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...
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...
In July, the state of Ohio passed its HB 6 energy bill, which authorizes $300 million in annual surcharges on utility ratepayers, primarily to fund four struggling coal and nuclear power plants. The bill also scales back the state’s clean energy targets. Now that HB 6 has been signed into...
In January 2019, the District of Columbia passed the most ambitious clean energy legislation in the nation. However, local climate activists say the hard work is just beginning — they want to know who will lead the DC
and whether the law will benefit the least-privileged residents of the District.
With just a day left in the legislative session, the state Senate approved a solar energy bill that boosters said will keep South Carolina’s rooftop solar industry in business and help homeowners use panels to save money on power bills.
Illinois utility will test the viability of a transactive energy marketplace, where rooftop solar, electric vehicles and home batteries could become real-time market players.
More than a dozen states are adopting “community solar” programs that are bringing solar power and lower energy bills to low-income households from New York to California.
The popularity of solar energy skyrocketed in South Carolina (SC) with the introduction of net metering in 2014 when the state legislature unanimously passed its landmark energy bill. After the introduction of the Distributed Energy Resources (DER) program, the Palmetto State went from having virtually no solar energy to having...
The Green New Deal that some Democrats are now championing is unlike anything this country has ever done before. But scientists have been studying policies like these for decades. And their research can tell us a bit about what might happen if we pass this sweeping new vision for climate action and economic equality.
