The Latin America Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency’s first in-depth and comprehensive assessment of Latin America and the Caribbean, builds on decades of collaboration with partners. In support of the region’s energy goals, the report explores the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. It provides insights on the ways in which the outlook for the region and the biggest global energy trends are deeply intertwined.
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The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) undertook a modeling analysis of technical pathways for achieving sharp cuts in economy wide, energy-related, heat-trapping emissions in the United States. They optimized the analysis for the lowest energy-system costs to better understand both the challenges and the opportunities that would arise when taking an expansive, interconnected view of energy, the economy, and society. The analysis shows that the United States has viable pathways to get to net-zero heat-trapping emissions no later than 2050.
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North Carolina is making significant strides in the clean energy sector, with wind and solar providing nearly 10% of the state’s electricity. The state’s clean energy capacity, currently at 6,433 MW, is set to grow significantly by 2030 and is powered in part by over $15 billion in investments. And the sector – which currently employs nearly 10,000 North Carolinians – is poised for further expansion.
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The report emphasises the positive economic effects of OSW on domestic shipbuilding and supply chain, with more than 30 new vessels currently either ordered or under construction to bolster the industry’s operations. It offers critical insights into upcoming OSW projects and the locations of announced manufacturing facilities among other things.
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The report provides analysis and recommendations to support the growth of the sustainable finance market in the region. The previous update on this market was published in September 2021, and at the end of June that year Climate Bonds had recorded GSS+ debt volume of USD48.6bn originating from the region. By the end of 2022, the LAC GSS+ market had reached USD154.1bn.
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The regulatory component of IRENA’s Clean Energy Corridor of Central America (CECCA) initiative focuses on assessing solar and wind PPAs to ensure a level playing field for renewables vis-à-vis conventional generation, given that current frameworks appear to offer limited investment incentives for variable renewable energy (VRE). To support this work, IRENA developed this report to provide an overview on the use of firm capacity across countries in the region and for contracting power generated by renewables.
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To maintain affordability during this investment boom, US utility spending must be cost effective. Totex ratemaking is a regulatory innovation that could help keep utility rates affordable through the clean energy transition. By changing how regulators set the utility’s revenue allowance, it allows alternative solutions to compete with capital projects on a level playing field.
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The United States’ West Coast has vast, untapped offshore wind resources to help decarbonize the country’s energy system. Offshore wind would diversify generation resources while reducing land-use conflicts in the Western U.S., where 80 percent of customers are served by utilities with net-zero carbon emission mandates. Coastal states make up 57 percent of Western electricity demand.
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Leaders must steer their organizations through a minefield of changes and disruptions. How can they prioritize investments and initiatives as they look to deliver clean, just, and predictable energy in the years to come? The survey prepared by ICF answers pressing questions from nearly 200 utility executives—uncovering pain points and opportunities for utilities to get ahead.
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Despite economic uncertainty, however, the USEER analysis shows the energy sector experienced positive job growth, increasing 4.0% from 2020 to 2021, outpacing overall U.S. employment, which climbed 2.8% in the same period. Overall, the total number of energy jobs increased, from 7.5 million in 2020 to more than 7.8 million in 2021, after a steep decline in 2020. There are more than 3 million jobs, 40% of total energy jobs, that support reducing U.S. emissions to zero across several sectors.
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The largest increases in U.S. electricity generation in the next two years are likely to come from renewable energy sources, driven by expanded generating capacity from these sources. It is expected that renewable energy will provide 22% of U.S. generation in 2022 and 24% in 2023, up from a share of 20% last year. Solar capacity additions in the electric power sector total 20 gigawatts (GW) for 2022 and 22 GW for 2023.
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Ordinances No. 32/GM/MME and No. 33/GM/MME, both in effect as of December 17, 2021, issued by the Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy, determined the schedule for generation and transmission auctions in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Among energy auctions, reserve of energy and reserve of power auctions, and supply of isolated systems auctions, eight auctions of power generation are planned in 2022, seven in 2023 and other seven in 2024.
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To face a climate-altered future, the United States needs a resilient, affordable, and nimble electric system, one that can adjust and adapt to any situation, keeping the lights on no matter the challenge. Ensuring that the country has affordable and available electricity requires that Congress pass legislation now to support renewable energy and build a more resilient electric grid—the system that connects a source of energy such as a power plant to the consumers who use it.
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This publication is intended to serve as a resource primarily for school districts and transportation directors exploring school bus electrification and provide them with a better understanding of the state of the electric school bus market and available offerings. It aims to present the growing interest and investment in the sector along with key aspects of the current technology.
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To assess the industry’s near- and mid-term trajectory in meeting these goals, this report conveys the results of new surveys of professionals who represent companies that actively finance or develop projects in the renewable energy sector. The surveys assess respondents’ experiences in the market over the past year and their expectations for sector investment and development over the next three years.
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In the long term, global and Canadian ambition to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will be a critical factor in how energy systems evolve. EF2021 considers two main scenarios where energy supply and demand projections differ based on the level of future action to reduce GHG emissions. EF2021 also includes six additional scenarios that explore what Canada’s electricity system might look like in a net-zero world.
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Cities are on the front lines of climate change. As climate change intensifies, it will exacerbate existing problems plaguing cities such as rural-urban migration; air, water, and land pollution; poverty; and inequality. In this context, climate solutions like net-zero greenhouse gas emission strategies must also achieve other green outcomes that increase resilience, reduce pollution, make governance more inclusive, improve access to services, and create new jobs in cleaner and more circular economies.
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NREL released a report outlining supply chain needs required to reach the United States’ national offshore wind goal of 30 gigawatts by 2030. With international offshore wind supply chains already near capacity, there is an immediate need to develop a domestic network to scale up this industry. This report estimates achieving 30 GW of offshore wind capacity will require at least 2,100 wind turbines and foundations and 6,800 miles of cable.
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Climate policy that is effective and durable must comprehensively address these social and economic challenges. The framework presented here can help federal and state policymakers to design and implement comprehensive climate policy that works for communities affected by the energy transition — and equip advocates to fight for strong policies. Comprehensive policies can help create a healthy and thriving clean energy economy for all.
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This companion policy report provides California policymakers with no-regrets actions to implement reliability insights from the technical analysis. The recommendations show how the state can mitigate risks from deploying resources too slowly, and reduce air pollution impacts of legacy natural gas power plants, while expanding resource diversity and regional coordination to improve reliability.
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