In 2013, Marty Kushler, senior fellow at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), gave a presentation in Chicago on gas efficiency programs. He argued that one should not make decisions about programs with lengthy multi-year effects based on the record-low spot market prices for domestic natural gas. Gas at that time was $2…
Time is of the essence if Germany hopes to meet its ambitious net-zero emissions target by 2045. To achieve this goal, the country will have to rapidly transform how it heats its buildings while ridding itself of Russian gas. Alongside increasing the renovation rate of buildings and rolling out clean district heating, heat pumps are…
With several notable recent economic reforms, India is one of the fastest-growing emerging economies. The country aspires to become a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25 and a $10 trillion one by 2030. There is ample evidence that India’s growth has been highly unequal in the past. Therefore, transforming this vision of growth into reality will require…
In 2016, the Regulatory Assistance Project approached Cambridge Econometrics about building a new macroeconomic modelling tool for India. The rationale for the model was simple: India needed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, but much of the policy to do so is set at the state level. A model that could identify the impacts of…
Raoul Dufy’s 1937 fresco La Fée Électricité — an arresting 600 square metre tribute to “the great adventure of electricity” — depicts science and technology leaps such as Faraday’s discovery of electromagnetic induction, Gramme’s direct current dynamo, Baudot’s telegraph, and Edison’s incandescent light bulb. These developments changed the world in ways that were previously unfathomable….
As the electrification of vehicle fleets goes mainstream, fleet owners are facing a gauntlet of challenges, starting with engaging their electric service provider. The utility response of providing “advisory services” is both creative and presents new challenges for utility and air regulators. Advisory services, whether offered by utilities or third parties, are designed to educate…
The energy price and supply risks we are facing today are making the decarbonisation of the power sector by 2035 an even more significant challenge. But if we deviate the heading of our ship from the course for longer than necessary, we will lose the course we set for ourselves: cost-efficient power sector decarbonisation writes…
A lot of folks out there (including we at RAP) have, for the last four decades, been devising ways to make utilities more economically efficient, their customers more energy-efficient, and the power system cleaner, sustainable, more equitable, and non-emitting. But now they have a problem: the world has changed, and suddenly we need more of…
I’m learning how to surf. For my birthday, my kids got together and bought me a surfboard. One day last summer I spent about three hours in the waves off of Popham Beach in Maine trying to figure things out. After about 60 attempts — no kidding — trying to catch a wave, I finally…
Along with the existing environmental and economic rationale for ending reliance on fossil fuels, the war in Ukraine has motivated many in the European Union to increase energy sovereignty. One of the larger fossil fuel consuming sectors is transportation, for which electrification is the alternative, accelerating the pace worldwide with Europe being the biggest market. Reducing…
