Activists in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood have explored whether Clean Peak Standards can address air quality and energy inequity. (Photo by Victoria Belanger via Flickr Creative Commons.)
One state has tried requiring power at peak demand periods to come from clean sources. This mandate can improve air quality in low-income communities. Critics question its effect on emissions, though, and its optimal design as clean-energy storage for utilities evolves.
This March 4 compression of a complex announcement outlines the play: major American city strikes deal with partnership among self-reinventing energy companies to use municipal land for building wind turbines and construction jobs.
(Courtesy Governor Phil Murphy's Flickr account.) A new capacity market framework for PJM could make offshore wind from this segment of New Jersey more competitive more quickly.
Now, to advance the buildout of renewable energy, FERC should set a process and timeframe for adopting a new market structure. That structure should be adaptable and transparent, advance state offshore wind policy goals, meet consumer clean energy and equity goals, and maintain reliability.
Illinois' government made policy while the political sun shines on renewable targets. What happens next? (This image comes from the Chicago Sun-Times.)
This September, on a sunny late summer morning in Chicago, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker signed a comprehensive piece of environmental legislation called the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA). Standing on the shore of Lake Michigan, just outside the world-famous Shedd Aquarium, Pritzker heralded the bill as a major...
This October 28 feature holds a wind project bound for Texas up to the light - and sees too much torpor in the progress of the United States' grid updating. (Do you see a theme here?)
For Joseph Fiordaliso, progress toward a fossil-free economy flows from top-level leadership to street-level entrepreneurship.
When we spoke with Joseph Fiordaliso, the president of the state's Board of Public Utilities, lockdowns were still only happening overseas and states were the only serious partners for renewable developers. Now, New Jersey is moving forward on transmission investment- making Fiordaliso's cheery appeals to the next generation and the...
Workers, investors and policymakers peer into the Gulf Coast's future. (Courtesy the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.)
Some have tried and none have managed to sync America’s clean energy ambitions with its fossil-based heritage through federal policy. The current administration is trying in many industries, including offshore wind manufacturing. That warrants a look at the Gulf Coast. Known as a longtime oil and gas cluster, the Gulf...
Seven states – Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, South Carolina, and Vermont – have enacted legislation to promote pollinator-friendly solar development. A new white paper by the Clean Energy States Alliance provides an overview of these state efforts and offers suggestions for what other states can do to promote solar while also creating or preserving healthy habitats for pollinators.
Given the promising value proposition of pollinator-friendly solar, several states have passed voluntary standards to encourage the practice, and a number of developers have committed to pollinator-friendly projects for all or part of their portfolios. Illinois-based ENGIE Distributed Solar is one such developer. In this interview. Gavin Meinschein, ENGIE’s lead...
