Climate Law Blog

The Center for Climate Change Law has completed the Clean Energy Investment US-India Project. The project aimed to ease the path for U.S. investors and solar and other renewable energy equipment manufacturers to access the Indian market. So far, investment in this expanding market has been limited by high transaction costs. Funded by a generous [...]

by  Andrew H. Meyer Until recently, the most advanced form of grid-deployed energy storage involved pumping water up a hill.  But newer storage technologies like flywheels and chemical batteries have recently achieved technological maturity and are well into successful pilot stages and, in some cases, commercial operation.  If widely adopted these new energy storage technologies [...]

On May 6, 2013, the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s dispute settlement system held that Ontario’s feed-in tariff (FIT) program to support renewable energy development was inconsistent with Canada’s international trade obligations.  The decision confirmed the conclusion reached by the dispute settlement panel which first ruled on the case in December 2012, [...]

Teresa Parejo Navajas Professor of Law Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain) On March 1, 2013, the Spanish Council of Ministers approved a Preliminary Law regarding electric systems, which includes a section about environmental control of the technique of hydrofracturing (“fracking”). The preliminary law proposes that those projects that would need to use fracking in [...]

In early March 2013 the Pennsylvania Treasury announced that it had sold approximately 4,700 loans made through its Keystone Home Energy Loan Program.  In exchange for the loans, the Treasury received $23 million in cash and $8.3 million in deferred payments, for a total sale value of $31.3 million.  The cash component of the sale [...]

On March 15, 2013, President Obama formally announced his plan to create an “Energy Security Trust” to promote research and development of clean energy technologies.  The Trust was first mentioned by President Obama in his State of the Union address earlier this year, but he had not elaborated on the idea until the speech, given [...]

Teresa Parejo Navajas Professor of Law Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain) Mr. Harald Wögerbauer, Member of the European Court of the Auditors (ECA), recently gave a press conference outlining the results of the ECA special report on energy efficiency in the EU. The Court found that the projects selected by Member State authorities for [...]

            CCCL has published a Hydraulic Fracturing Litigation Digest that summarizes litigation with underlying claims stemming from the hydraulic fracturing process and  provides an index of the cases organized by central legal issues. The Digest is structured to provide a view of litigation in each relevant State as well as a view of litigation at [...]

by Teresa Parejo Navajas, Professor of Law, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain). In December 2012 the European Commission awarded over €1.2 billion funding to 23 highly innovative renewable energy demonstration projects under the first call for proposals for the so-called NER300 funding program. Projects will be co-financed with revenues obtained from the sale of [...]

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission has denied petitions by PECO and other electricity providers to lower the energy consumption reduction targets imposed under Phase II of PA’s 2008 Act 129. Act 129 required large electric companies to adopt energy efficiency conservation programs to meet reduction targets set by the PUC.  Rather than set a single [...]