In a bifurcated renewable landscape, the solar market brightened in , while wind faced sweeping challenges. The latter bore the brunt of project inputs, labor and capital cost pressures, interconnection and permitting delays, and transmission limitations. Meanwhile, supply chain constraints started easing as historic clean energy and climate laws took effect.

The tandem push of federal investments flowing into clean energy and pull of decarbonization demand from public and private entities have never been stronger.

The uplift and obstacles shaping the year ahead have set the stage for a variable-speed takeoff across renewable technologies, industries, and markets. Deployment highs.

Cost lows. A temporary rise in renewable costs could belie their long-term declining trend and relative competitiveness. Most states and utilities. Major corporations. In the first 10 months of , 30 companies joined RE, a global corporate initiative to procure electricity entirely from renewables, growing the membership to Some are also driving decarbonization throughout their supply chains.

Coming full circle, corporations are participating in multinational efforts to push governments to address climate change and accelerate the energy transition. The impact of unprecedented investment in renewable infrastructure will likely become more apparent in Regulatory boosts to renewable energy and transmission buildout could help address grid constraints.

And boosts to manufacturing could lay the foundations of a domestic clean energy industry with stronger supply chains supporting solar, wind, storage, and green hydrogen deployment. A skilled workforce should be prepared to build, operate, and maintain all these new generation and manufacturing facilities planned over the next few years.

As renewables become a larger part of power generation and the portfolio of technologies grows, perceptions could start catching up with the reality that renewables can enhance grid resilience. The IIJA and the IRA have boosted renewables through historic investment in new or expanded programs, grants, and tax credits to accelerate the deployment of established and emerging renewable technologies.

The IIJA and the IRA have had some of the biggest impacts on solar and storage. The month after the IRA passed, a record 72 GW of standalone solar was added to the interconnection queue, more than the preceding 11 monthly additions combined. IRA tax credits have allowed solar and storage developers to creatively configure projects around siting and grid constraints through standalone or hybrid deployment.

In , tax credit adders are expected to shape solar and storage market offerings. The IIJA and the IRA have teed up the takeoff of a new green hydrogen economy.

Investment following the IRA fell short of meeting ambitious targets for energy efficiency, as reflected in heat pump deployments. An initiative of the US Climate Alliance of 25 states to install 20 million heat pumps by could further bolster deployments, 40 as could utility-funded energy efficiency programs.

While generative AI is being used to generate climate disinformation, fueling some of the opposition to renewables, it is also powering new tools for developers to assess community sentiment toward renewables and automate permitting and siting. It can also suggest the best solar panel layout to maximize generation and design the most efficient blades with peak aerodynamics for wind.

In , more developers are expected to use generative AI tools to inform and accelerate renewable project decisions, processes, configurations, and community engagement. Offshore wind faces high capital requirements, long project development and permitting timelines, and locked-in power sales contracts.

In , the tide is expected to start turning as the industry gets more steel in the water and adapts to the new seascape. Following Treasury guidance, more developers may seek to improve project economics by siting onshore grid connections in the energy communities that line US coasts and qualify for an adder.

Transmission is a factor in most constraints on renewable deployment. Regarding the top cost constraint survey respondents identified figure 2 , capturing the full customer benefit of low-cost renewables hinges on transmission.

IIJA and IRA programs and grants could start tackling transmission issues in A domestic clean energy manufacturing revival is underway as producers reshore to better capitalize on IRA tax credits and meet demand from renewable developers chasing domestic content adders.

And more far-reaching final Treasury guidance on the domestic content adder could encourage upstream investment in wafers, ingots, and polysilicon.

Storage is on a similar trajectory as solar. Announced projects could drive almost eightfold growth in battery manufacturing capacity in The wind supply chain is more domestically rooted and evenly distributed across components than solar and storage, but the little capacity change planned for may be raising concerns offshore.

On the other hand, infrastructure development and capacity additions have lagged demand from offshore wind developers seeking access to domestic content adders that could improve project economics. The development of 18 planned component manufacturing facilities 81 and the collaboration between nine East Coast states and federal agencies on offshore wind supply chain buildout are anticipated.

Electrolytic hydrogen is embryonic at a time when industrial policy is ascendant and the global production landscape is still in flux, providing a major opportunity to reshore renewables.

The high-efficiency electrolyzers that dominate the US pipeline are more economic, despite higher upfront costs, but they are exposed to competition from low-cost manufacturing regions. Gaps could prompt domestic content requirements for electrolyzers. The IRA has driven up energy transition demand for the critical minerals that underpin renewable supply chains.

China refines around half of global copper production, two-thirds of lithium, three-quarters of copper, and four-fifths of nickel. The beginning of massive shifts in the lithium market from both the supply and demand sides may also become apparent.

Sustaining a record buildout of renewables and domestic supply chain will require growing and re training a workforce with the right skills in the right places. The IRA, the IIJA, and the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors Act are expected to drive massive job creation over their lifetime: 19 million job-years, or around 3 million jobs per year.

The direct jobs created offer higher-median wages on average, but benefits and unionization rates are lower, and women and other minority groups are underrepresented, according to current data. However, the current half-a-million workforce shortage in the construction sector could constrain the buildout.

Workforce challenges may be greatest in new industries such as clean hydrogen. The seven hydrogen hubs, expected to create , direct jobs across 16 states, include multiyear workforce plans to address these challenges.

Generative AI is also reshaping renewable workforce needs. The solar and wind electric power generation industry includes five of the top 10 most AI-intensive occupations—that is, occupations with the largest share of job postings demanding AI skills.

Talent acquisition for these roles is already challenging, given the competition with other sectors.

It is crucial that the core power sector, including power, utilities, and renewable developers, align their decarbonization and workforce planning to ensure the sector is able to continue decarbonizing itself and other sectors such as transportation, buildings, and manufacturing figure 5.

These sectors are helping address some of the bottlenecks constraining the core power sector. For example, transportation electrification, clean fuels, and energy-efficient buildings can help address grid bottlenecks, while domestic clean energy manufacturing should help address supply chain challenges.

However, the workforce bottleneck encompasses both the core and broader sectors. More developers are expected to implement strategies with the following four following elements to help unlock the workforce bottleneck in Also anticipated is greater renewable developer and utility uptake of funding from the 54 IIJA and IRA programs that can be deployed for green workforce development.

As the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, outages, and potential electricity supply shortages rise, renewables have often outshined conventional power sources, generating electricity when the latter could not.

Renewables are increasingly becoming a resilience strategy, especially when coupled with storage. This reality does not match with perception, however. More respondents of the Deloitte power and utilities industry survey were concerned about the resilience of renewables than supply chain challenges and the interconnection queue.

Most survey respondents believe that gas, followed by nuclear power, is the most resilient to extreme weather events in their territory, while renewables ranked the lowest figure 6. For instance, during Winter Storm Elliott, unplanned generation outages reached a record Nuclear also faces increasing reliability concerns as warmer and lower water levels caused by climate change impact operations.

Over the past summer—a season when nuclear is most needed to meet power demand—a hot weather alert factored into a shutdown of the nuclear Vogtle plant reactor in July. Meanwhile, renewables paired with storage are taking on the role of gas peakers that can quickly respond to demand spikes and avoid blackouts.

During Winter Storm Elliott, strong wind generation helped the Midcontinent Independent System Operator meet demand and continue exports despite 49 GW of forced outages. On the distributed renewable front, when the California Independent System Operator called for electricity conservation on August 17, an aggregation of 2, residential storage systems were activated for the first time to deliver Technologies expected to become more apparent over the next year are transforming renewable capabilities, synergies, and deployment potential.

Renewable deployment over the past decade has primarily told a success story for onshore wind, solar, and storage growth amid dramatically falling cost curves. On the flip side, the intermittency and the geographical land use and industrial end-use limitations of renewables are often cited as reasons these resources cannot replace gas as a direct and back-up fuel that can be deployed anywhere and tapped anytime.

Yet, renewables that can do just that while supporting grid resilience have made strides this year in moving technological innovation toward commercialization. Two of these renewables are longstanding but often overlooked underground resources: geothermal and renewable natural gas RNG.

Enhanced geothermal systems EGS have expanded the potential to capture the heat of the earth. While the United States is the global leader in geothermal electricity production, geothermal only accounts for 0.

Cost reductions are achieved from advanced sensing and drilling, which accounts for half the cost of geothermal projects. RNG project development has accelerated recently as well. RNG only accounts for 0.

The number of operational plants jumped from in to through the end of July , while the pipeline of plants planned or under construction grew from to for the same period.

New feedstock streams that could start expanding in may include forest waste from vegetation management related to wildfire prevention.

The use of RNG as a feedstock to produce biohydrogen and sustainable aviation fuels could also take off depending on Treasury guidance on the hydrogen tax credit and carbon accounting.

Two major US hydrogen projects are currently using RNG to produce hydrogen. States with supportive policies could further increase RNG demand figure 7.

In , renewable developers may consider expanding into renewable resources resurging with new technologies. Geothermal and RNG can help developers diversify their renewable portfolios and capitalize on new synergies between intermittent and baseload renewables, and between electrons and molecules.

Offshore wind and green hydrogen industries could establish a foothold, while underdeveloped renewables could play a greater role in clean energy portfolios.

Meanwhile, a clean energy—driven manufacturing renaissance could provide opportunities to develop more resilient renewable supply chains across the country. The surge in renewable projects and domestic manufacturing also calls for a bigger and smarter grid, a skilled workforce to build and operate the plants, and a smooth process to develop both.

Challenges in these areas should be addressed in to help keep the country and corporations on track to achieve their climate goals. This El Niño year may bring more extreme weather events that could call on renewable resources to support the grid.

Change your Analytics and performance cookie settings to access this feature. IEA, World energy outlook , October , p. John Bistline, Neil Mehrotra, and Catherine Wolfram, Economic implications of the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act , MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, August Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.

Emma Penrod, A third of utilities have begun to pilot generative AI for customer service, other uses: report, Utility Dive, July 12, Deloitte analysis of data from the Clean Investment Monitor database by Rhodium Group and MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.

Deloitte analysis of data from the Clean Investment Monitor database by Rhodium Group and MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research; Wood Mackenzie, US solar market insight: Q3 , September 7, Lily Bermel et al. Adders can be stacked on top of base tax credits.

See: Federal Energy Management Program, Overview of Inflation Reduction Act incentives for federal decarbonization , accessed November Abdurahman Alsulaiman, Renewable hydrogen import routes into the EU , Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, May About the Deloitte survey: To understand the outlook and perspectives of organizations across the power and utilities industry, Deloitte fielded a survey of over 50 US executives and other senior leaders in October The survey captured insights from respondents in the generation, transmission, and distribution segments.

Clean Power, Clean Power quarterly market report , , p. And why is it so prevalent? Richard Doying, Michael Goggin, and Abby Sherman, Transmission congestion costs rise again in U.

RTOS , Grid Strategies, July Calculated from data in David Feldman, Krysta Dummit, Jarett Zuboy, and Robert Margolis, Spring Solar industry update , NREL, April 27, , p.

Internal Revenue Service, Domestic content bonus credit guidance under sections 45, 45Y, 48, and 48E , accessed November Oceantic Network, Q2 U.

offshore wind quarterly market report , July 5, , p. US White House, Memorandum of Understanding by and among the United States Department of Energy, the United States Department of the Interior, the United States Department of Commerce, and the United States Department of Transportation and the states of Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island , September 20, Peter Gardett et al.

IEA, Global hydrogen review , p. Hydrogen Council, Hydrogen insights ; IEA, Global hydrogen review EERE Technical Report Template energy. Learn More: TNC works to strengthen the lending performance standards of multilateral development banks and private financial institutions. The Nature Conservancy describes six critical ways to help governments, corporations and lenders accelerate our clean energy buildout while preserving natural lands, increasing local benefits for communities, and reducing wildlife impacts.

This graphic lays out six pathways that governments, corporations and lenders can use to promote a clean and green renewable energy buildout. How do we meet global clean energy goals while protecting natural lands?

By Joe Kiesecker. Balancing the protection of nature with growing human needs will require careful planning—and a more complete understanding of how we are changing the planet. Check out our latest thinking and real-world solutions to some of the most complex challenges facing people and the planet today.

This website uses cookies to enhance your experience and analyze performance and traffic on our website. Get the Report Clean and Green Pathways for the Global Renewable Energy Buildout Download to Read More. Plan Ahead: Consider habitat and species in long-term energy planning and purchasing processes Governments and utilities make long-term plans to guide how they will meet energy demand and climate goals.

Site Renewables Right: Develop science-based guidelines for low-impact siting Siting guidelines help developers evaluate potential impacts to natural habitat and steer projects to low-impact areas. Sign Up. Choose Brownfields Over Greenfields: Facilitate development on former mine lands and industrial sites Using former mines, brownfields and other industrial sites for renewable energy development can turn unproductive lands into assets, create jobs and tax revenue for local economies, and support goals for climate and nature.

Buy Renewables Right: Make corporate commitments to buy low-impact renewable energy to meet clean energy goals Corporate sourcing of renewable energy is growing rapidly around the world. Invest for Climate and Nature: Apply lending performance standards to ensure renewable energy investments are clean and green Financial institutions influence renewable energy siting through their environmental and social performance standards, due diligence processes, and technical assistance, all of which can require or incentivize developers to locate projects in low-impact areas.

Resources Full Report: Clean and Green Pathways May The Nature Conservancy describes six critical ways to help governments, corporations and lenders accelerate our clean energy buildout while preserving natural lands, increasing local benefits for communities, and reducing wildlife impacts.

Infographic: Six Pathways PDF This graphic lays out six pathways that governments, corporations and lenders can use to promote a clean and green renewable energy buildout. Related Reading. A Better Blueprint for the Clean Energy Landscape How do we meet global clean energy goals while protecting natural lands?

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Additionally every energy source has their pros and cons in the broader sustainability conversation. The below chart highlights the advantages and disadvantages of various sustainable energy sources. source: Auditing Sustainable Energy. Solar panels for example have no CO 2 emissions and are inexpensive to operate, but produce hazardous waste and are extremely difficult to recycle.

Hydropower, which produces zero waste, zero CO 2 emissions and connects to the grid quickly, has tremendous environmental impact on the local ecosystem. Because there is no perfect solution, we need to consider and include the effective and economic use of both renewable and non-renewable energy sources ie fossil fuels as part of our sustainable energy definition.

Broadly speaking, energy infrastructure includes anything that connects energy producers to energy consumers. Sustainable Energy Infrastructure must focus on efficiently connecting consumers to sustainable energy producers i. maximizing energy production and minimizing lost energy in transmission and consumption.

This sounds straightforward, but is more difficult than it seems. For example, solar plants can be in remote desert locations and tidal power in seaside towns — remote regions that tend to be far from central distribution networks.

The farther power sources are, the more energy lost in transmission and the more expensive it becomes to connect to the grid. The ESG Score is an overall score of a company based on the reported information in the environmental, social and corporate governance pillars. pdf for more information.

This Fund does not have ESG-related investment objectives. The ESG score does not evaluate the ESG-related investment objectives of, or any ESG strategies used by, the Fund and is not indicative of how well ESG factors are integrated by the Fund.

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Shareholders should receive a T5 slip from their investment dealer providing this information. T5 supplementary slips will indicate Capital Gains Dividends in Box 18 and Actual Amount of Eligible Dividends in Box Dividend incomes is subject to the standard gross-up and federal dividend tax credit rules.

The return of capital component is a non-taxable amount that serves to reduce the adjusted cost base of the Fund units. Skip to content. sign up for updates. Our investment businesses focus on the most meaningful opportunities to generate attractive financial returns alongside sustainability outcomes.

Together, our businesses form a powerful ecosystem of knowledge and expertise. Across our business, sustainability factors are at the core of the investment process. This allows us to understand the opportunities and risks, and drives long-term financial performance.