When you fiddle with spreadsheet cells or engineering models all day in pursuit of clean energy, the sound of stasis can clang in your ears. So after local and national politicians blamed wind turbines for a power outage that interrupted water supplies and left people freezing for days across the state, we decided to document who really pays when legacy asset owners refuse to update their energy plans. Our reporter took breaks from checking on her family in Austin to round up stories about real people's real chills and real hunger.
Now that we needn't think of solar as an "alternative" source, we also can find alternatives to a system in which way more of solar goes to affluent whites.
Look behind the dominant curve, on which solar power becomes cheaper to supply while corporate commitments, voters' priorities and scientific data goose demand for solar. You'll see that too many people find themselves locked out of the solar market or barred from influencing its direction. Two speakers challenged Yale audiences to expand the curve's cone of inclusion.
Is this the direction for decarbonizing- and for big hydrocarbon concerns? (Image courtesy of Pixabay.)
Equinor Strategy Summit, Norway, 2019 – Executives of Equinor (formerly known as Statoil) were holed up in a room drinking hot chocolate after a day of skiing. Strategy staff members presented them with a list of unidentified companies (“Company 1,” “Company 2,” “Company 3”) along with historical and projected returns. One had 10% return ambitions; another roughly the same, etc. The executives were asked: Which companies do you think these are? Shell? Ørsted? Exxon? What happened next remains a mystery; but, according to Michael Wheeler, Equinor’s Principal of Corporate Strategy, who told the tale at a conference last year, the...
Dominion in Utah, like most utilities, makes energy efficiency look simple and costless.
With a real estate outlook morphed by Covid and the recession, advocates for energy efficiency policies have staked a new claim.
Retrofitting buildings after Covid-19 emptied many commercial properties can boost efficiency and sustainability- but doing so will take coordination, patience and strategy.
Investments in efficient energy systems can save millions for every diligent manufacturer, tenant and landlord. They can also drive down carbon emissions, helping states reach clean-energy targets. They can help lower energy costs and with them energy bills, which can help resuscitate urban property markets. And they can coincide with investments in air quality, which can save lives. These benefits flow if investors place their capital with care and foresight into systems that clean indoor air while lowering carbon. Given those bonafides, shouldn’t large landlords and tenants think hard about ways to commit to those systems? They are thikning, according...
The severe human and economic toll of Covid-19 has injected high levels of uncertainty into the economy. Despite reduced overall levels of investment in Q1 and Q2 2020, interest in Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy financing, or C-
, has risen in some markets across the country. Commercial PACE is a financing tool that enables low-cost, long-term funding for energy efficiency, renewables and water conservation projects for commercial buildings. Commercial PACE is newer than its older sibling, Residential PACE (R-PACE). Similar to those R-PACE, C-PACE loans are attached to the property as an “additional assessment” to be paid along with property...
The first section of this story laid out how worldwide finance steered capital into Nigeria's rural communities through a grant process and a tender process, both designed to boost microgrid production. This conclusion asks how these programs pay off for residents and communities-and how their lessons can grow across sub-Saharan Africa to other fast-growing regions.
Bringing about clean electricity in sub-Saharan Africa means creating credit where historically lenders have held back. Two new programs, a loan and a tender, have drawn international solar developers and raised prospects for low-pollution, high-efficiency in rural Nigeria.
