May 2025 – Energy Institute Blog
3 posts published by Severin Borenstein, Lucas Davis, and Meredith Fowlie during May 2025| Energy Institute Blog
3 posts published by Severin Borenstein, Lucas Davis, and Meredith Fowlie during May 2025| Energy Institute Blog
4 posts published by Andrew G Campbell, Severin Borenstein, Lucas Davis, and Meredith Fowlie during August 2025| Energy Institute Blog
Real-time information about chargers could speed electric vehicle adoption. Our family’s summer ended with a 2,800 mile road trip from the Bay Area to southern Alberta, Canada and back. The … Continue Reading Raising the Low Expectations of Electric Vehicle Drivers| Energy Institute Blog
The state must plan today for the import capacity that can smooth the transition. When two major California refineries recently announced they would be closing – Phillips 66’s Wilmington facility … Continue Reading California’s Refinery Closure Drama| Energy Institute Blog
Trade restrictions imposed in 2018 increased the price of washing machines by $86. U.S. consumers are starting to feel the pinch of tariffs. Prices are up for home furnishings, toys, appliances, an…| Energy Institute Blog
3 posts published by James Sallee, Severin Borenstein, and Duncan Callaway during May 2024| Energy Institute Blog
A decade of solar tariffs has taught us some costly lessons. Unless you’ve been living under a rock – a valid lifestyle choice these days – you’ve been hearing a … Continue Reading Tariff Trial and Error in the Solar Energy Sector| Energy Institute Blog
The rapidly evolving rollback of policy support for electric vehicles. Source: Where are EVs headed? Back in April, I wrote a piece surveying various threats to the EV transition in the US. I argue…| Energy Institute Blog
Forecasting is hard. Especially the future. In the wake of the passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” (OBBBA) there has been a rush to assess the impact of … Continue Reading Now That the IRA Is Nearly Gone, Do We Know How Much We Will Miss It?| Energy Institute Blog
That’s not an ethical judgment, just simple math. Over the years, our team of bloggers has put out quite a few posts on rooftop solar, many of which discuss the cost shift from solar ad…| Energy Institute Blog
5 posts published by Meredith Fowlie, Maximilian Auffhammer, Andrew G Campbell, Severin Borenstein, and Lucas Davis during March 2025| Energy Institute Blog
Extending cap-and-trade could be more impactful than proposed changes to the allowance budget. California’s cap and trade (C&T) program for greenhouse gasses, now 12 years old, is going through…| Energy Institute Blog
5 posts published by Lucas Davis, Severin Borenstein, Andrew G Campbell, and Meredith Fowlie during April 2024| Energy Institute Blog
New Energy Institute working paper points to electricity prices and energy-efficiency as key drivers. In climate change studies, it has become common to make predictions many years into the future. … Continue Reading Why is Air Conditioning Adoption Accelerating in Mexico?| Energy Institute Blog
The EPA case for regulatory repeal hinges on private sector cost reductions. Health and environmental impacts are not accounted for. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has a long list of environmen…| Energy Institute Blog
What if we taxed miles not gallons? If you go to a Rolling Stones concert, you will get Satisfaction. If you come to this blog, you will get a lecture … Continue Reading Taxing the Distance| Energy Institute Blog
If the DOE undoes minimum energy efficiency standards, which are decades old, consumer costs will likely rise. The Trump Administration wants to rollback or rescind dozens of regulations that set m…| Energy Institute Blog
Without major rate reform progress will be slow and incomplete. Not everyone has yet agreed that rooftop solar systems in California’s investor-owned utility territories shift significant costs ont…| Energy Institute Blog
Tariffs, rollbacks, and the IRA repeal threaten to stall America’s EV transition, just as it was beginning to scale. Image source: The Orange County Register The likely fate of electric vehicles du…| Energy Institute Blog
Denying reality is a real problem for climate policy. Public discourse about climate change in this country, and even around the world, has tended to emphasize the polar (no pun intended) extremes:…| Energy Institute Blog
Only when you ignore environmental benefits and electricity bill impacts. U.S. electricity demand is on the rise. A data center boom, a possible renaissance in domestic manufacturing, and a push to…| Energy Institute Blog
Good ideas have consistently emerged from the Ivory Tower. If you care about energy markets & policy or the environment, you probably are breathing into a paper bag right now. I have not been t…| Energy Institute Blog
Proposed performance-based ratemaking, a mainstay of UK policy, is unlikely to address California’s energy affordability crisis. California’s capital is abuzz with ideas about how to reduce the sta…| Energy Institute Blog
Would reduced rates just for EVs and heat pumps be a step in the right direction? If you are a regular reader of this blog, you have witnessed much hand wringing over the fact that electricity rate…| Energy Institute Blog
About half of U.S. households with a heat pump have some kind of backup heating. February was cold. Unusually cold throughout much of the United States. Polar vortex conditions brought record-break…| Energy Institute Blog
California’s solar industry is doing just fine despite their complaints about net energy metering reform. There is a new administration in DC producing a raft of misguided actions to bolster fossil…| Energy Institute Blog
Affordability isn’t the enemy of cap-and-trade—It’s the goal. California lawmakers are back to work in Sacramento. Heading into the new legislative session, cost of living concerns loom large. Both…| Energy Institute Blog
The Inflation Reduction Act’s subsidies for electric vehicles provide moderate climate benefits and help US firms at the expense of foreign auto manufacturers, but are not a home run. Today’s post …| Energy Institute Blog
How new efforts to curb groundwater depletion will impact the Golden State’s electricity use. This week’s blog is co-authored with Fiona Burlig, Louis Preonas, and Matt Woerman. Farmers consume nea…| Energy Institute Blog
Petroleum production and prices matter, but not for the reasons many people think. When reporters call an energy economist during a presidential election year, it’s probably about oil and gasoline …| Energy Institute Blog
Maybe, but we’ll need a little policy and alignment of incentives to make it work. This week’s blog is co-authored with Emilia Chojkiewicz and Amol Phadke The United States needs to up its tr…| Energy Institute Blog
At this rate it is not going to be easy to meet decarbonization goals. Decarbonization experts say you can’t do it without heat pumps. One prominent study has 75 million heat pumps deployed in the …| Energy Institute Blog
In 2024, residential PV will shift nearly $4 billion onto others’ bills, more than double the 2020 amount. There’s a lot of anger in California right now about rising electricity prices. Since 2020…| Energy Institute Blog
Unreliable chargers could hold back electric vehicle adoption. Policymakers need to intervene. Consumers embraced electric vehicles like never before in 2023. Electric vehicle sales increased by 50…| Energy Institute Blog
Bill savings from residential PV are as large now as a few years ago, but the industry is facing other big challenges. 2019 was a good year for residential solar in California. In the service terri…| Energy Institute Blog
California is tightening its GHG belt – who should feel the pinch? California has set some ambitious GHG reduction goals. Now the state is trying to figure out how to meet them. The costs of unmiti…| Energy Institute Blog
Online vehicle sales could reduce double marginalization. Amazon’s new Hyundai Evolve Showroom feels almost like the future of car buying. You pick out the car you want, choose its features, and se…| Energy Institute Blog
