Renewables and Electricity Affordability: Untangling Correlation from Causation
Are renewables to blame for the contemporary rise in American household electricity bills? We analyze the most recently available 25-years of data on residential electricity prices, state generation mixes, utility spending, and Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) to address this increasingly salient policy question.
Beyond the Early Era of EVs
Electric vehicle adoption is a key part of climate and transportation goals, and local policies can make a big difference. One such policy is allowing EVs to use high-occupancy vehicle lanes even with a single driver. Using data on California’s HOV lanes and vehicle registrations from 2012 to 2024, a new Working Paper examines how these exemptions affected EV adoption.
Is Fusion Too Late? How Investors Value its Role in a Decarbonized Europe
Fusion energy offers clean, firm, and geographically flexible power, but decades of delays have left investors skeptical. Using a high-resolution energy-system model and a probabilistic valuation framework that accounts for recent fusion investments, a new Working Paper shows that investor confidence in successful commercialization remains below 20%.
Policy Support for Electrolytic Hydrogen
Governments worldwide have recently launched policy support programs for hydrogen, where the level of support is to be tied to the carbon intensity of the hydrogen produced. In a new Working Paper, the researchers analyze the impact of alternative accounting rules for assessing the carbon intensity of electrolytic hydrogen on the financial and emission performance of Power-to-Gas (PtG) systems.
Commentary: Lessons for Scope 2 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounting
For a number of years, a debate has been brewing concerning the best way to report on the indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, which falls into the Protocol’s Scope 2 category. This research commentary contributes to the debate by means of a review of the history of an analogous debate in corporate financial accounting standards, which can be helpful for identifying lessons that can instruct the discussion on inventory and consequential accounting for Scope 2 emissions.
What Americans Really Pay For Electricity
As the energy shock generated by the Iran War ripples through the global economy, gas prices are front of mind for many Americans. They are the most visible energy prices in our lives — posted on billboards along the highway and in towns and cities across the country, updated on a day-to-day, even hour-to-hour, basis. Electricity prices, by contrast, are far less transparent. That is why Heatmap and MIT CEEPR are launching the Electricity Price Hub, a new public data platform built to address this information gap. The hub provides month-to-month estimates of residential electricity prices and bills for utilities across the United States, from 2020 to the present. By making this data available down to the zip code level, the hub empowers users to understand what they are paying and see how that compares to neighboring communities and states.
Learn More
Why rooftop solar in Mass. is flawed, and how to fix it
Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Christopher Knittel and graduate student Fischer Espiritu Argosino make the case that in Massachusetts the “current compensation structure for the electricity produced by solar panels turns a climate solution into an inequitable cost shift that burdens many residents.” They add: “The state needs to prioritize large-scale wind and solar deployment and fix how residential solar exporters are compensated…. Massachusetts has long been a clean-energy leader. It can remain one by showing that decarbonization and affordability can go hand in hand.”
Learn More
2026 MIT CEEPR Postdoctoral Associate Openings
MIT CEEPR is accepting applications for two open postdoctoral associate positions. One position will work on quantitative analysis projects related to the energy transition and electricity markets. The other position will develop empirical models of supply, demand, and international trade conditions for minerals required for the energy transition. Interested candidates with a related Ph.D. degree can find the application link below.
Learn More
Electricity Price Hub
The Electricity Price Hub is a partnership between Heatmap News and MIT CEEPR in collaboration with CleanEcon designed to bring much-needed clarity to the conversation around energy affordability. It is a new public data platform built to address this information gap. The hub provides month-to-month estimates of residential electricity prices and bills for utilities across the United States, from 2020 to the present. For the largest utilities, these estimates are broken down into their core components. By making this data available down to the zip code level, the hub empowers users to understand what they are paying and see how that compares to neighboring communities and states.
Learn More
Clean Investment
Monitor
The Clean Investment Monitor (CIM) is a joint project of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) and the Rhodium Group. The CIM tracks public and private investments in climate technologies in the United States. Through this data and analysis, the CIM provides insights into investment trends, the effects of federal and state policies, and on-the-ground progress in the U.S. towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
The CIM covers dozens of different technologies and their input components across all sectors of the economy, including for clean electricity and transportation, building electrification, low-emission industrial production, and carbon management.
Learn More
Climate Action
Through Education
The MIT Climate Action Through Education (CATE) program, directed by Professor Christopher R. Knittel, has developed an MIT-informed interdisciplinary, place-based climate change curriculum for U.S. high school teachers in the following core disciplines: History/Social Science, English/Language Arts, Math, and Science.
Curricular materials – labs, units, lessons, projects – will be aligned with Next Generation Science Standards, and MA education standards. The solutions-focused curriculum aims to inform students about the causes and consequences of anthropogenic climate change, while equipping them with the knowledge and sense of agency to contribute to climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience.
Learn More
Driving Towards
Seamless Public
EV Charging
Widespread electric vehicle (EV) adoption is critical to confronting climate change – but a lack of sufficient public charging infrastructure is holding many potential EV drivers back. A team of researchers from Harvard and the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research will work to accelerate progress on public EV charging as a gating requirement to achieving widespread EV adoption. The team will contribute by working directly with stakeholders and stakeholder groups to identify barriers to seamless public EV charging, build consensus for solutions, and advance those solutions.
Learn More
The Roosevelt
Project
Transitioning the United States economy toward deep decarbonization will have unequally distributed effects, positive and negative, across socio-economic groups, geographies and economic sectors. The concerns of workers and communities adversely affected by the transition must inform the discussion around decarbonization, associated policy changes and institutional development. The goal of the Roosevelt Project is to provide an analytical basis for charting a path to a low carbon economy in a way that promotes high quality job growth, minimizes worker and community dislocation, and harnesses the benefits of energy technologies for regional economic development.
Learn More