Electricity
Pipes or Wires?
This article is a guest posting by Audrey Schulman, co-executive director of HEET in Massachusetts. Audrey championed the Energy Shift Pilot Project, a project team at e–Lab Accelerator 2019. After the 2018 explosions in the Merrimack Valley, it has become a community priority…
The Evolution of Rural Solar: from Panel Monocrops to Multiple Land Uses
photo credit: Center for Pollinators in Energy at Fresh Energy (a Minnesota-based clean energy nonprofit) Solar panels may harness the sun’s energy in the same way that plants do, but while some rural residents view them as another revenue-enhancing crop, others see them more as weed-like nuisances…
Think Distributed Solar-Plus-Storage Isn’t Cost-Effective? Think Again.
As shown in a recent RMI report, battery energy storage costs are less than a fifth of what they were a decade ago. This is enabling batteries to become cost-effective in a growing list of locations and use cases, such as balancing the grid, reducing customer demand peaks, and…
Making Deep Decarbonization a Reality
As the United Nations’ annual climate conference in Madrid limped to a close, it has become clear that climate summits are stuck in a rut. The job of cutting global emissions is actually getting harder, and not just because the planet keeps warming. Like many of the people in the…
Puerto Rico’s Electricity System at a Crossroads
Puerto Rico’s electric system is at a crucial inflection point, with an opportunity to pivot from years of hardship—high energy costs, utility bankruptcy, the largest blackout in US history, and heavy pollution from a system 98 percent powered by fossil fuels—to a new vision that is clean, reliable, and resilient.