The Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the case of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency is a grave loss for climate protection. State and local efforts like IREC's are now even more important.

Today IREC proudly joins the collective voice of advocates and industry celebrating a milestone we have worked for 37 years to witness: two million solar installations now in the U.S. What better timing than in a year when children and governors, presidential candidates and corporate CEOs are all making headlines about the urgency of climate change action.

The collective power of experience and passion assembled in one room was by any measure extraordinary. It was a day of robust exploration of the challenges, opportunities and details, and the not so distant milestones necessary to get us there – ultimately to 100 percent clean energy. The words “urgency” and “collaboration” and “equitable” could not have been louder.

As published in Renewable Energy World   Here we are in 2019, with more than 100 U.S. cities and 140 large corporations having established 100 percent clean, carbon-free and/or renewable energy goals. In several states, newly seated governors campaigned on goals of 100 percent renewable energy, and congressional representatives have arrived in Washington positioning for a like-minded national proposal. The question is: what really has to happen to get from here to there, and what are the benefits such a transition will bring?

It is at the state level that clean energy success can best be measured today. That's why we created the 2017 Clean Energy States Honor Roll, to call out some of the year's best success stories. We recognize Utah, Maryland, Illinois and Minnesota for their achievements in energy storage, net metering, interconnection and a clean energy workforce jobs initiative.

December is a month we tend to look back over the year. As I do that, I see an incredibly successful, productive year as it relates to IREC’s goals and objectives. This is of course against the backdrop of an equally incredible year of frustration with what’s happening on the federal level. We know better than ever that it is state policy and regulatory actions that will directly determine the volume and pace of clean energy access and adoption by consumers across the U.S. This makes IREC’s impactful state-by-state work more critical than ever before.

Sometimes we need to blow a horn or two. In this case, there are several blasts in order. Among IREC’s most critical goals is to share what we know. From our work on the ground in multiple state energy regulatory proceedings, our experts identify challenges and solutions to issues surrounding fair and efficient connection to the grid, including the best new ways to plan for increased distributed renewables and transformational technologies like energy storage.