Pollinator-friendly solar, which incorporates native grasses and wildflowers throughout a solar installation, is one approach to cultivating additional land use benefits from solar projects. In two new Yale Center for Business and the Environment white papers, we explore the potential of this emerging practice.
Global Thermostat co-founder Graciela Chichilnisky at the company's demo plant in Menlo Park, California / Photo courtesy of Global Thermostat
This summer, ExxonMobil announced it would be working with carbon removal company Global Thermostat to help scale up their technology, with an eye towards large industrial applications. The announcement is the latest indicator that fossil fuel companies are looking ahead towards a world that’s far less friendly towards their products and the emissions they produce.
Electric vehicle charging / Automotive Rhythms / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Research on California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard program suggests the LCFS program design of capacity-based credits has the potential to increase EV deployment, but that some unanswered questions need to be addressed before the point-of-sale rebate program can do the same.
This explainer is the third part of a series by Sara Harari and Nate Grady on how microgrids are being used to transform the electrical grid. As climate change becomes the new reality, policymakers must decide how to invest limited resources in advanced technology and infrastructure. At the heart of this challenge is the debate over adaptation versus mitigation: should we focus our efforts on avoiding the worst effects of climate change (i.e. reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses we release going forward), or should we divide our resources and invest simultaneously on adapting to the most likely effects of...
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 an installed capacity of 591 megawatts (MW).
Vastly higher clean energy targets are essential to empower the international community to make the leap to a sustainable future, according to Richard Heinberg, coauthor of “Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy.” In this interview, he delves into the practical challenges involved in the global transition to renewable power sources.
Nonprofits face a unique challenge in the solar-development market. According to a report by Smart Electric Power Alliance, the demand for community-shared solar is soaring, but supply cannot catch up due to a lack of financing options.
Commercial buildings should be prime customers for companies selling energy efficiency services. But the commercial energy efficiency market has failed to grow close to its full potential.
In 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced the beginning of an initiative that he would later dub the “project of the century.” The Belt and Road Initiative is a massive infrastructure-integration project undertaken by the Chinese government to improve the connectivity between Asia, Europe and Africa. It effectively covers more than half of the world’s population and a third of the world’s GDP.
Community microgrids can be initiated by a wide range of individuals or organizations. They include mayors and utilities. They also may include “anchor” off-takers like hospital management, development companies, or community organizations. But to succeed, they require that at least one person really take the lead and energize the project.
