Brought to you by:
Institute for Energy Studies, The Foundation for WWU & Alumni
Description
As renewable energy technologies like wind and solar have matured, their costs have dropped dramatically while deployment has increased. Large-scale solar (LSS) leads new electric capacity additions in the U.S., with 18 gigawatts (GW) added in 2023 and 36 GW forecast for 2024. However, annual clean power deployment still falls short of decarbonization goals, which require over 70 GW of wind and solar installations yearly. The main obstacles are no longer technical or economic, but social, regulatory, and institutional—including permitting, community acceptance, and grid connection procedures. This talk features Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory research addressing these "non-technical" barriers to renewable energy deployment.
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Featuring:
Joe Rand, Speaker
Joseph (Joe) Rand is an Energy Policy Researcher in the Energy Markets and Policy Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research focuses on renewable energy, encompassing policy analysis, market trends, spatial data, and the social impacts and deployment challenges of renewable energy projects.
His research has received widespread media coverage in outlets like the New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and NPR. His work has earned him the Berkeley Lab Director's Award for Societal Impact, the Energy Systems Integration Group's "Excellence Award," the Switzer Environmental Fellowship, and the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Power Program's 'Novus Ventus' award.
Joe holds a master's degree in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies from Macalester College.
Questions and Accommodations
- Contact The Foundation for WWU & Alumni for this event if you have questions or need disability accommodations by calling (360) 650-3353 or emailing Alumni@wwu.edu.
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- There will be auto-captions available for the Zoom webinar.
The views expressed by our speaker do not necessarily reflect those of Western Washington University.