In the wake of the successful release of Meeting the Challenge of Our Time: Pathways to a Clean Energy Future for the Northwest, the Clean Energy Transition Institute had an exceptionally busy summer fielding inquiries and making presentations about the Northwest deep decarbonization pathways study.
We are now set for an equally exciting fall. Here are the summer highlights and a preview of what’s on deck from now until December:
The Institute kicked off its briefings with Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s climate policy team in June. Next up was a lively discussion among numerous Microsoft employees from the company’s sustainability, climate, and clean energy initiatives in early July.
Subsequent presentations engaged national organizations, such as the National Resources Defense Council and the Union of Concerned Scientists; local advocacy groups, including Climate Solutions, the Northwest Energy Coalition, Renewable Northwest, Sightline Institute, and Washington Environment Council, among others; and business groups, including the Clean Tech Alliance, E8 Angels, Carbon Innovation, and Neste.
On August 13, the Institute and our technical consultant, Evolved Energy Research, presented the study findings to the Northwest Power Planning Council full council meeting, which resulted in this excellent article in Clearing Up, the region’s premier energy and utility news publication.
We continue to work our way through the requests from utilities, academic institutions, and nonprofit organizations for briefings about deep decarbonization and thank everyone for the ongoing interest in learning about the pathways to clean energy in the Northwest.
To enable easy access to the rich findings of the Northwest deep decarbonization pathways study, we divided the study into a nine-part blog series.
Institute Executive Director Eileen V. Quigley will moderate a panel on October 9 at the GridFWD conference in Seattle on how renewable energy commitments are shaping markets. On November 2, Institute Board President Marc Daudon and Eileen will put on a decarbonization workshop at the Yale Environmental Sustainability Summit in New Haven, CT.
Two weeks later, Institute alumna and current Pacific Northwest National Lab strategy advisor Angela Becker-Dippmann and Eileen will keynote the Energy Leadership Summit in Seattle and on December 2, Eileen will present the Northwest deep decarbonization pathways study findings at the Northwest Energy Coalition’s Clean & Affordable Energy Conference.
We have been hard at work developing our strategy for accelerating deep decarbonization in the region. Our goal is to produce policy, technology, and investment frameworks for each of the decarbonization pathways in the 2020-30 timeframe with the engagement of key stakeholders—policymakers, utilities, advocates, and businesses. To accomplish this, we will hold a series of convenings, starting in late October and continuing into 2020 to develop plans to guide actions from now until 2030.
In August, we received the excellent news that the Stolte Family Foundation had decided to renew its general support for the Institute and in September the Bullitt Foundation awarded a grant for our project on decarbonizing buildings with an equity focus. We have a grant application pending with the Tableau Foundation to support our clean energy mapping project.
We are thrilled to welcome Nicole Larson to the Institute's team as our Research Assistant. Nicole graduated from Pomona College this past May with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy Analysis focused on Environmental Analysis. We published segments of her senior thesis on policy mechanisms to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles in a seven-part series as follows:
In closing, we would like to invite you to support the Clean Energy Transition Institute’s work with a tax-deductible contribution of any amount. We must raise $350,000 by the end of 2019 to support our programs, so we greatly appreciate any donation you can make.
Thank you very much for your ongoing engagement in our important work to decarbonize the Northwest.
Sincerely,
Eileen V. Quigley
Executive Director
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