It's All About Implementation

When the Clean Energy Transition Institute (CETI) launched in 2018, the word “decarbonization” was rarely uttered. Today, with the passage of multiple climate policies, particularly in Washington, but also in other Western states (Oregon, California, and Colorado), the situation has changed so dramatically it is challenging to track the myriad ways that decarbonization is underway across the region.

The passage of the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) in Washington, as well as the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, offers great promise that funding will be available to invest in the strategies needed to reduce fossil fuel dependence and build a clean energy economy (should the CCA survive a ballot challenge this fall).

Countless studies over the past six years have affirmed what CETI showed in our first Northwest Deep Decarbonization Pathways (NWDDP) study: that the Northwest region, long on power for decades, must now plan for massive new electric load to meet the demand for building and transportation electrification. That load must be clean and will come increasingly from intermittent renewable energy, which poses significant reliability, resource adequacy, and cost allocation challenges.

CETI 2024 Focus

As the region shifts into high implementation gear so, too, must CETI. We have enough forecast data and analytics in the Net-Zero Northwest (NZNW) study to guide implementation for at least the next year of specific decarbonization challenges in the four Northwest states.

We will focus on addressing transmission, renewable energy siting, workforce development, affordability, and rural clean energy development.

CETI will also make clear how we plan to work now and in the future to ensure that the clean energy transition is equitable and benefits historically marginalized communities.

We must also focus on communications that demystify decarbonization and on convening regional decision makers to think through the smartest decarbonization solutions that won’t spin or reinvent wheels but will meet the scale and pace required to transform our energy systems.

Existing Work Serves as a Launchpad

Our existing body of work offers guidance on how to implement decarbonization policies; the scale that is required; the emission targets that must be achieved by 2030; the siting, transmission, and resource requirements; the need for a regional approach to decarbonization and resource planning; and ways to bridge the east-west divide to develop equitable renewable energy projects. However, our analyses to date have provided only limited insights on equity and affordability, so this is an area that we must develop an approach for in 2024.

Similarly, the NZNW Workforce analysis presents a high-level regional assessment of the jobs that will be needed or changed if the Northwest were on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050, but much more is required to understand how the region should develop workforce initiatives to address employment needs as the transition unfolds.

We know there is a shortage of clean energy workers, inequitable distribution of economic prosperity, and federal funds flowing to enable an equitable clean energy transition. We must determine how to bring these threads together in the Northwest.

CETI's 2024 Projects

The following are the projects we will work on in 2024:

• We will socialize the NZNW Energy Pathways analysis with key electricity sector decision makers in the Northwest.
• We will work to demystify emissions and provide key stakeholders with clear and actionable analysis, including NZNW Emissions by sector and an understanding of various methods of emission accounting.
• With our SCALE 2030 project, we aim to explain how Washington can be ready to execute large-scale residential and commercial building decarbonization by 2030. This project, which is funded in part by the McKinstry Charitable Foundation and Sustainable Path Foundation, will develop a building ecosystem map and decarbonization roadmap for the state.
• In partnership with Ross Strategic and Industrial Economics, Inc, (IEc), we will develop a rural clean energy economics and community engagement plan for a contract with the Washington State Department of Commerce.
• With a grant from the University of Washington’s Population Health Initiative and in conjunction with UW professors and graduate students, we will develop interactive data visualizations that show the health, emissions, and economic development potential for developing distributed solar in Washington’s rural and Tribal communities.
• With a grant from the Arthur M. Blank Foundation, we will expand our regional NZNW Workforce analysis to provide state-specific employment analyses for Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. In the second half of the year, we will also conduct a lay-of-the-land assessment of workforce development activity in the region.
• We will continue to partner with UW Research Fellows to update and add to our Northwest Clean Energy Atlas. We will also explore how CETI can engage in mapping efforts that are most useful to stakeholders, including advocates, to tell compelling stories about how the clean energy transition is unfolding.
• We will engage in a variety of communications projects that will work to demystify decarbonization and tell stories about how the clean energy transition is unfolding equitably in the Northwest.
• We will hold decarbonization forums to explore emerging decarbonization technologies and solutions.

We have a lot on our plate again in 2024, but that is appropriate as there is a lot to do, and time is not our friend when it comes to addressing climate change. We look forward to working with a wide range of collaborators to keep the Northwest moving forward toward an equitable low-carbon future.