Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology LLC
98 Battery Street , Suite 202 , San Francisco, California, United States

Energy Innovation’s mission is accelerating clean energy by supporting the policies that most effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Through customized research and analysis for decision makers, we uncover the strategies that produce the largest results. We work closely with other experts, NGOs, the media, and the private sector to ensure that our work complements theirs.

Why We Work

Climate change poses grave threats, but many people underestimate the impacts and do not realize how little time we have to act. Two of our reports, The Extremes Become the Norm and The Costs of Delay, make these points unnervingly clear. Scientists argue that adding more than a trillion tons of carbon to the atmosphere—total, over all time—could trigger runaway climate change. Natural cycles can kick in as dangerous feedback loops that spin out of control, threatening both the human prospect and the environment.  This trillion-ton “carbon budget” is already half-spent. Under business as usual, the planet is on track to spend the other half by 2050. To make matters worse, each year of delay in reversing emissions growth makes it harder for us to land at a reasonable climate future—ever.

The good news is that it is still possible to turn around this emissions trend, and keep climate change to a manageable level. Our article, A Trillion Tons, walks through the inventory of solutions. Dramatic innovations in technology and policy make this possible.  The cost of solar has dropped 80 percent in the last five years, and the price of wind power has dropped by about half. Many energy-using devices, like lighting, have done just as well.  These advances have helped install tens of gigawatts of renewable energy capacity around the world. More than a quarter of Germany’s power comes from renewables, and the country has a goal to have renewables meet nearly all of its power needs by 2030. Twenty-nine U.S. states have implemented policies that require a share of their power portfolio comes from renewable sources; California will hit its target of 33 percent in just a few years. At the national level, President Obama set a target to reduce total U.S. emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced policies that will reduce power plant emissions 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Focus On Policy

California refrigerator standardsSmart policy can accelerate these trends. In fact, policy is the only method to drastically reduce carbon emissions. Refrigerators, for example, now use 80 percent less energy than they did two decades ago thanks to well-designed performance standards. In California, new buildings consume 80 percent less energy than those built before the state adopted advanced codes.  Many well-intentioned energy policies are poorly designed, fail to capture expected benefits, or waste money along inefficient routes to reach their objectives. To avoid the mistakes of the past, we assess policies to determine not only whether they reach their environmental goals, but also how to design laws and standards to accelerate innovation and lock in progress. Policies That Work highlights ten of the world’s most important energy policies, and outlines the top criteria to successfully design and execute them in any context. If the world’s largest economies adopt these policies and enforce them the right way, we can win the battle against dangerous climate change.  A clean, low-energy future is within our reach: It will cost roughly the same as a system based on dirty and outdated technologies.  With smart policies driving new technologies, we can avoid the worst effects of climate change. But we need to accelerate this transformation. That is Energy Innovation’s mission.

What We Do

• Tectonic shifts are rocking the power grid: Clean energy costs are plummeting. Technology is turning buildings into thermal batteries that can conserve power with the flip of a switch. New businesses are entering the power industry, shifting a historically monopolistic sector into a highly competitive age. A changing climate is making extreme weather more common, testing the resilience of critical infrastructure.  Policymakers face the difficult task of balancing three must-haves for the power sector: affordability, reliability, and environmental performance. It’s a tall order to get this right—and getting it wrong gravely imperils the economy.
• Energy is a mammoth portion of the global economy and the world spends trillions every year on energy and the capital equipment that generates or consumes it. Most energy infrastructure lasts for decades, making it crucial to get energy policy right.  Well-designed and well-implemented energy policy can improve energy security and minimize emissions at no additional cost (or even net savings) to the economy. Done wrong, energy policy can waste billions of dollars and lock in dirty, inefficient systems for decades to come.  Our free and open-source Energy Policy Simulator computer model uses government data to estimate the environmental, economic, and human health impacts of hundreds of climate and energy policies. We have developed a United States version of the simulator and has partnered with a handful of international organizations and government agencies to develop models for Canada (including a regional Alberta version), China, India, Mexico, Indonesia, Poland, and Saudi Arabia — with more to come. Together, these countries represent 55 percent of global emissions .  The EPS identifies policies to achieve policymakers’ goals and recommend the most effective policies, as well as evaluate the impacts of policy or program announcements.
• California has played a vital role in climate and energy policy for decades. From pioneering energy efficiency initiatives for buildings and appliances nearly half a century ago, to setting the first-in-the-nation tailpipe emissions standards for cars and one of the first statewide renewable electricity standards in 2002, to putting the state at the forefront of climate action with a commitment to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 with Assembly Bill (AB) 32 in 2006, California has helped lead America’s energy policy solutions for a low-carbon future.  While the broad outlines of California’s climate strategy are set, important design and implementation challenges remain, and the state needs to ramp up its rate of emissions reductions. Energy Innovation’s efforts to help the state successfully achieve its aggressive 2030 target includes original analysis, regulatory engagement, and communications outreach.
• More than 1 million people move to cities every week, so the shape of urban areas and their transportation networks strongly affects global energy use and carbon emissions.  Our urban sustainability work is focused on China, a rapidly urbanizing country which will have one billion urban residents by 2030. Our principal project is “Emerald Cities: Planning for Smart and Green China,” the first comprehensive manual detailing how to build a sustainable city from the ground up in China, laying out green building and sustainability practices for low-carbon city planning and construction in China and abroad. The manual’s 10 principles aim to establish green, healthy and economic vibrant cities, while solving pollution and livability challenges faced by China’s cities..  Emerald Cities builds upon the Green and Smart Urban Development Guidelines, which identify the most critical elements of urban form, transportation, and energy and resource management, and outline how advanced technologies can be used to optimize urban systems.