The Energy Transition Show with Chris Nelder

What are the hard problems and interesting questions on the road to energy transition, and what are their solutions? An astronaut and professor has answers.

Corporations have emerged as some of the top buyers of renewable electricity, even buying it from wind and solar farms in other states. But why are they doing that when they could just buy grid power? And how do “virtual PPAs” work, anyway? Erin Craig has the answers.

We discuss the current state of climate science and rebut the arguments of climate change skeptics, and look ahead to what must be done to halt climate change.

Learn about green bonds and how they mobilize private capital for energy transition and climate change mitigation. Discover the roles for private, corporate, and sovereign issuers. Explore the need for the green bond market to grow and its potential to address stranded assets in the fossil fuel sector. Understand how the appetite for green bonds relates to monetary policy and appropriate discount rates for climate change measures. Hear about lending through mobile phones for solar panels in East Africa and the benefits of mobile repayment collection and creditworthiness assessment.

This is a special, free "extra" episode recorded at RMI’s eLab Annual Summit in December 2016 in Austin, Texas. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) based in Golden, Colorado provides a wide range of research, guidance, and policy support to the whole government stack in the U.S., from the local and city level all the way up to the federal and tribal level. From supporting the rebuild of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, to informing policies with things like calculating the Value of Solar (VOS) and figuring out better ways of doing demand response, NREL is helping to lead the way on energy transition. We interview Elizabeth Doris of NREL at RMI’s eLab Summit 2016. Disclaimer The views, opinions, and positions expressed by the author and those providing comments on these podcasts are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of Rocky Mountain Institute or any employee thereof.

This is a special, free "extra" episode recorded at RMI’s eLab Annual Summit in December 2016 in Austin, Texas. Should utilities be allowed to own EV charging infrastructure, or should that be reserved for private charging companies? How many Level 3 high-voltage chargers do we need at workplaces and shopping areas? And how do we build charging infrastructure now that won’t become stranded assets if and when we transition to fleets of autonomous vehicles? We interview Jonathan Levy of Vision Ridge Partners at RMI’s eLab Summit 2016 to find out. Disclaimer The views, opinions, and positions expressed by the author and those providing comments on these podcasts are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of Rocky Mountain Institute or any employee thereof.

This is a special, free "extra" episode recorded at RMI’s eLab Annual Summit in December 2016 in Austin, Texas. Through a variety of programs, Austin Energy, the eighth largest publicly-owned electric utility in the U.S., has led the way to an EV future in Texas, installing the first EV charging infrastructure in the region, offering rebates for installing charging stations and the ability to charge up at 250 charging stations throughout the city for a low flat rate using 100% renewable energy. Karl Popham, the Electric Vehicle & Emerging Technologies Manager at Austin Energy, explains how he did it and what other similarly positioned utility leaders can do in an interview from RMI’s eLab Annual Summit 2016. Disclaimer The views, opinions, and positions expressed by the author and those providing comments on these podcasts are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of Rocky Mountain Institute or any employee thereof.

This is a special, free "extra" episode recorded at RMI’s eLab Annual Summit in December 2016 in Austin, Texas. What are some of the ways that New York is building its resilience capacity while executing its Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) energy transition plan, particularly as a response to the damage it suffered in Superstorm Sandy? Is it possible to have a successful energy transition without also securing justice and equity, particularly for the underserved and disadvantaged among us? And what is the future for energy transition in the U.S. in the era of President Trump? Eleanor Stein of America’s Power Plan, who was Project Manager for New York’s REV initiative, shares her insights from a lifetime of work on climate and justice issues at RMI’s eLab Annual Summit 2016. Links Disclaimer The views, opinions, and positions expressed by the author and those providing comments on these podcasts are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of Rocky Mountain Institute or any employee thereof.

The North Seas Countries’ Offshore Grid Initiative would knit together the power grids of the countries adjacent to the North Sea, and enable a far greater share of renewables—especially offshore wind—on the northern European grid than would be possible otherwise. It would also make it possible to use Norway’s substantial hydro capacity as a giant battery to balance out the variability of wind and solar on the grid. And in the longer term, it could be a key part of a European “supergrid” that would connect the transmission grids of all of Europe, and potentially even tap the massive solar capacity of the Middle East and northern Africa. These are big, bold ideas, and implementing them won’t be easy or cheap, but the benefits would be enormous… so much so that building these transmission links might be inevitable. But the planning alone has already gone on for at least seven years, and while some of the countries that would connect to the North Seas Offshore Grid are already building parts of their contribution to it, there is still much work to be done…and building the physical infrastructure might be the easy part! In this episode we talk with a Dutch expert who has been directly involved in evaluating and planning for these supergrids to see where they now stand, what their potential costs and benefits are, and what we might expect in the future.

This is a special, free "extra" episode recorded at RMI’s eLab Annual Summit in December 2016 in Austin, Texas. Grid architecture is evolving, with loads becoming increasingly indistinguishable from generators, and local generators and other distributed resources increasingly supplying the services that were always provided by large central generators in the past. Meanwhile, an ever-evolving set of regulations for wholesale market operations is both enabling new market participants and challenging the security of old market participants. Lorenzo Kristov of the California Independent System Operator returns to the Energy Transition Show to share more of his view of the future in an interview from RMI’s eLab Annual Summit 2016. Disclaimer The views, opinions, and positions expressed by the author and those providing comments on these podcasts are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of Rocky Mountain Institute or any employee thereof.