Clean Energy 101: Virtual Power Plants
Homes and businesses can make the grid more reliable, and get paid to do so, by forming virtual power plants.
Resilient Solutions
Sustainable Responses to Climate Crises
Climate-induced natural disasters are multiplying across the globe. From hurricanes and flash flooding, to droughts, heatwaves, and wildfire, more of the world is being touched by often devastating, costly damage than ever before. Yet even as these risks spread, solutions are multiplying that are providing more affordable, resilient options to help rebuild better when crisis hits, such as strengthening grid capacity, improving resiliency, and empowering the local workforce. RMI is rewriting the script on climate disaster response, from one marked by suffering and slow rebounds, to rebuilding with more equitable, affordable solutions. Explore RMI’s resilient solutions below.
Capacity
Wasted Wind and Tenable Transmission during Winter Storm Elliott
More wind energy and interregional transmission could have mitigated the impacts of rolling blackouts experienced during Winter Storm Elliott.
Reality Check: Keeping the Lights on in Extreme Winter Weather
Grid outages in extreme weather are a fossil fuel problem, not a renewable energy problem.
Solar Under Storm
One of the key recommendations of this report is to ensure inclusive multi-stakeholder collaboration. This entails communicating clear market signals to suppliers and upstream equipment providers and coordinating closely among practitioners and installers.
Reality Check: The United States Has the Only Major Power Grid without a Plan
The US electric grid is fragmented into independent grids and transmission planning regions, which poses a threat to reliability, especially during increasingly frequent extreme weather events. To begin to address this issue, a recent FERC workshop laid out challenges and potential solutions for interregional transmission.
Resiliency
Are We Ready for Another Uri?
Texans recently endured another bout of record low temperatures and icy conditions. While it didn’t compare to the devastating effects of winter storm Uri in 2021, it was a grim reminder of last year’s historic freeze.
From Sichuan to California, Extreme Heat Is Pushing the Grid to Its Limit
A range of solutions, from market-based conservation measures to grid hardware upgrades, could prepare the electricity system for future extremes.
US Homeowners and Lenders Face Rising Risks from Extreme Weather
All Americans should have equitable access to tools and financing to future-proof their homes against extreme weather and rising energy costs.
Weathering Climate Risks
Without resilience planning, climate change threatens the pace of the energy transition, in addition to affecting overall energy security and the social benefits that clean energy affords.
Empowerment
Siana and Zsaria: Speeding the Caribbean’s Energy Transition
How two women from Trinidad and Tobago are championing collaborative approaches to accelerate the Caribbean clean energy transition.
Want Energy Resilience? Invest Locally.
Communities can leverage new federal funding to increase resilience in the face of increasing climate-induced disasters.
Our Lights Stayed on During Hurricane Ian
One RMIer recounts his experience braving Hurricane Ian and why the lights stayed on in his solar-powered sustainable community.
Weathering Climate Disasters with Resilience Hubs
In the face of worsening extreme weather, cities are creating resilience hubs to provide communities with numerous health, economic, and environmental benefits.
How the Storm-Ravaged Bahamas Can Be a Model for Resilient Energy
After multiple destructive hurricanes, The Bahamas has become a model on how islands can become more resilient and reduce generation costs.
Bringing Reliable, Renewable Energy to the People
The Puerto Rico Community Energy Resilience Initiative shows that a community-driven process combined with flexible capital and technical assistance is the most effective way to serve the underserved.
Protecting and Empowering Communities during Disasters
Over the past few years, Texans have come to understand the need for resilience in the face of a changing climate.
RMI in the News
AccuWeather
California Leans on Fossil Fuels During Outages
Project Syndicate
Can Humanity Handle the Heat?
Climate Money Watchdog
Reimagining grid resilience with Mark Dyson
Project-Syndicate
Cooling the hottest cities
SmartCitiesDive
Rushad Nanavatty on the motivational effects of extreme weather
New York Times
Amid extreme heat, how States can build resiliency
The Economic Times