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The Clean Air Task Force (CATF) argues that the USAID Climate Strategy 2022-2030 should expand its scope beyond renewable energy to include advanced clean energy technologies such as carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), clean hydrogen, and advanced nuclear. CATF contends these are essential for decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors like heavy industry and shipping, and for maintaining grid reliability. The organization also urges USAID to explicitly support the Global Methane Pledge by helping partner countries reduce short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs), specifically in the oil and gas sector, provided such investments do not extend the life of fossil fuel operations. Finally, CATF recommends that USAID better align its climate programming with the broader economic, human development, and COVID-recovery priorities of host countries to ensure long-term sustainability and local ownership.

The report analyzes 11 recent studies, concluding that a transition to 80% clean electricity by 2030 in the U.S. is feasible, affordable, and critical for meeting national climate goals. Key findings indicate that such a transition would be driven primarily by wind, solar, and battery storage, resulting in significant job growth, reduced premature deaths, and substantial avoided health and climate damages, with minimal impact on consumer electricity bills.

A meta-analysis of eight recent studies indicates that the United States can achieve approximately 80% clean electricity by 2030 at minimal cost. The findings suggest that such a transition would drive 500,000 to 1 million net new jobs, avoid up to $3 trillion in health and climate damages by 2050, and is essential for meeting the Biden administration's GHG emissions reduction targets. The analysis concludes that a strong national clean electricity standard (CES) is the most effective policy mechanism, primarily driving the deployment of wind, solar, and battery storage.

The report finds that a vast majority of U.S. coal capacity is now more expensive to operate than building new wind or solar power. As of 2020, 72% of coal capacity (166 GW) was deemed uneconomic or slated for retirement by 2025. The authors argue that this 'cost crossover' is accelerating due to rapid declines in renewable costs and falling coal capacity factors. The document recommends that policymakers implement all-source competitive procurement and coal asset securitization to transition to cleaner, cheaper energy portfolios while managing the financial risks of early plant retirement.

The policy brief addresses the 2020 California blackouts, refuting claims that renewable energy caused the outages. It identifies climate-driven extreme heat and the failure of gas generators as contributing factors. The author argues that a diverse mix of resources, including battery storage and green hydrogen, is necessary to ensure 21st-century grid reliability.

The policy brief examines a pilot project in Mokoloki, Nigeria, where a privately owned solar minigrid shares existing distribution infrastructure with a utility to provide reliable power to 'undergrid' customers. It proposes that India, which faces similar challenges with high technical and commercial losses (up to 40%) and unreliable rural supply, could adopt this model to enhance last-mile service and financial viability for distribution companies.

The document argues that offshore wind is a critical resource for achieving zero-emissions targets due to plummeting costs and high capacity factors. It highlights the transition from fixed subsidies to competitive procurement in Europe as a model for cost reduction and notes that floating turbines could unlock 80 percent of global offshore potential. For the U.S., it recommends establishing procurement targets, creating an interstate transmission backbone, and converting tax credits to direct payments to accelerate deployment.

The policy brief examines how the shift toward variable renewable energy and distributed energy resources (DERs) challenges traditional grid planning paradigms. It argues that the historical reliance on the Planning Reserve Margin (PRM) heuristic is increasingly inadequate for ensuring reliability in a high-renewables system. Furthermore, it warns that fossil fuel incumbents are exploiting these planning uncertainties to protect their market share by framing technical challenges as insurmountable barriers to decarbonization.

The briefing urges the Puerto Rican government to move from planning to action following the passage of Act 17, which sets a 100 percent renewable energy goal. It highlights the urgent need for new capacity in solar and battery storage to mitigate reliability risks caused by earthquake damage to the Costa Sur Power Plant and the legacy of Hurricane Maria. The author advocates for the expedited procurement of solar projects, the use of virtual power plant solutions to integrate existing distributed batteries, and the development of energy efficiency programs to reduce demand and lower costs for ratepayers.

The paper argues that current wholesale electricity markets, designed for large fuel-burning plants with high production costs, are ill-equipped for a future dominated by wind, solar, and storage, which have near-zero production costs and different operational characteristics. It identifies a disconnect between federal wholesale rates and state retail rates as a barrier to demand-side flexibility. The authors propose ten principles for modern markets—including technology neutrality, grid reliability, and long-run efficiency—and outline two emerging pathways for reform: a "Robust Spot Market" approach focusing on decentralized bilateral contracting, and a "Long-Term Plus Short-Term Markets" approach utilizing a centralized forward market.

The document examines the risks that current short-term wholesale electricity markets, based on locational marginal prices (LMPs), may fail to provide sufficient price signals to sustain the investment needed for deep decarbonization. This is primarily due to the minimal short-run marginal costs of variable renewable energy (VRE) and the fact that VRE resources often cannot capture scarcity prices during production lulls. To mitigate this, the authors propose long-term markets that provide contractual certainty through power purchase agreements (PPAs) or similar mechanisms. The report compares three specific proposals (by Corneli, Gimon, and Pierpont), identifying six core commonalities: the use of long-term contracts, voluntary participation, coordination with short-term markets, incremental implementation, optimized policy guidance, and organic implementation pathways. The authors suggest that these long-term markets can better identify efficient portfolios of VRE, storage, and flexible load across broad regions, reducing the risk of overbuild or incompatible resource mixes.

RMI research indicates that clean energy portfolios are now cost-competitive with new natural gas power plants. Consequently, over $70 billion in planned gas-fired power plant construction and $30 billion in new interstate pipelines face significant stranded cost risks, as these assets may become uneconomic by 2035 and lead to increased gas delivery costs.

California has established a target of 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045 and increased its renewable energy requirement to 60 percent by 2030. To reach these goals, the Union of Concerned Scientists proposes ten strategies: improving energy efficiency (especially during evening hours), diversifying renewable sources (wind, solar, geothermal, and low-carbon bioenergy), phasing out natural gas equitably, using renewables for grid reliability services, investing in multi-timescale energy storage, integrating western electricity markets, leveraging distributed energy resources, electrifying buildings and transport, shifting demand to match production, and developing a skilled workforce.

The Union of Concerned Scientists finds that over one-third of US nuclear plants are unprofitable or scheduled to close, primarily due to low natural gas prices. Without new policies, early retirements could increase power sector carbon emissions by 4% to 6% by 2035 as plants are replaced by natural gas and coal. The report argues that national carbon pricing or a low-carbon electricity standard would preserve existing nuclear capacity, diversify the energy mix, and significantly reduce emissions with minimal impact on household electricity bills. It further recommends that any financial support for distressed plants be contingent on high safety performance ratings from the NRC and transparency in financial reporting.

The Crawford Generating Station in Chicago closed in 2012 following community organizing by the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO). While a 2012 memorandum of understanding required stakeholder input for redevelopment, Hilco Redevelopment Partners announced plans in 2018 to build a logistics facility, which LVEJO opposes due to the risk of increased diesel pollution. The Union of Concerned Scientists proposes an alternative: a 10 megawatt solar farm and a 10 megawatt energy storage installation, leveraging the site's existing grid infrastructure and brownfield status under the Future Energy Jobs Act.

The report argues that accelerating the retirement of coal plants in Illinois in favor of clean energy technologies will improve public health, reduce carbon emissions, and lower electricity bills without compromising grid reliability.

The report argues that accelerating the retirement of coal plants in Illinois, beyond the mandates of the Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA), would significantly improve public health and provide economic gains. Modeling shows that replacing coal with wind, solar, and energy storage is affordable and does not compromise grid reliability, as demonstrated by a case study of the Waukegan plant. The analysis highlights that pollution-burdened communities of color and low-income residents stand to benefit most from this transition.

The document outlines the technical framework for the 'Soot to Solar' analysis, utilizing the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) and HOMER Pro models to evaluate energy scenarios in Illinois. It specifies cost and performance assumptions for various generation technologies, calculates the social cost of carbon and health benefits of emission reductions, and assesses the feasibility of replacing natural gas peaker plants with storage and solar. Additionally, it includes land availability assessments for former coal sites and a public health impact analysis conducted with the Clean Air Task Force.

The research note analyzes a U.S. Department of Energy proposal to subsidize uneconomic power plants to maintain grid reliability. It estimates that keeping six FirstEnergy coal and nuclear plants online for two years would cost approximately $2 billion. The author contends that these funds would be better spent on locally-led economic diversification and workforce development, noting that grid operators and reliability bodies do not believe such interventions are necessary for stability. The document suggests that redirecting these funds could provide over $300 million per affected community to support a just transition.

The analysis finds that no new natural gas capacity is needed to maintain grid reliability in California through 2030. Depending on carbon caps and the use of battery storage to meet local capacity requirements (LCR), between 28 and 56 of the 89 modeled natural gas plants could be retired. While overall natural gas generation decreases, the report warns that remaining plants may cycle on and off more frequently, potentially increasing NOx emissions and harming air quality in nearby disadvantaged communities.