California wants to reduce emissions 40% by 2030. Smart growth policies would help the state achieve this target, save the government billions on infrastructure and health costs, and save residents thousands annually in transportation costs, all while empowering economic growth and housing equality.

For as long as renewable energy has been a threat to the conventional power sector, it has been plagued by warnings that too much wind and solar would destabilise the grid. Intermittent renewable energies could never power advanced economies unless they were backed up by large-scale affordable battery storage — a technology that had always seemed a distant dream. Yet, the dream seems to suddenly be not only achievable, but imminent and inevitable.

The National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) released a working paper designed to provide states with ideas on low cost energy efficiency approaches that can help them address the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new Clean Power Plan.

As with any investor-owned company, managers of investor-owned utilities are obligated to maximize shareholder value. So how can regulators help to align shareholder value creation with the public interest? Enter performance-based regulation.

The Obama administration is continuing to carve out a middle ground when it comes to energy policy—satisfying neither environmentalists nor the energy industry in the process. This article summarizes Obama’s energy strategy and actions (arctic drilling, methane emissions regulation, Clean Power Plan, etc.), and discusses what else the President can do to solidify his energy legacy.

This article responds to Pilita Clark’s recent Financial Times article, “Solar and wind could end up victims of their own success,” in which she argues that increasing zero-marginal cost renewables on the grid threatens electricity market revenue. Sonia Aggarwal responds that this is only the case because electricity market operations are out-of-date, and ought to be updated to take advantage of new opportunities like renewables.

In order to develop a dynamic bulk electric grid, system planning and operation — as well as how entities are compensated for the energy, power, ancillary services, and emissions reductions — must evolve together.

The electricity sector is already in the midst of profound change, with new technological and market forces challenging utilities’ business models. These technology developments will help de-carbonize the utility sector at a very low cost, and at the same time increase reliability — but only if utilities rethink their business model, which in turn requires that states’ utility regulations are reformed.

Today’s distribution system faces some similar market conditions to those decades ago. Rising utility costs and falling sales due to the emergence of distributed energy resources (DERs) have led to rising retail rates, falling revenues, and cries of a new “death spiral”. DERs can provide services more cost-effectively than traditional utility assets, but their adoption has met resistance from many utilities.

In early 2015, the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) announced its 51^st State Challenge, which called for energy experts to submit proposals for how energy markets could be created in a 51^st state with no preexisting regulations or market structure. This article discusses several of the crosscutting themes and insights from the Challenge’s top three proposals.

Electricity, no matter where it comes from or how it is produced, is fundamental to life in the 21st century. Access to electricity provides us with life’s most basic necessities. Yet much of the world remains in the dark. One of the world’s regions left furthest behind during this electricity evolution is Sub-Saharan Africa.

Price declines in residential solar and battery systems like Tesla’s Powerwall mean solar-plus-battery systems will soon be found in homes and businesses at the grid’s edge around the country. But what role will utilities play in the fast-approaching storage shift?

America’s power sector is undergoing a dramatic transformation, challenging regulators to make sure policy keeps up with technological innovation, often leaving utilities in a tumultuous position – but a new set of policies can put us on the path toward a cleaner, more affordable, and more reliable future.

Are higher carbon prices a good thing? The answer could be yes. On May 21, California completed its eleventh carbon allowance auction, the third joint auction with Quebec, which has linked its cap-and-trade program with California’s.

The commercial and industrial solar power sector has not yet taken flight in the same way that residential and utility-scale solar has in recent years. But to many in the solar industry, that just screams opportunity.

The time has come to optimize the grid. And the need is particularly acute at the edge of system – on the distribution side of the grid. But grid operators have yet to capitalize on the value of optimization because regulations and power markets have fallen behind the technology.

Policymakers rely heavily on quantitative analysis to understand how to manage rapid changes in the power sector, and quantitative analysis (particularly forward-looking projections) relies heavily on underlying assumptions. The quality and breadth of these assumptions are crucial to good decisions.

In the past, consistent load growth meant steady capital expenditures and stable returns on equity for utility shareholders. But today, the trends traditionally driving consistent load growth are being disrupted by rooftop solar, energy efficiency, and changing consumer preferences.

Energy Innovation reviewed the scientific literature on low-carbon cities and sustainable urban development. Our conclusion: compact, walkable, and transit-oriented development creates sustainable, healthy, and economically vibrant cities that deliver a high quality of life to residents.

California has adopted a new climate target that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, partly by expanding the use of renewables. But the expansion of clean energy in California isn’t meaningful without an emphasis on the energy efficiency of buildings, electrifying vehicles across the transportation system, and optimizing the power grid to handle renewables.