the Environmental Impact of Wind Power

The Office of Indian Energy, in partnership with the Western Area Power Administration, hosted a webinar titled “Utility-Scale Energy Development” on Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2018. In this webinar, attendees will hear about common challenges faced by tribes for utility-scale energy development, and ideas for how to approach these challenges. Speakers included Megan Day from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Glenn Steiger from Navajo Tribal Utility Authority.

The majority of the developing world still faces great challenges in mobilising financing for critically needed energy projects ranging from electrifying health clinics to powering industry and development. These challenges were prominent even before the pandemic but subsequently, the fiscal space for recovery and sustainable development efforts became further constrained by additional obstacles to access financing, limited public and private investments and continuing debt service obligations. The crisis in Ukraine further brought new levels of uncertainty.

Join Environment America for the next event in our Mayors for Solar Energy webinar series on Wednesday, June 19th: Between solarize campaigns, solar co-ops, and other solar group purchasing programs, there are plenty of options that can help businesses, homeowners and others purchase solar energy collectively. These programs are broadly beneficial, simplifying the process of going solar, helping more customers get started and lowering the cost for everyone involved. Join us on Wednesday, June 19th at 3pm ET to learn more about solar group purchasing and how it might work for your community. This webinar will feature experts from companies and organizations that run group purchasing programs, as well as communities that have seen the benefits of solarize campaigns and co-ops first-hand. Topics will include the benefits of solar and group purchasing for cities, how different programs operate, and tips and resources to help your city take the next step. WEBINAR: “Solar co-ops, Solarize and More: How group purchasing programs can expand solar access in your community”

The US Department of Energy (DOE) produced a report on net energy metering (NEM) in response to a request from Congress. To gather information for the report, DOE conducted a Request for Information (RFI) and tasked ICF, Inc. to review 15 recent cost-benefit studies related to NEM. DOE’s report is a 10-page letter that summarizes the conclusions it drew from the responses to the RFI and from ICF’s report. ICF’s analysis for DOE, Review of Recent Cost-Benefit Studies Related to Net Metering and Distributed Solar, highlights the different value categories, approaches, and assumptions used in NEM cost-benefit analysis, value of solar studies, and broader DER valuation frameworks, emphasizing commonalities and differences between them, and how they are evolving over time. A short summary is available on ICF’s blog. The National Regulatory Research Institute released a Review of State Net Energy Metering and Successor Rate Designs, which summarizes state public utility commissions’ actions to find alternatives to the more commonly used net metering rate design. These alternative proposals include compensating for energy delivered to the grid at a price other than the retail service rate; increasing fixed charges and sometimes also minimum bills; time-varying rates; and adding demand-charges to bills for customers who did not have them previously.