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India Kick-Starts Wholesale Market Reforms

By Dheer Patel
Over the last couple of decades, Indian policymakers have been implementing a wide range of reforms in the electricity sector with the goal of providing reliable, affordable, and clean power to all citizens. During the last few months, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has started describing wholesale electricity market reforms through a series... Read More

EU at risk of missing 2020 energy efficiency targets: Lessons for 2030

By Samuel Thomas
Energy consumption in the EU is rising despite targets to reduce demand across Europe. This should not come as a surprise and is explained mainly by GDP growth, writes Samuel Thomas. It’s 1992. The Republicans have been in the White House for 12 years. President George H. W. Bush Sr. has overseen victory in the Cold War and a wave of optimism for the future... Read More

Energy markets will deliver the flexible, decarbonised power system that we need, not capacity markets

By Michael Hogan, Philip Baker
Energy-only markets will enable the integration of the European electricity market and development of the flexible resources needed to support a decarbonised future. Philip Baker and Michael Hogan offer a critique to RTE’s impact assessment of the French capacity market. Energy-only markets (EoM) are the building blocks of Europe’s integrated electricity m... Read More

A perfect match: Using carbon revenues to finance energy efficiency

By Catharina Wiese, Richard Cowart
Europe is racing to meet ambitious 2030 and 2050 climate goals but is still stumbling over one of the foundation stones of a cost-effective clean energy transition—investments in end-use energy efficiency. While this month’s “yellow vest” protests in France are not focused on the emissions trading system (ETS), they are a striking reminder of how hard it ... Read More

“共益电气化：确保电气化实现公共利益”系列报告之《共益电气化：供暖》

By Jessica Shipley, Jim Lazar, David Farnsworth, Camille Kadoch
执行摘要 睿博能源智库认为，有效益的电气化，或者说实现社会利益最大化的电气化，需要达到以下一个或多个条件，且对另外两个条件不产生反作用： 从长期看可以为消费者省钱； 促进电网的更好管理； 减少对环境的消极影响。 由于供暖在普通美国家庭的能耗... Read More

EVs’ Rise Doesn’t Need to be Auto Dealers’ Demise

By David Farnsworth
Some argue that the growth of electric vehicles will be the end of auto dealerships. Car dealers today derive significant revenues by providing parts and service for the internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles they sell. If EVs, with their far fewer moving parts and far lower maintenance requirements, displace ICE vehicles, the reasoning goes that dealer revenu... Read More

Back to the future: A strong electric vehicle benchmark can cut transport emissions and help modernise Europe’s electricity grid

By Julia Hildermeier
Over a century ago, electric vehicles (EVs) were the best-selling cars on the market. In 1900, 28 percent of cars on the road in the U.S. were electric. If the competing combustion engine technology had not taken over, today’s policymakers would likely face a much smaller challenging in cutting greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution in the transport ... Read More

Britain’s capacity market: What Europe can learn

By Philip Baker
The U.K.’s marketwide capacity mechanism for electricity provides a solution to a supply problem that has yet to emerge, writes Phil Baker. A targeted strategic reserve is likely to be a more cost-reflective alternative, he argues. In 2014 Great Britain introduced a marketwide capacity mechanism in the belief that necessary investment in generation capacity ... Read More

Building efficiency is crucial to a fair energy transition

By Jan Rosenow, Sibyl Steuwer
When we think of the complex transition to clean energy, we often think in terms of broad “how” questions. One question rightfully gaining increasing attention across the EU is how to address energy poverty as part of the clean energy transition. In Germany, even conservative estimates assume that one in ten households cannot afford to keep adequately warm. T... Read More

Smart Grid and Community Benefits—with No Rate Increase? How Burbank Made it Happen

By Jim Lazar
Burbank Water and Power (BWP) is a 50,000-customer, community-owned municipal utility in the Los Angeles area. BWP has implemented an advanced smart grid network, and did so with no rate increase to consumers. How did they do this? BWP received a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG) as well as a grant from the California Energ... Read More

The Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP)® is an independent, non-partisan, non-governmental organization dedicated to accelerating the transition to a clean, reliable, and efficient energy future.