With the 2024 election in the rearview mirror, the CETI team and Board are assessing the impact that local, state and federal results may have on achieving an equitable clean energy transition in the Northwest.
First and foremost, we want to give a huge shoutout to the tremendous statewide coalition of people and organizations that worked so effectively to defeat I-2117 and maintain Washington’s cap-and-invest program, ensuring continued funding for clean energy efforts to reduce carbon emissions throughout the state.
The narrow victory of I-2066 in Washington is a setback for decarbonizing buildings at the pace required to achieve our emissions targets. We applaud the efforts of those who worked to defeat it. CETI will continue to make the technical and economic case for investing in low-carbon strategies for buildings with our SCALE 2030 project.
On the positive news front, we are very pleased to announce critical philanthropic support from two of the region’s leading foundations: the Stolte Family Foundation is granting CETI $100,000, split evenly between general operations and SCALE 2030. The Russell Family Foundation increased support for CETI’s work in 2025, granting $25,000 for general operations. We are immensely grateful for this generous support.
While the road ahead is quite uncertain on the federal level, we have absolute clarity that our work, and that of the large community of Northwesterners committed to accelerating an equitable clean energy transition, is more important than ever. We know what we are doing, and we aren’t going anywhere – we are in this fight for the long haul.
CETI looks forward to doubling down in the weeks, months, and years to come with our partners and communities throughout the region to achieve our shared goal for an equitable, prosperous clean energy future in the Northwest.
Eileen V. Quigley
Executive Director
P. S. Please take five minutes to fill out our survey, which will tell us how you think we are doing and what we should work on going forward.
Every two years, the Oregon Department of Energy (ODOE) releases a Biennial Energy Report (BER) to inform local, state, regional, and federal energy policy development, planning, and investments.
The 2024 report offers a comprehensive look at where Oregon is on its path to a low-carbon future. Energy by the Numbers presents metrics and data to track how Oregon produces, purchases, and uses various types of energy. The report also includes an informative Energy 101 section that dives into 11 important emerging energy topics for folks who might be new to the energy space – from markets to agrivoltaics, clean hydrogen, the climate-energy nexus, and much more.
The first BER released in 2018 was an inspiration for CETI to develop our Northwest Clean Energy Atlas visualizations, and it is a fabulous resource for all of us in the Northwest who work in the energy space, not just Oregonians.
CETI and partner Evolved Energy Research reached an important milestone in November with the technical analysis for the Oregon Energy Strategy as the energy modeling got underway. After months of refining the input data and assumptions with ODOE and regional experts, we are excited to commence the calculations. We are also incorporating feedback on the technical approach for three complementary environmental justice- and equity-focused analyses: energy wallet analysis, air quality modeling, and geospatial mapping. The mapping will identify communities with environmental, resiliency, community well-being, economic, and equity vulnerabilities. All Energy Strategy updates can be found on ODOE’s website.
CETI and Evolved Energy Research have also been working on a project with the Washington State Department of Commerce Energy Division to provide economy-wide energy pathways scenarios that would achieve the state’s emission limits and meet its Comprehensive Climate Action Planning requirements for an EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grant. After engaging with subject matter experts throughout the fall to determine the datasets and assumptions to build into the model, we are now modeling the Reference Scenario and eagerly await the preliminary results. You can follow all that is going on with this exciting project here.
CETI remains engaged with the Western Transmission Expansion Coalition (WestTEC) effort. The project team is developing load and generation forecasts and conducting a system reliability assessment for the 10-year horizon reference case. Drivers that shape the scenarios for the 20-year horizon scenarios were recently finalized, and the next step will be scenario and narrative development.
CETI will continue participating as a public interest organization, attending meetings, and providing feedback to the project team as appropriate. Check out slides from the most recent public webinar.
This month, the Rural Clean Energy Study and Report consulting team presented the report findings and recommendations to the Joint Committee on Energy Supply, Energy Conservation, and Energy Resilience. You can watch the recording here.
CETI is hosting a webinar on December 10 at 11am PT to demystify greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounting. GHG emissions accounting is a critical tool for governments, businesses, and climate advocates to understand progress toward emission reduction goals over time, but local, state, national, corporate, and global methods use varying types of accounting systems, which creates complexity.
Please join CETI as we demystify the methods that measure, report, and verify GHG emissions and reductions across different sectors and activities. Register here.
As we look ahead to the new year and the evolving clean energy landscape, CETI is thinking about how to best position ourselves to drive an equitable clean energy transition in 2025. We would love to have your feedback on what we’ve done this past year to help inform where we take our work moving forward. Please take a few minutes to fill out this survey.
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