The publication summarizes high-level takeaways from a working session about implementing Virginia's new grid utilization law (HB 434/SB 621), which aims to lower energy costs by better using existing infrastructure. Participants in the convening—organized by Deploy Action Labs and Duke's Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability and moderated by Tim Profeta—included private sector leaders, advocates, researchers, regulators, and legislative staff. 

The power sector faces intersecting challenges: surging electricity demand, rising customer costs, and the imperative to decarbonize the grid. Competitiveness policies that broaden market participation and better align utility incentives with these goals offer a path forward.

Flexible demand response offers the potential to significantly reduce the amount of new capacity needed to meet rapidly growing electricity demand from data centers over the next 5 to 10 years. Without flexibility, the additional electricity may largely be provided by new gas units; with flexibility, the capacity mix shifts more toward renewables.

The global coal value chain is extensive and spans countries. Nearly 7,000 coal mines collectively produce over 8.5 billion tons of coal every year. More than 2,400 coal-fired power plants across the globe operate with a capacity of 2,175 GW. Then, there are numerous rail networks, trucks, and port terminals that constitute parts of the coal value chain. Yet in a net-zero world, this value chain will need to shrink rapidly, which could negatively impact the economies and communities that currently depend on it.

Affordable, reliable electricity is essential for productive, healthy and thriving communities. Achieving this goal at least partly requires understanding the dynamic relationship between electricity prices and consumer demand is critical for utilities, regulators, and governments seeking to deliver affordable, reliable, and efficient energy. This paper presents updated estimates of a standard measure of price responsiveness in the US residential electricity market—price elasticity of demand for electricity (PEDE)—and explores how it varies across states. 

In fall 2025, ACORE, Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, the EFI Foundation, and the World Resources Institute convened technology developers, finance providers, large-load customers, and legal and policy experts to explore how to keep finance flowing toward clean electricity sectors. 

Participants defined three central challenges to keeping capital flowing into these projects:

North Carolina Senate Bill 266 (SB266) removes interim carbon emissions targets from the NC Carbon Plan. This memorandum evaluates an analysis of removing these targets conducted by Joseph DeCarolis, Anderson de Queiroz, and Jeremiah Johnson at North Carolina State University (summary of analysis; full analysis), including how alternative assumptions might affect its overall conclusions.

Addressing the dual needs of development and decarbonization in low- and middle-income countries requires significant increases in public and private investment and project implementation. Announced in 2022 by the US Department of State, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Bezos Earth Fund, the Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA) aims to drive such increases by leveraging carbon credits as a sector-wide channel for energy transition finance.

Electricity demand growth has accelerated significantly, a trend that is expected to continue for at least the next 5 to 10 years and is driven by new technologies such as data centers and the expansion of the manufacturing and industrial base in the United States. This analysis uses a variety of integrated resource plans from utilities and other groups to estimate how overall electricity demand may change over the next decade in several scenarios.

The People’s Republic of China is using the national emissions trading scheme (ETS) as a tool to bend the country’s emissions curve while cleaning its domestic environment, driving innovation, and capturing a greater share of high-value segments of the global economy. This background paper for the Asia-Pacific Climate Report 2024: Catalyzing Finance and Policy Solutions first explores the origins of the ETS and then looks at its characteristics and performance.