In late 2022, the Clean Energy Transition Institute (CETI) Board and staff decided to step back to assess the Northwest clean energy ecosystem and CETI’s role and impact before developing our 2023 plan.
We interviewed over 40 key Northwest clean energy stakeholders representing utilities, local and state governments, private sector businesses, and nonprofit climate and clean energy advocates to learn about: 1) the Northwest’s capacity to achieve ambitious emission-reduction goals and make good use of federal funding allocated for clean energy investment, and 2) CETI’s impact in achieving its mission to accelerate equitable decarbonization in the region.
After synthesizing the responses that we received from our stakeholder engagement, we chose the areas where we thought CETI could best add value. Read on about the top-level results of our assessment and our strategic focus for 2023.
The majority of people we interviewed for our regional clean energy economy assessment agreed that the Northwest is relatively well-positioned to meet net-zero carbon emission targets—at least compared to other U.S. regions—but still the region faces significant challenges.
The top issues for our respondents included: equity concerns; the ability to implement decarbonization strategies at the required scale; the need for workforce development; and the lack of institutional capacity to take advantage of federal funding opportunities.
Interviewees affirmed CETI’s strengths in terms of analytics, research, communications, and convenings, but noted that our small scale inhibits our impact and urged us to grow our influence and broaden our audiences.
Please see Research Analyst Ruby Moore-Bloom’s blog to read more about what we learned.
In the coming year, CETI will build on the groundwork we have laid since our inception five years ago; sharpen our definition of an equitable clean energy transition and how we apply it to our work; and focus on the regional decarbonization implementation strategies where we can provide the most value.
Our primary goal is to ensure that CETI's research/analysis, convenings, and communications materials provide specific ways to address barriers to equitably decarbonize the electricity grid, the building sector, and rural communities in the Northwest and to build a clean energy workforce.
We also aim to broaden our reach this year by investing in marketing so that our research/analysis, convenings, communications materials, and convenings result in key stakeholders acting on decarbonization solutions and a measurable increase in CETI’s influence in the region. To have the resources to achieve our 2023 goals, we have set a development goal of doubling the funds we received in 2022. Please read about the specifics of our 2023 plan.
While our goals and agenda are ambitious, we know that this is the time to throw our collective shoulders to the wheel to do everything humanly possible to get the Northwest on the path to equitable decarbonization as swiftly as the climate crisis requires.
We thank all who have been on this journey with us for the past five years—particularly our funders without whom CETI would not exist—and look forward to a dynamic and successful 2023 together.
