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Boulder Commons is a 100,000 square foot multitenant net-zero energy (NZE) project in Boulder, Colorado, designed to demonstrate the financial viability of NZE leased buildings for developers, landlords, and tenants.

The Carbon-Free City Handbook: Electricity is a guide by RMI that outlines strategies for cities to transition to carbon-free renewable energy. It emphasizes a two-step process: committing to 100 percent renewable energy targets and implementing comprehensive action plans. The document details four specific actions: upgrading to smart LED streetlighting, creating electric districts by removing fossil-fuel infrastructure, installing municipal solar PV, and securing renewable energy supplies through mechanisms like power purchase agreements.

This RMI insight brief presents the 'Sunshine for Mines' program, which provides a methodology for transforming legacy or inactive mine sites from financial liabilities into revenue-generating assets through the development of renewable energy and storage solutions.

This briefing by the Climate Policy Initiative analyzes the 'Green FIDC,' a proposed asset-backed security designed to scale private finance for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in Brazil. The instrument adapts the existing Fundo de Investimento em Direitos Creditórios (FIDC) framework to transition risky greenfield projects into bankable businesses by securitizing project receivables, thereby reducing reliance on the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES).

This document provides the technical annexes for the Renewable Energy Scale-Up Facility (RESF), detailing the financial modeling, assumptions, and expected impacts of a proposed USD 100 million equity fund designed to scale up wind and solar projects in developing regions, particularly Latin America.

This case study describes the development of a 400,000-square-foot net-zero-energy distribution center for the retailer REI in Goodyear, Arizona. The facility is the only distribution center in the U.S. to achieve both LEED Platinum certification and net-zero energy status, demonstrating that high-performance sustainability and business efficiency can coexist in large-scale logistics infrastructure.

This 2017 industry brief by GreenCape examines the financial viability, financing options, and regulatory landscape for solar photovoltaic (PV) installations for businesses in the Western Cape, South Africa. It highlights the role of local government policy, decreasing technology costs, and electricity price increases in driving adoption across the retail, commercial, industrial, and agricultural sectors.

This report by WWF South Africa examines the potential and progress of renewable energy (RE) in South Africa, focusing on the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REI4P) and the challenges posed by the state utility Eskom's dominance and the country's historical dependence on coal.

This case study describes a 2013 capacity-building initiative led by the Renewables Academy AG (RENAC) in Kenya to train state utilities on the design and implementation of PV-diesel-hybrid mini-grids to reduce reliance on expensive and polluting diesel generators in rural areas.

A case study detailing the installation of 150 off-grid PV mini-power plants across 40 health centres and one hospital in Burundi, completed in 2015 by ENERSOL and ETRAVE.

This case study examines the challenges and opportunities for decentralized renewable energy development in Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia. It highlights the gap between the province's high renewable potential—specifically in mini-hydro—and its actual installed capacity, while analyzing the technical, policy, and institutional barriers facing Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and community-led projects.

This case study describes a capacity-building initiative led by Renewables Academy AG (RENAC) in November 2013 to support the Government of Kenya in transitioning rural diesel-powered mini-grids to PV-diesel hybrid systems.

This industry brief by GreenCape examines the financial and technical feasibility of installing solar photovoltaic (PV) systems on packhouses in the Western Cape, South Africa. It highlights that the primary value of these systems is the replacement of expensive grid electricity with self-generated power during peak daytime cooling and energy-intensive operations, potentially reducing electricity costs by 15%.

This briefing by RMI argues that concerns regarding the economic limitations of wind and solar growth—specifically the 'merit order effect' where variable renewables depress wholesale prices—are based on static models that ignore supply-side evolution, demand flexibility, and storage technologies.

This case study describes the construction of the RMI Innovation Center, highlighting the use of Integrative Project Delivery (IPD) to achieve high energy efficiency and cost control. The building serves as a living laboratory to demonstrate mainstream-ready efficiency technologies.

This report by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) analyzes the economic value of battery energy storage in the U.S. electricity grid, arguing that 'behind-the-meter' (customer-sited) deployment offers the highest potential value because it can provide the widest array of services. The authors identify thirteen fundamental services across three stakeholder groups—ISO/RTOs, utilities, and customers—and demonstrate through four case studies that 'stacking' multiple services (using a battery for several different purposes over its lifetime) is essential for achieving positive net economic benefits under current cost structures.

This case study describes an energy savings performance contract (ESPC) completed in 2014 by Lockheed Martin at the U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua. The project achieved a 54 percent energy reduction across nine buildings through a combination of LED lighting retrofits, HVAC optimizations, and the installation of a 956 kW solar PV system, which is the State Department’s largest overseas system.

This report by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) details eight case studies of deep energy retrofits implemented via Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs) in federal and municipal settings. It identifies six best practices for achieving significant energy reductions—averaging 58% across the highlighted projects—without upfront capital costs or Congressional appropriations.

This executive summary from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) analyzes the economic potential of "demand flexibility" (DF)—the use of technology to shift electricity consumption to lower-cost times. The report argues that DF can significantly reduce both customer electric bills and overall grid investment costs by treating demand as a flexible resource ("flexiwatts") rather than a static load.

This briefing by RMI explores the potential of residential demand charges as a tool for electricity rate design. It argues that as distributed energy resources (DERs) like rooftop solar and electric vehicles increase load variability among residential customers, traditional energy-only charges become inequitable. Demand charges, which bill based on the maximum power used in a cycle, can more accurately reflect grid infrastructure costs, promote customer equity, and provide price signals that encourage load shifting and the adoption of demand-management technologies.