Energy Sector Law and Policy
This tab includes laws and policies for avoiding or reducing climate change impacts in the energy sector, including best practices and legal and policy analysis.
Resources are automatically presented by rating, but can be sorted by date or title. Apply additional filters to narrow the list by resource type, impact, jurisdictional focus, state, or region.
136 results are shown below.
Filter by States AffectedSelect states to filter this list
All
Alabama Alaska American Samoa Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Guam Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Northern Marianas Islands Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Puerto Rico Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virgin Islands Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming
Resource
August 7, 2018
The Resilient Puerto Rico Advisory Commission - a collaborative of leaders from Puerto Rico’s businesses, government, and NGOs - came together with local communities after Hurricane Maria to determine how to best rebuild Puerto Rico as a more physically, economically, and socially resilient island. The Commission released ReImagina Puerto Rico as a guide to resilient recovery and reconstruction. The report offers recommendations for how to maximize philanthropic, local government, and federal recovery funds.
Resource Category: Solutions
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
2018
The District of Columbia Public Service Commission’s (DCPSC) establishment of the Customer Impact Working Group within the Modernizing the Energy Delivery System for Increased Sustainability (MEDSIS) initiative is a replicable example of how utility commissions are working to invite equitable input in grid modernization efforts. DCPSC initiated the MEDSIS initiative as a means of making the energy delivery system more sustainable, reliable, efficient, cost effective, and interactive for District customers. DCPSC approved the establishment of six working groups to elicit input from a diverse range of stakeholders in order to address key issues related to modernizing the District’s energy delivery system. The Customer Impact Working Group is examining how grid modernization efforts may impact various customers, including exploring questions of customer equity, data protection and privacy, consumer protection, and low- and limited-income customer inclusion. This Working Group will produce recommendations aimed at ensuring that all customers benefit from grid modernization efforts.
Resource Category: Planning
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
2018
In early 2018 the Port of Long Beach, in conjunction with Schneider Electric, began planning a microgrid solar Photovoltaic (PV) and Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project. The project will enhance reliability and resiliency of the port’s electricity supply, and reduce the port’s carbon footprint, while simultaneously strengthening local workforce development initiatives, and providing paid, on-the-job training to port workers. By powering the port’s electric terminal equipment and reducing its reliance on diesel generators and the grid, the project reduces the port’s GHG emissions footprint and criteria air pollutant emissions. The microgrid implementation will use union labor from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, with paid training hours to fill workers’ knowledge gaps in installing comparable microgrids. Moreover, the project enlists and provides educational experience to students from the University of California - Irvine, Advanced Power and Energy program in analyzing its performance data. Funding for the plan comes from a $5 million grant from the California Energy Commission (CEC), combined with $2.12 million in matched funds from the Port of Long Beach. The grant requires that the project demonstrate benefits to electricity customers in the local grid in the form of enhanced reliability, lower costs, or improved safety. An overriding objective of all CEC grant projects, is to “lead to technological advancement and breakthroughs to overcome barriers to achieving the state’s statutory energy goals.” As such, the project must document lessons learned in implementation and maintenance in promotion of replicability of similar projects, and the commercialization of microgrids more broadly.
Resource Category: Solutions
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
June 14, 2018
The Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA) Smart Utilities Policy has been launched as a two-year pilot program for resilient infrastructure planning in the City of Boston, Massachusetts. The policy adopts five “Smart Utility Technologies” (SUTs) that prepare Boston’s utility infrastructure for the impacts of climate change such as heat waves and flooding. A Microgrid, or centralized energy system, will be developed that can disconnect from the main electric utility grid during power outages.
Resource Category: Solutions
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
April 2018
In April 2018, New York City released new Climate Resiliency Design Guidelines that apply to all City capital projects, aside from coastal protection projects. The guidelines direct planners, engineers, architects, and others involved in project delivery on how to use regionally-specific future climate projections in the design of City facilities.
Resource Category: Law and Governance
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
March 14, 2018
In March 2018, the 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) initiative released the "Safer and Stronger Cities" report with a series of policy recommendations on how the federal government could help support urban resilience initiatives. Five chapters focus on strategies for enhancing resilience through infrastructure, housing, economic development, and public safety. Each chapter provides a background discussion of the resilience challenges for cities; the opportunities to enhance resilience in these focal areas including climate adaptation strategies; and case study examples of local, state, and federal actions to advance resilience in each sector.
Resource Category: Law and Governance
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
February 2018
This policy paper examines five models for financing solar PV coupled with battery storage (solar + storage) with the aim of identifying solutions for increasing access to renewable energy in affordable housing and community facilities serving low- to moderate-income (LMI) communities. Solar + storage can reduce utility bills, increase the resilience of power systems, and, in some cases, can lead to revenue from grid services. For these reasons, solar + storage is seen as an equity strategy that can benefit LMI communities.
Authors or Affiliated Users: Robert Sanders, Lew Milford
Resource Category: Funding
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
2018
This report quantifies the benefits and costs of smart surface technologies and finds that the risks from extreme heat and weather can be offset by these technologies. It draws on Washington D. C. , Philadelphia, and El Paso as case studies and considers five smart surface technologies: cool roofs, green roofs, solar PV, reflective pavements, and urban trees. The authors find that adopting these technologies can generate millions (or even billions) of dollars in net financial benefits at the city level and can generate half a trillion dollars in net financial benefits nationwide.
Authors or Affiliated Users: Greg Kats, Keith Glassbrook
Resource Category: Solutions
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
January 30, 2018
Safeguarding California in Action provides an overview of the state agency action case studies that were included in the Safeguarding California Plan - the state's climate change adaptation plan. This supplementary document provides 33 examples of actions funded by the state, that state agencies are implementing to make communities, infrastructure, services, and the natural environment more resilient to climate change.
Resource Category: Solutions
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
January 2018
The California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) allocates its Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) to fund projects located in and benefiting low-income and disadvantaged communities, which is an example of utility commissions participating in equitable grid investment. EPIC funds come from rates charged to electricity customers of the state utilities and supports investments in clean energy technologies that benefit ratepayers of investor owned utilities. AB 523 directs the California Energy Commission (CEC) to expend at least 25 percent of its EPIC funds for Technology Demonstration and Deployment funding (TD&D) at sites located in, and benefiting, “disadvantaged communities,” and adds an additional requirement that the CEC expend at least 10 percent of its EPIC funds for TD&D at sites located in, and benefiting, low-income communities located in the state. The CPUC approved the allocation of $60 million of its EPIC funding to projects located in and benefiting low-income and disadvantaged communities that are also specifically prioritized for the investment of proceeds from CA’s cap-and-trade program. These investments are aimed at improving public health, quality of life, and economic opportunity in disadvantaged communities, which are defined by AB 523 as those most burdened by pollution from multiple sources and most vulnerable to its effects, considering socioeconomic characteristics and underlying health status.
Resource Category: Funding
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
