Preliminary survey results from California suggest that long outages are leading people to buy backup generators, possibly instead of rooftop solar. The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a very bright light … Continue Reading Electricity Outages Lead to Substantial Backup Generator Purchases
A utility bill moratorium could put extra money into the pockets of business owners and households during the pandemic. Utility services – like electricity, water and natural gas – are … Continue Reading Can We Stop Paying Utility Bills for a Bit?
Does an electricity connection help the very poorest households? To many people, connecting rural households to the electricity grid in places like Kenya seems like a great way to help … Continue Reading Electrification and the Poverty Trap
With new carbon capture and sequestration technologies, can fossil fuels be part of the zero-carbon solution? The start of a new year – and decade – is a good time … Continue Reading Fossil Fuels are Dead, Long Live Fossil Fuels
A book by Russell Gold on the US wind industry, and a bumper crop of other energy books. Happily, for my annual book review, a number of energy books have … Continue Reading 2019 Energy Books: A Superpower-ed Selection
A randomized controlled trial demonstrates the importance of providing financing for energy-efficient appliances in Kenya. On one of my first trips to Nairobi, Kenya, our local research assistant took me … Continue Reading Closing the Energy Efficiency Gap for Low-Income Households
Some simple spreadsheet math suggests the outage cost about 100,000 MWh. What does that mean in $$? There’s been a lot of discussion about the potential economic losses due to … Continue Reading Measuring the Economic Costs of the PG&E Outages