Rocky Mountain Institute Podcast

For the second year, RMI hosted a lunch workshop at Greentech Media’s Grid Edge Innovation Summit, with this year’s event titled: "Grid Modernization Done Right." This workshop follows RMI’sThe Economics of Clean Energy Portfolios report, which makes the case on how portfolios of renewable and distributed energy resources can help avoid $1 trillion of costs for new gas-fired power plants in the US. Our workshop was led by our own Chaz Teplin, and Chaz was joined in San Diego by Jay Oliver, General Manager, Grid Solutions Engineering and Technology, Duke Energy, Ric O’Connell, Executive Director, GridLab, and Curt Kirkeby, Fellow Engineer, Technology Strategy, Avista Utilities. We had a tremendous turnout for the workshop and wanted to make the content of this event available to our network.

Paul Bodnar and James Mitchell of Rocky Mountain Institute sit down to talk about the launch of the Poseidon Principles and just what this means for the shipping industry and for global climate impacts. For the last two years, James has been working with leading financial institutions to develop the Poseidon Principles, the world's first climate alignment agreement for financial institutions. These principles establish a simple, transparent way to integrate climate considerations into lending decisions to incentivize shipping's decarbonization. The Poseidon Principles officially launched today with support from Citi, Societe General, DNB, Danske Bank, and many others.

The second of two podcasts recorded at e-LabAccelerator 2019, RMI sits down over breakfast with three participants to discuss their experience at this year's event. Now in its sixth year, e-Lab Accelerator is a unique collaboration of leading industry actors to develop, implement and spread new solutions that enable a rapid transition to a clean, secure, prosperous and equitable electricity system. RMI welcomed 13 project teams, focused on four core topic areas: new business models for utilities and other solutions providers, grid modernization and planning for distributed energy resources (DERs), electrification of buildings and DER adoption at scale.

Albany Law School Professor Eleanor Stein is a longtime advocate for underrepresented communities, energy equity, and climate justice. After serving for more than two decades as an administrative law judge at the New York Public Service Commission (PSC), she was a project manager for the New York PSC's Reforming the Energy Vision, the state's comprehensive energy strategy. Eleanor has also served as a longtime faculty member for RMI's Electricity Innovation Lab (eLab), where she graciously spent a few minutes with us at the recent eLab Accelerator 2019 to discuss how she has seen the change lab's impact expand to reach a growing number of the industry's thought leaders and advance innovative approaches to a larger set of challenges confronting the energy grid's evolution.

Electric utilities increasingly can optimize their system infrastructure investments and save customers money by employing non-wires solutions (NWS) — portfolios of distributed energy resources (DERs) like solar photovoltaics, energy storage, energy efficiency, and demand response — to meet grid needs. Experts from Rocky Mountain Institute, Smart Electric Power Alliance, Wood Mackenzie, and Strategen joined New York State Energy Research and Development Authority Chairman Richard Kauffman for a wide-ranging discussion on the merits of integrating NWS into new grid modernization efforts.

RMI Impact Spotlight: Clean Energy Access by Rocky Mountain Institute

RMI discusses India's first lighthouse city-Pune-where urban mobility solutions will be tested, implemented and scaled across India.

An examination of emerging opportunities for cooperative electric utilities in the U.S. Mountain West to pursue clean energy at a cost savings to their members. The conversation follows the release of RMI's recent report on the topic.

RMI recently held a sold-out interactive workshop at GTM's Grid Edge Summit to explore the disruptive role technological change and innovation are playing in today's markets, and their effect on capital investments, grid planning, and incumbent business models. RMI Principal Mark Dyson was joined by guests Colton Ching, Senior Vice President, Planning & Technology, Hawaiian Electric Company, Audrey Lee, Vice President, Energy Services, Sunrun, and Marc Romito, Director, Customer Technology at Arizona Public Service for the wide-ranging discussion.

The authors of RMI's new report, The Economics of Clean Energy Portfolios, discuss the main findings and recommendations from the research, which examines the attractive cost and grid-value attributes these combinations of renewables and distributed energy resources like battery storage, energy efficiency, and other technologies provide compared to fossil fuel power plants. The report finds that as much as $500 billion in new and planned investment in natural gas fired power plants is challenged by the cost-competitiveness of clean energy portfolios.

How should electric utilities operating within an increasingly distributed and decarbonized power system best evolve their business models to determine both the appropriate range of services they can efficiently provide, and the role third-party providers have to play in the energy ecosystem to best meet the demands of customers? The authors of RMI's new Reimagining the Utility report discuss the recommendations relayed in the paper and the emerging trends they see as part of a robust discussion on the changing energy landscape.​

Commercial building retrofits aren't happening at a rate or scale needed to address climate change, due in large part to a building-by-building approach which makes them difficult to implement, and even more challenging to finance. But a new approach take a portfolio approach to energy optimization, revealing new ways to capture a $290B prize. RMI's Jamie Mandel and Philip Keuhn describe this pioneering approach.

Darren Schauer, CEO of Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative, and Luis Reyes, CEO of Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, discuss with RMI's Shine team how they are integrating distribution-scale solar into their operating systems and how their members are benefitting. The discussion also includes projections for the growth trajectory for these solar systems for electricity cooperatives across the country.

Utilities crafting new business models and customer programs in response to flat demand and the growth of distributed energy resources (DERs) such as rooftop solar, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles should both leverage industry best practices and seek effective stakeholder collaboration in designing and executing meaningful test projects, according to a new Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) report. RMI’s report, Pathways for Innovation: The Role of Pilots and Demonstrations in Reinventing the Utility Business Model, explores challenges to effective innovation at U.S. electric utilities, with a focus on pilot and demonstration projects. The report offers recommendations for utilities, regulators, and DER technology providers to incorporate meaningful pilot and demonstration projects into innovation programs that advance a low-carbon, distributed, resilient energy system. The report's authors sit down to discuss these recommendations.

Joined by SunPower founder and RMI Board Member Tom Dinwoodie, RMI's team sits down for a wide-ranging conversation on the findings of RMI's intriguing analysis behind its Positive Disruption -- Limiting Global Rise to Well Below 2 Degrees Celsius report. The analysis was delivered at the recent COP 23 global climate convening and at NY Climate Week.