The CETI team had a great time partnering with the Northwest Energy Coalition (NWEC) on their fall conference: People and Power in the Energy Transition. Below we highlight some of the ways we collaborated with NWEC and others. As you can see from our big smiles in the team photo below, we had a great day. We appreciate the NWEC team’s hard work to create an interactive conference experience built on partnerships, and we applaud the well-deserved recognition of CETI founding Executive Director Eileen V. Quigley’s leadership.
The people dimension of the energy transition was a focus throughout the conference. We got to roll up our sleeves with a Spark Northwest-led role play exercise, where we were each assigned a different persona in a complicated energy scenario and discussed how to engage our fellow community members in solutions. I enjoyed putting myself in the shoes of the lead Building Operations manager for a small school district. “Yes, rooftop solar and a battery installation sound good, but the school’s outdated electricity panel had a fire in the past, so hold on with the new technology! Wait, any chance we could fund a panel upgrade as part of the project?”
In the post-exercise discussion, we all agreed: that felt a lot like reality! It’s no surprise to CETI supporters that people are at the heart of the transition to clean energy, and this newsletter is full of those connections.
Our upcoming Washington Transmission forum is one example. Expanded transmission capacity is essential to the clean energy transition and as linear infrastructure it touches many communities and governmental jurisdictions on its way across the landscape. In response to the challenges of planning, paying for, and permitting transmission, new efforts have emerged to help people align around the work we have to get done together. We’re excited to bring speakers from those efforts and others with a stake in the conversation together for a robust dialogue on November 19 in Seattle. You can learn more and register for the forum below, and we hope you can join us!
Workers who are building, deploying, managing, and inventing clean energy systems are another key piece of the people + clean energy equation. We’re excited to build on past research with an updated look at workforce development needs and opportunities in our evolving energy landscape. And we’re proud that CETI Research Analyst Jeanne Currie was selected for a year-long Transmission Fellowship hosted by RMI. From research analysts to electricians and laborers, from policymakers to utility staff, from advocates to tribal nations, from inventors to investors, and on and on—the work of the clean energy transition requires a great many people working together.
Last month, I mentioned that we are beginning discussions about CETI’s next chapter. There are so many critical questions and topics in the next several years of the transition to clean energy. The hardest part will be choosing where to focus!
If you value CETI’s work, please consider supporting us on the path ahead. You can use the donate link at the end of this newsletter to support CETI as we work to inform, convene, and provide actionable insight to the many people working to accelerate an equitable transition to clean energy in the Northwest.
Happy autumn,
Becky Kelley
CETI Executive Director
We have started a new project! Working with the Department of Commerce through the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program, the CETI team will conduct a targeted workforce analysis that reviews the current state of Washington’s energy workforce, identifies key changes since our 2023 Net-Zero Northwest Workforce analysis, and anticipates future trends. This work kicked off just last week and will result in a brief to support the workforce analysis component of the Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP) Status Report and Update (due summer 2027). Visit the Washington Climate Partnership website for more information about the state’s CCAP.
Join us November 19 in downtown Seattle for our Decarbonization Forum: Washington Transmission: Why, How, and for Whom? This forum is designed to educate and engage policymakers, regulators, utilities, businesses, and clean energy advocates on three recent transmission initiatives: the Western Transmission Expansion Coalition (WestTEC), the newly formed Washington Electric Transmission Authority (WETA), and The Western Transmission Consortium (TWTC). The forum will explore these efforts as tools to accelerate transmission expansion in Washington state while identifying key considerations that need to be addressed for the benefit of Washington’s economy and entire population.
The forum’s goal is to help key Washington decisionmakers understand the case for investing in transmission, the barriers that exist to meeting the region’s transmission needs, and recent collaborative solutions to overcome those barriers without adverse impacts to environmental, cultural, and agricultural resources. If this sounds like something you are interested in, please join us!
CETI Research Analyst Jeanne Currie was selected for RMI’s 2026-2027 Transmission Fellowship, a year-long program bringing together energy professionals across the country who are working on transmission issues. Over the course of the year, fellows will take part in expert-led and peer-to-peer learning, receive mentorship, and dive into projects with the goal of accelerating and advancing transmission buildout of the US electricity grid. Congratulations to Jeanne for being selected to take part in this fellowship!
Our entire team attended NW Energy Coalition’s 2026 Fall Conference, People and Power in the Energy Transition, on October 15 in Seattle. Some highlights include:
Check out NWEC’s Fall Conference Digest for insights from the event by session and discussion topic.
The Washington State Academy of Sciences (WSAS) released this report at the beginning of the month to support state lawmakers and regulators in designing a new policy framework for valuing distributed solar and energy storage to replace the state’s current net energy metering (NEM) law. The study stresses the added value of storage to solar installations, and points to a need for more than one policy mechanism to realize the full value of solar and storage. This report was commissioned by the Washington State Legislature through a contract with the Department of Commerce.
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