

Many argue that the Achilles Heel of renewable energy is variability. No modern economy can run without certainty that the light switch will turn on the lights. So, as ever more renewable energy enters the power system, utilities and their overseers must explore options for maintaining a grid that not only puts up with variability, but actually optimizes with it. There are five options to make the grid more flexible as renewables come to comprise a larger portion of California’s energy supply.

Last month, China’s State Council released urbanization guidelines to strengthen the management of urban planning and construction. Caijing magazine’s Xuan Zuo asked Energy Innovation CEO Hal Harvey for his thoughts on these guidelines and the future of China’s cities. Below are some highlights from Caijing’s interview with Harvey.

Now that the Paris conference on climate change has wrapped up, it is an ideal moment to take stock: Can we land the world on a reasonable climate future? What is required to do so?