General
Lessons from a Landmark Aggregated Energy Deal
This week, a world-class university, the largest Level 1 trauma center in New England, and a parking facility in the center of Boston’s Financial District came together to announce a landmark aggregated renewable energy deal to purchase 60 megawatts of solar from a North Carolina solar farm owned by Dominion, a Virginia-based energy company. The deal highlights the importance of aggregation as a means to provide access to large-scale renewable energy projects for unique groups of buyers—not Fortune 500 corporations, but smaller businesses and nonprofits like universities and hospitals.
Accelerator Teams Are Defining a New Era of Utility Relationships
In April 2016, RMI hosted the third annual eLab Accelerator. (Applications are now being accepted for eLab Accelerator 2017.) Described as a boot camp for electricity innovation, the four-day intensive work session brought together 13 teams from across North America—from North Carolina to Ottawa and California to New York—working on new business models, energy innovation districts, and novel ways to value distributed energy resources.
Minnesota Charts a Path Toward a Clean, Affordable, and Resilient Energy System
For decades, Minnesota has been a leader in energy innovation, beginning in 1980 with its Conservation Improvement Program Statute, through its 2007 Renewable Energy Standards, and continuing today with its community solar gardens. Minnesota's newly released 2025 Energy Action Plan lays out a path to enable the state to meet its ambitious renewable energy and energy efficiency goals.
Community-Scale Solar Can Power Corporations, Too
A new option for corporations interested in fueling their operations with clean energy is arising: community-scale solar. An insight brief from RMI’s Shine initiative, which aspires to aggressively accelerate the deployment of community-scale solar systems in the U.S., details the opportunities that community-scale solar offers. Corporations are entering the renewables market in force, and they will find much to like in the community-scale solar market segment.
Changing Lives with Solar Microgrids
Haiti is the poorest the country in the western hemisphere. Only 25 percent of the 10.3 million people in the country have access to electricity. One nonprofit organization is testing a solution that could not only change the lives of the unelectrified in Haiti, but could be a model of…