Policy Practicum: Policy Drivers To Accelerate the Clean Energy Transition

Catalog description

The U.S. has a decades-long history of using a variety of tools to promote the development and deployment of solar, wind and other clean energy sources at the federal and state levels. Application of these pro-clean energy federal and state policy tools have changed energy market dynamics and spurred remarkable growth in clean energy throughout the U.S. Continued expansion of clean energy resources--accompanied by new investments in related storage and electrical transmission resources--is essential to reliably and cost-effectively meet growing electricity needs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This will not be easy. It will require learning from past clean energy policy successes--and failures--and adjusting them to today's volatile mix of spiking energy prices; the siting and operation of controversial new data centers; increased antipathy to some forms of clean energy; and a balkanized and slow-to-change electricity regulatory system. This Policy Lab will take on this task by undertaking a multi-disciplinary historical review and critique of clean energy outcomes achieved at the federal and state levels, with a special focus on outcomes generated in a handful of target states including California, Texas, and Florida. In addition to evaluating the relative success achieved by applying traditional policy tools to spur the growth of clean energy at the state and federal level, the Policy Lab will explore potential policy responses at the federal and state level (including through the lens of actions being taken in target states) to anti-clean energy headwinds, on-going concerns about slow siting and permitting processes, opposition to large new data centers, utility reforms, and grid modernization needs. Based on this analysis, the Policy Lab will develop a menu of refreshed, evidence-based energy policy recommendations for federal and state policy-makers,…