September 13, 2019 by Catherine Wolfram

Catherine Wolfram at the Haas School of Business reviews the new book “How Solar Energy Became Cheap” by Greg Nemet. It traces Solar PV’s history from Bell Labs in 1954 through to the present. The phenomenal price drops mean today’s cost/kWh is 1,000 times lower than in the 1970s. The analysis is split into four epochs when output was dominated by US, Japanese, then German and finally Chinese production. How much were improvements thanks to sheer … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Renewables Tagged With: BellLabs, CCS, Nuclear, policies, pricing, renewables, solar, storage

June 27, 2019 by Catherine Wolfram

We all know that GDP measures everything that’s been paid for, both the good and the bad. There have already been studies that try to account for the “bad” GDP that costs us in the long run and so adds less value than stated. Catherine Wolfram, at the Haas School of Business, takes a thoughtful look at Gross Environmental Damage which separates out the kind of GDP that we’re going to have to spend money cleaning up in the future. The GED concept … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Climate policy, Energy Tagged With: China, emissions, Environment, GDP, India, pollution, US

October 23, 2018 by Meredith Fowlie, Catherine Wolfram and Derek Wolfson

Setting out to evaluate the real-world performance of solar microgrids in developing countries, a team from the Energy Institute at Haas partnered with startup Gram Power to provide small smart grid systems to unelectrified rural communities in India. While many industry experts see microgrids as important for future electrification, what the team found was that few communities wanted them, and they were difficult to implement and operate. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Policies, Renewables Tagged With: India, microgrid, renewables, smart grids, solar power