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Publications

Renewable Energy

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory works collaboratively with the US Department of Energy, state and federal policymakers, electricity suppliers, the renewable energy industry, academics, and others to conduct public interest research on renewable energy markets, policies, costs, benefits, and performance. Our work in these core areas focuses on renewable power generation, with an emphasis on wind and solar power. Much of this work is cross-cutting in nature, however, and is applicable to a range of renewable energy technologies.

Examples of our work include the following:

• Evaluate federal and state renewable energy programs, and provide expert technical assistance in policy design
• Analyze the current markets for and economics of various renewable energy technologies, including their costs, benefits, and performance
• Evaluate the benefits, costs, and challenges of increased renewable electricity use, including impacts on transmission infrastructure and grid operations
• Assess the ability of renewable energy technologies to mitigate market risks related to uncertain fossil fuel prices and carbon policies
• Analyze the impact of public policies and retail rate design on the deployment and economics of customer-sited photovoltaics
• Review the treatment of renewable energy in utility resource planning and public policy analyses
• Analyze the impact of financing structures on the economics of renewable energy projects
• Evaluate and analyze individual and community responses to renewable energy deployment

In addition to our publications, we frequently present our work to diverse audiences; PowerPoint summaries of some projects are available here.

Project Team:

Ryan Wiser (Project Lead)
Mark Bolinger
Galen Barbose
Naïm Darghouth
Andrew Mills
Amol Phadke
Peter Cappers
Ben Hoen
Joachim Seel