As spring finally makes an appearance in the Northwest, the Clean Energy Transition Institute (CETI) is hard at work parsing the rules guiding federal climate/clean energy funding and getting ready to release the Net-Zero Northwest energy, health, and workforce analysis. I want to take a minute to share our excellent breaking news and what is going on with us these days.
On March 11, we learned that the Washington’s Department of Commerce had selected CETI and Evolved Energy Research in a competitive bidding process to assess opportunities for and barriers to deploying green electrolytic hydrogen and renewable fuels in Washington. The report will assess hydrogen’s role in hard-to-decarbonize sectors of the state economy, as well as regional electricity needs and environmental justice considerations. We kicked off this very timely project on April 25 and are excited to be partnering with Commerce again on this cutting-edge work.
On April 28, the McKinstry Charitable Foundation announced a two-year $150,000 grant to support SCALE 2030, a new program of CETI and 2050 Institute that aims to drive systemic change in the way that building owners, developer, real estate mangers, and financiers think about buildings in Washington state. SCALE 2030 is guided by five principles: (1) Simplicity; (2) Cost Reductions; (3) Alignment; (4) Leverage; and (5) Equity. In 2023, we will focus on two initiatives, Mapping Systemic Barriers and Evolving Regional Power Planning. Huge thanks to McKinstry for this generous support!
Like so many other climate-focused organizations throughout the country and region, the CETI team is diligently trying to stay on top of the plethora of federal funding programs coming out of Washington, DC. One new endeavor that CETI Research Analyst Ruby Moore-Bloom has been tracking since February is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. This “first-of-its kind” program will offer competitive grants to finance clean energy and climate projects, particularly ones that benefit low-income and disadvantaged communities. Read her blog to see what she has learned.
Emerald Cities Collaborative, a nonprofit working to create green, resilient cities for communities that have been historically left out of economic and community development processes, operates E-Contractor Academy, which offers small minority construction businesses seven weeks of online evening instruction on sustainable business practices. On Valentine’s Day, I helped kick off the first Northwest residential program with a presentation on Washington state’s clean energy policies and federal clean energy funding. The Academy graduated 13 minority and women contractors on April 14, 2023! If interested in learning more about the important work the Academy is doing, please contact Monica Guevara, ECC’s Economic Inclusion Program Manager.
On April 5, CETI Research Fellows Leslie Nguyen and Cassidy Quigley presented their work developing the Northwest Clean Energy Atlas to a packed auditorium of enthusiastic University of Washington research and graduate students. Leslie and Cassidy are part of the UW’s Actionable Community-Oriented Research eNgagement (ACORN) program, which provides opportunities for graduate students and postdocs in the UW’s Program on Climate Change to collaborate with the community. We have been so very grateful for the year that these Research Fellows and the third ACORN volunteer, Jade Sauve, spent with us. We look forward to welcoming a new group of ACORN volunteers soon.
On April 17, Ruby and I presented at the Pacific Lutheran University’s Steen Family Symposium and Earth & Diversity Week, which was open to students and community members. We spoke about our Community-Defined Decarbonization report in the context of the theme of the week: “Sowing Resilience in Fractured Land.” I shared the key findings from the report—namely that building decarbonization cannot be advanced without addressing the fundamental inequity and energy burden that Washington’s low-income rural and Tribal households face—and Ruby showed the report’s interactive maps.
We have been heads down since February writing up the results of the Net-Zero Northwest (NZNW) energy pathways analysis that Evolved Energy Research began in August. Jeremy Hargreaves, Principal at Evolved, and I will offer a first look at the results on May 5 to the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee Board. The full NZNW analysis will explain what achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 in the Northwest means for our energy systems, improved health due to reduced smokestack and tailpipe emissions, and the region's workforce and employment.
As always, we thank you for your support for and engagement with this critical work.
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