All posts by Adam Aston

GreenBiz

PG&E is first utility client for Mainspring’s novel ‘linear generator’ | GreenBiz

Mainspring technicians workl the assembly line to build linear generators.

Mainspring Energy was founded in 2010 by a trio of Stanford Ph.D.s, born not out of the university’s legendary coding schools but rather from its thermodynamics lab. Back at a time when the startup world was growing wary of cleantech, the team targeted a tough task: to drive down emissions by reinventing one of the grid’s most fundamental technologies. 

Their target? The nearly 200-year-old design of the electric generator. Where practically all mechanical generators spin in a circle, relying on rotating magnets to generate current, Mainspring engineered a design that moves back and forth in a line. 

It’s a simple physical reorientation with potentially dramatic impact. The resulting “linear generator” delivers efficiencies that co-founder and chief executive Shannon Miller says produce electricity more cleanly, at a lower cost and more flexibly than can a multi-billion-dollar market of incumbents, including turbines, reciprocating engines and fuel cells.

And after a decade of development, the Menlo Park (Calif.) firm’s linear generator is scaling into commercial production at a time of sharply growing demand for flexible options that can support the grid sustainably. “Extreme weather events and the rise of electrification are driving increasing demands on the electric grid for affordable resiliency,” Miller said. “At the same time, we need to be moving rapidly toward a net-zero-carbon grid.” 

A utility milestone

Following a handful of corporate and institutional deployments beginning in 2020, Mainspring’s first utility project was announced this week in Angwin, California. 

The town is a crucial node on Pacific Gas & Electric’s network in Napa County, a microgrid distribution point where a generator is positioned to stabilize the daily ebbs and flows of power, as well as to supply downstream customers if transmission into the area goes down. And during California’s epic drought and record wildfire season, that’s been happening more often, as PG&E resorts to public safety power shutoff (PSPS) events to avoid sparking new fires.  

Occupying a footprint about the size of a parking space, the 240-kilowatt linear generator will initially run in tandem with a conventional diesel reciprocating engine, while PG&E commissions the unit. Multiple Mainspring units can be paired to increase output. In time, Miller expects the linear generator to take over fully, as it does things the diesel cannot.

For example, thanks to precise power electronics, the Mainspring unit can ramp up and down almost instantaneously, to better match microsecond grid fluctuations. And as renewables multiply, power supplies are growing more variable and less stable overall, so increased responsiveness is good for the grid. 

And its low emissions should be good for nearby communities. As utilities have increased their reliance on portable diesel generators to stabilize the grid, rising air pollution is hitting nearby populations, often in disadvantaged communities. 

Compared with the nearby diesel engine, Mainspring’s generator cuts nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by more than 90 percent and lowers particulate pollutants proportionately. Fueled by biogas, it emits virtually no carbon. And in the future, the unit can run on practically any gaseous fuel, Miller said, including emerging zero-carbon fuels such as renewable propane or green hydrogen.  

The Mainspring linear generator’s core assembly.

How it works

Mainspring’s performance edge arises from the architecture of its design, combined with the benefits of its state-of-the-art power electronics, an area of technology that, thanks to the scaling of renewables, has advanced rapidly during Mainspring’s decade of development. “Those systems allow us to do all the control, to achieve fuel flexibility, dispatchability and efficiency,” Miller said.

Physically, the design reorients familiar elements of an electric generator — magnets moving through loops of copper wire. Rather than spinning in circular motion like most generators, in Mainspring’s design, the magnets slide to and fro along a horizontal axis with precision that varies by less than the width of a piece of paper.

When a mix of fuel and air enters the central reaction zone, it is not combusted. Rather, via a low-temperature reaction, pressure directly converts thermochemical energy into motion which pushes two pistons — Mainspring calls them oscillators — outward from the center. 

Power is produced as magnets mounted on the oscillators pass through copper coils embedded in the shell.

When the oscillators reach the limit of their travel, they compress air at the far end of the cylinder, creating a spring-like pressure that rebounds them back toward the center, generating more power on the return journey.

With only two moving parts, Mainspring’s design can generate more power per unit of fuel than other mechanical generators. Miller said. At the same time, its simplicity incurs lower maintenance and material costs. Unlike turbines or engines, its innovative air bearing system needs no oil or routine parts replacement. And unlike fuel cells, no costly catalysts need be replaced. 

By operating at relatively low heat, the design virtually eliminates NOx emissions and other harmful byproducts of combustion. Taken together, the design advances “can deliver the high efficiency and low emissions of fuel cells with the low cost and dispatchability of engines and microturbines,” Miller said. 

Mainspring linear generator at a test site (not the PG&E implementation).

Financing growth

This bundle of advantages has attracted a wave of blue chip investors. In May, Mainspring capped a Series D round of $95 million, led by Fine Structure Ventures (previously Devonshire Investors), the private equity firm affiliated with Fidelity Investments’ parent company FMR, along with support from 40 North Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures and Princeville Capital. 

The D round brings to $228 million the total raised by the startup to date, building on earlier commitments from Khosla Ventures in Round A and Bill Gates in Round B. The Series C included a mix of strategic energy industry partners: AEP, Centrica, ClearSky Power & Technology and Equinor. 

In March, Mainspring announced a partnership with U.S. utility and renewables giant NextEra Energy — the world’s largest private-sector generator of renewable energy. 

Via its business services arm NextEra Energy Resources, the deal commits $150 million to help Mainspring’s customers buy, finance and deploy the new generators, principally via arrangements like power purchase agreements (PPAs), where customers need not buy the asset outright and can instead pay recurring fees. 

NextEra also offers the startup a strong partner with which to scale up green hydrogen. In July 2020, NextEra announced a pilot green hydrogen project with Florida Power & Light. For Mainspring, NextEra’s expertise in deploying emerging renewables into the grid offers a leg up and a fast track to partner with new clients. “Our strategy is find partners that understand where the grid is going and can really help us scale,” said Miller.  

Mainspring’s two publicly disclosed customers, PG&E and Kroger, both opted for PPA-style financing via NextEra. For Kroger, the deal offered a way to improve the reliability of energy supply at one of its Los Angeles-area stores, while cutting costs and lowering emissions — all with minimal upfront commitment.  ​​

“We’re not spending capital on this. That’s for other companies to do. We’re not maintaining it. That’s for other companies to do,” said Denis George, energy manager at The Kroger Co. “That puts us on a very equivalent basis to buying power from the utility.” 

The grocer is facing an increasingly common bind: the squeeze of rising costs for grid-supplied electricity along with pressure to cut emissions from onsite power sources. 

“We’ve already done practically everything we can on efficiency,” George said. The linear generator helps Kroger improve sustainability by moving towards its enterprise-wide goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent.

Reliability vs. climate 

Kroger’s priorities mirror those of a growing number of big energy users for whom decarbonization goals are running up against the challenges of climate change and grid instability. 

Along with California, much of the west is in a similar predicament, as rising temperatures are driving electricity demand, just as drought is diminishing hydropower output and fire is threatening major transmission lines. 

The pressure is pushing governments, utilities and companies alike to boost spending on backup power, even when it may not meet green goals. In July, despite supporting some of the nation’s most ambitious decarbonization targets, California’s governor declared an emergency, a move that permitted rapid deployment of fossil-fueled backup solutions and sped the rollout of new clean energy projects. 

The following month, the state energy commission OK’d five temporary gas-fired generators to reduce blackout risks. As GreenBiz’s Sarah Golden noted in her weekly newsletter, “[California] officials are faced with the difficult choice of alleviating suffering today or curbing catastrophe tomorrow.” 

Mainspring offers a way to meet both priorities. Near term, it can responsively generate low-emissions, affordable energy. And into the future, its fuel flexibility enables it to handle tomorrow’s clean fuels, Miller said. Compared with a decade ago, “The tailwinds for us keep getting stronger.”

Originally published at Greenbiz.com: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/pge-first-utility-client-mainsprings-novel-linear-generator

GreenBiz

The challenges of building electrification — or, the parable of flameless wok hei | GreenBiz

By Adam Aston

Consider the humble wok. Little more than a wide metal bowl, a good wok can transmute high heat and simple ingredients into sublime flavors. Peek in the back of your favorite Chinese hole-in-the-wall and you may spy a chef calmly working the mix as flames engulf the wok and powerful jet burners roar below. A chef can spend years perfecting this fusion of fire and heat, oil and spice — or wok hei, the “breath of the wok.” 

Elemental as they may be to Chinese cuisine, gas-fired woks are wildly inefficient. More of their heat is wasted than is used. Harmful combustion byproducts, such as carbon monoxide, can spike to levels far higher than allowed by safety codes. And much of the excess cooking heat radiates beyond the kitchen, boosting costs to cool and vent neighboring spaces.

The tension between gas-fired woks’ unique capabilities and the challenge of finding a good substitute given their outsize climate footprint is evocative of the wider challenges to decarbonize commercial buildings. And the urgency to find workable solutions is rising. 

More regions are advancing plans to curtail natural gas, a powerful greenhouse gas. Since 2019, when Berkeley, California, became the first U.S. city to pass a ban to discourage the use of natural gas in new homes and buildings, big cities including Denver, New York, Seattle and San Francisco either have introduced or approved similar rules. 

Homes and businesses account for about 13 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, with a large share of that coming directly from the combustion of natural gas to cook food, fire furnaces and heat water, as well as to wash and dry laundry. Methane — the main ingredient in natural gas which frequently leaks — traps 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Curtailing the installation of new natural gas capacity, let alone retrofitting the millions of buildings that rely on it today, amounts to a monumental challenge. 

But the consensus view from a group of building professionals who gathered virtually for VERGE Electrify last month reflected progress for electrification. Efforts are advancing, whether for new construction (easier), retrofits (harder) or even restaurant electrification (among the hardest) — including, yes, those woks. Here are some highlights:

Bigger, taller, better buildings. Just five or 10 years ago, green building pros frequently faced fundamental doubts about electrification, those “Can it be done?” sorts of questions. “We’ve passed that,” said Shawn Hesse, business development director at the International Living Future Institute (ILFI), a nonprofit that established the Living Building Challenge in 2007. “Today we get questions about scale and complexity.” From tens of thousands of square feet a few years ago, “We’re seeing projects come through that are a million square feet or more today.” 

Advancing ambitions. In that earlier era, advanced buildings often were at the bleeding edge of technology. Milestone net-zero energy projects helped to prove viability, refine learning and inspire further advances. “We’re not being guinea pigs anymore,” said Calina Ferraro, a principal at Integral Group’s San Diego office, “we’re building taller and more challenging facilities.” At one pioneering project, Seattle’s self-powered Bullitt Center, “Our main goal was to be a replicable model,” so others could follow in its footsteps, said Jim Hanford, a principal at Miller Hull, which designed the building. To boost its solar potential in cloudy Seattle, the center’s distinctive solar canopy cantilevers out beyond the building’s edges. 

Integration drives innovation. Early successes opened the door to more ambitious building system integration and higher overall performance goals, said John Elliott, chief sustainability officer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). By setting whole-building performance targets — instead of just trying to beat energy codes — LBNL’s newest high-performance building achieves deep efficiency, using a little less than a third of the energy of the facility it replaced. “We integrate the building to a campus-wide operating system and build applications on top of that,” Elliott said. “We’re seeing a drastic increase in our ability to scale energy management and be much more innovative.”

Good enough can still be great. Keep in mind that not every project can hit the high bar of complete electrification — and that’s OK. Whether to score certification or hit a standard, a “kind of tunnel vision” can take over on some projects, Ferraro noted. “Some feel that if we can’t hit that, then we’re going to scrap it.” Such perfectionism can derail good-enough approaches that take a step in the right direction and set the stage for greater impact later. For example, quicker upgrades that reduce demand — such as lighting improvements — cut overall building demand load, making electrification easier when it happens.

Incrementalism accelerates retrofits. In fact, step-by-step incrementalism is often the only way existing facilities can be electrified. At San Francisco International Airport (SFO), the challenge of financing upfront conversion costs, questions about technology maturity and the staggered timeline of tenant lease renewals are just a few variables influencing the rollout of the airport’s complex electrification plans across a campus of 103 buildings, according to Amy Nagengast, energy program manager at SFO. 

An audit of its menagerie of hangers, mechanical facilities and passenger spaces is giving SFO a deeper understanding of the challenge ahead. Most of the airport’s energy (56 percent) already comes from electricity; natural gas supplies 44 percent. And of all the buildings using natural gas, four-fifths are tenant-occupied. “We’re really trying to figure out what equipment uses that natural gas,” said Nagengast, along with where it’s located, what electric alternatives are available and how best to finance a conversion. The audit is helping SFO sequence a conversion plan for both its own facilities and those occupied by tenants.

Electrifying restaurants is getting easier. SFO found that among its food and beverage tenants, natural gas consumption was concentrated in a short list of kitchen equipment: deep fryers, ovens and ranges. Swaying those restaurants to electrify is as much about education as it is about picking the best alternative gear. 

Once chefs start using electric induction ranges, they tend to like them, said Christopher Galarza, a pro chef who has electrified commercial kitchens and now runs Forward Dining Solutions. But preconceived beliefs can make conversion tough: “Chefs are, by nature, stubborn. We don’t like change.” Some of those doubts are founded on past experience, from underpowered ’50s-era electric coil stoves to vendors that can’t yet support the latest induction cooktops. 

But today, commercial kitchen suppliers have rolled out a full range of like-sized electric induction gear, which by many measures are better than their gas counterparts. Since electric induction cooktops are so efficient, much less energy is wasted. Food can cook more quickly and more consistently, thanks to more precise temperature control. And because kitchens are cooler overall, staff are less stressed and diners can be brought in closer to the cooking experience. Even skeptical kitchen vets are often “blown away by how this equipment can improve the restaurant experience,” Galarza said.

A CookTek commercial induction range. Via Cooktek.com.

About those woks

For all the advantages electric induction offers, development of new cooking equipment has followed a familiar arc. Early commercial induction stovetops and ovens arrived at high prices, beset with occasional performance glitches. Increasing scale is helping suppliers to work out those kinks, improve reliability and drive down costs.

Today, you’ll still find more natural gas cookers in supplier catalogs, but electric induction options are multiplying as prices fall and more chefs and restaurant managers discover their sometimes surprising advantages. Electric induction deep fryers, for example, use about half the oil of gas-heated versions, and the oil can last days longer. 

Woks have been trickier to convert but are tracing a similar path. When placed on a flat induction surface, too little of the wok heats up. The solution? A design that nestles the wok in a concave induction cavity delivers all of the heat — if none of the flame — using a fraction of the energy.

A quick scan of commercial kitchen supply houses shows induction woks remain costly but the price tags are coming down — lately to around $2,000 per station, about twice the price of a conventional pro rig. 

What’s next?

Don’t worry — your favorite stir fry isn’t going away. The parable of the wok illuminates an uneven path ahead for wider electrification. Change is hard and will take time, but it is underway. The technology is increasingly ready, but it will be pricey at first, which can make convincing skeptical stakeholders — from wok hei masters to big property developers — that much tougher. 

For their part, property developers are finding that as the barriers to electrification shrink, priorities are changing. “I would frame it as: What’s the cost of not electrifying?” said Becca Rushin, vice president of sustainability and social responsibility at Jamestown, a global real estate investment and management company. “In the grand scheme, the increased costs of electrification ends up being incremental. And you’re insulating yourself from the transition risk of being unprepared when legislation is passed.”

Published at GreenBiz.com on June 7, 2021. See the original here: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/challenges-building-electrification-or-parable-flameless-wok-hei

GreenBiz

Jigar Shah Is Making the DOE’s loans office mighty again. Here’s how | GreenBiz

By Adam Aston

Maybe you first knew him as chief executive of the Carbon War Room or as the co-founder of Generate Capital. Or maybe you came across him as a LinkedIn mega-influencer, GreenBiz contributor or even as a former co-host of The Energy Gang podcast — he’s the one with the ready laugh and the sharp takes.

Chances are, you already know Jigar Shah. He’s spent the past two decades making a compelling case for the climate-fixing, profit-generating potential of clean energy, all the while batting down ill-informed skeptics and bad business models.

Now, as part of the Biden administration’s effort to jump-start economy-wide decarbonization, Shah has been granted more capital — and a bigger platform — than he might ever have thought possible. 

The total: $46 billion, according to Shah. That’s the lending capacity he can mobilize at the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), which he was appointed to oversee in March. 

To make the “once-mighty” office — as his boss, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, put it — mighty again, Shah faces big challenges. The office has been all but dormant for much of the past decade, due in part to Trump-era deprioritization but also hampered by a lingering reputation for bureaucratic dysfunction. 

Barely three months into his new role, Shah joined this week’s VERGE Electrify virtual event to kick off the conference and share his plans to get the loans flowing once again, in a keynote conversation with GreenBiz Group’s Senior Transportation Analyst Katie Fehrenbacher, who co-chaired the event. 

Re-booting the LPO. Following a decade of dormancy, the office has moved into a fast-forward mode, fueled by Biden’s climate agenda and Shah’s contacts — he’s reached out to over 100 CEOs since he joined. “People are starting to realize that we’re open for business,” he said. “If we got maybe three applications all of last year, we’ve gotten three a week recently. That comes from people trusting the program will be there for them.” 

A catalytic role. Deep as LPO’s loan pool may be, Shah sees his office’s role as narrowly targeted — providing catalytic funding at a key stage, before companies are able to access commercial debt. Consider the example of nuclear energy innovators such as Oklo, NuScale or Holtect. “Small modular reactors are going to be built across the country,” said Shah. But they’re not likely to be able to raise commercial debt until the technology is de-risked. Shah sees LPO’s role as building a bridge to bankability: “Then, we’re done.”

Streamlining the process. By pushing an easier, more user-friendly approach, Shah is tackling head-on the office’s lingering reputation for being too costly, too complex and too long-odds. “We’ve dropped all the application fees,” he said. “And we don’t charge any of the other fees that we used to until you’ve received the loan and started to draw it down.”

Energizing climate justice. Shah sees a space where the LPO has the potential to both modernize the grid and benefit historically disenfranchised communities. Virtual power plants offer an opportunity to advance grid-scale energy services while helping cities and communities upgrade energy infrastructure and cut energy costs. That could mean building solar with storage on low-income housing or affordably financing grid-responsive smart air conditioners or water heaters. Models such as these promise to “not only get essential appliances affordably into the hands of people who need them,” said Shah, “you’re also able to get higher utilization rates from the existing distribution infrastructure.” 

Swings at bat. To the vexing question of how to pick winners from among emerging technologies, Shah brings the perspective of a seasoned climate tech entrepreneur. “We have to take a lot of swings at bat,” said Shah, “and we are going to have misses.” But misses — with a nod to the failure of Solyndra, a Obama-era solar startup — can be offset by towering successes, such as Tesla, to which the DOE lent $465 million in 2010, a moment when the then-nascent EV maker was far closer to failure than world domination. Today, it’s the world’s most valuable carmaker and has sparked a competitive race to electrify the automotive industry. “That’s what the president has talked about,” said Shah. “We want to make sure from a technology standpoint, we’re leading the pack worldwide.”

Tips for loan candidates. “Don’t be scared! Come in early,” advised Shah. To be sure: There will be many forms, but Shah’s team is working to ensure that the process is easier to navigate than before. Over the past month, the office has added more than 10 people to escort applicants through the loan process. “We want every person who thinks they have a good idea that deserves funding to have a shot.”

If you’re one of those people, the initial review process takes six weeks, typically. Once qualified, getting the approval stage takes four to five months of diligence.

By that timeline, Shah’s office will announce the first batch of new loans under the Biden administration by autumn, if not sooner. 

Published May 28, 2021 at https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-jigar-shah-sees-making-energy-departments-loans-office-mighty-again.

Ghost writing, NCX (SilviaTerra)

Democratizing decarbonization… | NCX (SilviaTerra)

Democratizing decarbonization in a forest near you

Ghost writing / thought leadership on behalf of NCX, formerly SilviaTerra, 2021-05-10

How an innovative mix of remote sensing, AI analytics and a new marketplace is boosting incentives for owners of even small forest tracts to cut less, and keep more carbon locked up

Could trees turn out to be our best, not-so-secret weapon to fight climate change?

Amidst rising urgency to develop high-tech climate solutions — from direct air capture to geoengineering — trees are nature’s killer app, one of the most efficient, lowest-cost ways to remove substantial volumes of carbon. Yet, until now, we haven’t found scalable ways to harness their potential.

Steady growth

Our forests hold more promise than you may realize. Letting forests regrow naturally has the potential to absorb up to 8.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year through 2050, the Nature Conservancy estimates.

This process is already underway. For generations, the US has added more trees than we have harvested, thanks to shifts in farming patterns. Decades of steady surplus mean that today we have more forest than a century ago. And locked up in those millions of trees are billions of tons of carbon.

Perhaps more remarkable yet: This growing sink of carbon has flourished with few, if any, special incentives. Landowners tend to steward their forests. Some do so primarily to enjoy all the intangible benefits woodlands give us — from watershed management to biodiversity and visual beauty. And others do so for financial returns, to cultivate timber.

Today, select landowners can already do both: conserve their forests and harvest financial value from the carbon their trees hold. A small number already participate in markets that monetize the long-term value of the carbon locked up in their trees.

But the scale is limited. Conventional methods of measuring, modeling and documenting forests are costly. Typically, only large landholders can justify the huge upfront investment necessary to secure long-term deals.

This leaves most acres of forest out of play, and their carbon offset potential untapped. Roughly half of all forests in the US are owned by small landowners that, until now, have been excluded from these markets.

Democratizing decarbonization

At SilviaTerra, we’ve spent the last decade bringing to market a suite of innovations that can deliver these kinds of benefits at dramatically lower cost, more quickly, to more people. Broadening access to carbon offsets promises to help not just landowners, but buyers of offsets too and, ultimately, the environment.

At the foundation of our approach is a smarter way to inventory forests. By replacing painstaking on-the-ground surveys with satellite imagery processed by machine learning, we can characterize vast areas of forest with greater accuracy, down to the individual tree.

Yet data about forests, on its own, isn’t enough. The critical complement is a dynamic set of technologies that lets us model the probability a forest will be cut. The goal: to identify tracts more likely to be harvested and reward landowners to keep those areas growing.

Combining this forest and market data in our proprietary marketplace, the Natural Capital Exchange, lets us measure and value the carbon sequestered on a given property at costs far lower than conventional methods. We can then bundle and sell those carbon credits to a corporate buyer.

Buyers, in turn, benefit from a deeper, more reliable market. Greater transparency, together with increased certainty of offset quality, can help them plan and execute more ambitious, longer-term climate strategies.

Landowners, meanwhile, are rewarded yearly based on market rates for the value of the annual growth of carbon held by their trees. And if they do harvest some trees that year, they’re not paid for those offsets.

By year end, access to this market will be available to every landowner, across every acre in the US.

Cultivating carbon capture

The world needs countless more innovations to bend the arc of emissions towards net-zero and beyond. At SilviaTerra, we’re creating a combination of approaches to help forests thrive, and democratize the benefits of carbon-removing incentives.

As warming, drought, pests and wildfire take a growing toll on our forests, the urgency is greater than ever to manage the trees we have and to incent more new growth, through climate-smart strategies.

After all, nature has provided us an amazing technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Until now, what’s been missing is a better way to measure, track and trade its value.

Sources:

“Forests Can Absorb Carbon More Quickly than Previously Thought.” The Nature Conservancy, 23 Sept. 2020, nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-insights/perspectives/climate-potential-natural-regrowth-forests. Accessed 15 Apr. 2021.

Starre Vartan,  “More Trees than There Were 100 Years Ago? It’s True!” Treehugger, 2015, www.treehugger.com/more-trees-than-there-were-years-ago-its-true-4864115. Accessed 13 Apr. 2021.

Originally published here: https://blog.silviaterra.com/democratizing-decarbonization-in-a-forest-near-you/.

PDF version here:

SilviaTerra – Democratizing decarbonization 2021-05-10Download
CPP Investments, White papers

Hydrogen’s new moment | CPP Investments

A white paper on behalf of Thinking Ahead, a thought leadership platform at CPP Investments, a Canadian pension fund.

Challenge: Survey hydrogen’s enormous potential role in the energy transition across multiple sectors for an audience of non-energy experts.

Solution: A short white paper overviewing fast developing news in the hydrogen space, offset by classic data visualizations: call outs, tables and explainers for emphasis.

My roles: research, writing, data composition, chart design/recommendation, writing, copy editing, design/visual editing.

View the full report at CPP Investments or download here:

2021-03 Hydrogen’s new moment Download

Morgan Stanley

7 Trends That Will Reshape Work — And Life — In 2021 | Morgan Stanley

As businesses plan for the post-pandemic future, we’re finding that many changes born during this period have created lasting shifts in how companies support their employees in both the best of times and the worst. From improving work-from- home practices to enhancing how businesses attract and nurture more diverse workforces, here are seven key trends that show how 2020 has redefined our relationship with our jobs and our employers.

1. Rethinking Productivity and Remote Work

Post COVID-19, the white-collar workforce is poised to change fundamentally. McKinsey & Company estimates the remote workforce could quadruple in size.1 By many measures, productivity rose during the lockdown, yet many employees found that isolation sapped motivation and family demands interrupted work. In light of this, executives are setting a new tone by rethinking how best to capture the gains of remote work while reducing its downsides. Leaders are focusing on productivity by sharing best practices for meetings, surveying their employees, having more candid conversations with them, and exploring how to restore in-person gatherings when the time is right.

2. Hiring and Keeping Top Talent

To survive the economic downturn in 2020, layoffs were a wrenching necessity for 59% of chief executives.2 Heading into 2021, a growing share of business leaders are looking to refill those spots.3 And the wave of workers cut loose during the lockdown offers a rare opportunity to remake and upgrade roles with an infusion of new talent and unique perspectives from other industries. Leaders are diversifying by hiring people with disabilities, as well as those from military backgrounds or untapped geographies.

3. Boosting Workers’ Mental and Physical Wellness

Facing rising anxiety, many Americans devoted extra time to their mental and physical wellness during the pandemic. Sales of both meditation apps and home fitness gear surged.4 At this moment, companies are broadening the definition of wellness and extending more support at home and at work to help employees de-stress. For instance, they’re providing services like personalized coaching to address financial stressors. For mental health, some firms are offering virtual therapy and meditation benefits that can help repair the performance-robbing harms of stress and depression.

4. Updating Workplace Benefits for Millennials

Even as the U.S. workforce grows increasingly multigenerational, millennials are emerging as its biggest cohort and its most potent source of change, particularly around job flexibility. And while millennials have in the past been notoriously quick to switch firms, that’s changing as they become more committed to bigger roles and their responsibilities grow. Research from PwC suggests that companies can further boost retention with millennial-friendly policies, such as expanded equity ownership, more accommodating work-from-home rules and flexible vacation terms. What’s more, firms are pleased to find that non-millennials like these policies too.

5. Addressing Diversity to Improve Hiring and Retention

Even before the convergence of 2020’s crises, employees — particularly women, people of color and LGBTQ communities — faced tougher financial challenges, such as higher student debt levels and retirement shortfalls, compared to other groups. While these issues can be highly stressful and distracting for employees, companies can now address the unique financial realities of specific segments and help these employees be more productive and confident. For instance, leaders are advancing benefits that pay down student debt and customizing financial wellness plans that serve the specific needs of many historically marginalized groups.

6. Reframing Open Enrollment to Deepen Engagement

As remote workers encounter new challenges and needs, companies are rethinking how and when they communicate about benefits and open enrollment. After all, it is the most important opportunity they have to improve the financial and overall well-being of their workforce and their families. To do so, HR decision-makers are engaging employees early and often, and introducing new benefits and financial wellness programs. More companies are widening the availability of equity compensation and retirement planning; some are strengthening mental and health coverage; and many are adding benefits that enhance care for children and adult dependents.

7. Deepening Trust With Extra Financial Support

Now more than ever, people trust their employers as a vital part of their financial safety net. During the pandemic, 46% of companies reported an increase in requests for 401(k) loans and hardship withdrawals; 27% said they fielded increased calls for pay advances.15 Against this backdrop, it’s increasingly important for companies to stay abreast of their employees’ financial health; to target communications to those at risk; and to open up financial wellness programs to staff and their families. Companies are also examining the potential benefits of extending health coverage to gig workers and evaluating the impact of high-deductible health plans on the financial wellness of specific employee segments.

The Bottom Line

The past year has stressed workers and their families like few before. And while the challenges of adapting have come at a cost, encouraging, long-term solutions are emerging. While companies continue to reckon with the pandemic and its effects, they’re taking the opportunity to address the evolving needs of employees and build a deeper relationship with them.

As your company navigates this new landscape, Morgan Stanley at Work is here to help guide you and your employees toward financial confidence and improved well-being, at work and at home.

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Check out the original here, with animated data graphics and full footnotes: https://www.morganstanley.com/atwork/articles/seven-trends-work-life-2021

GARP, White papers

The Energy Transition: Risks and Opportunities | GARP

GARP-Energy-Risk-White-Paper-2021

  • This white paper surveys changes sweeping the global energy industry as net-zero carbon policy and alternative technologies begin to displace fossil fuels.
  • Researched and wrote 5,000-word report, drawing on primary research, press coverage and subject matter interviews; researched and designed data visualizations.
  • Target audience: Finance, traders and risk professionals in the finance, oil/gas, utility and renewables sectors.
  • On behalf of the Global Assn of Risk Professionals.  Published February 2021. 
  • Download the full report here or at garp.org.

GreenBiz

How tenants continue to press for greener commercial buildings, despite COVID-19 | GreenBiz

Manhattan’s once incandescent skyline is still dimmed, its office buildings emptied of workers. And Silicon Valley’s corporate campuses remain islanded, surrounded by seas of empty parking lots, as a nation of commuters continues to log in from home. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered office life — and the commercial building sector — in ways few could have dreamt of just a year ago. Yet as companies begin to map out tentative plans for a post-pandemic return to cubicles, the emphasis on greening those buildings hasn’t receded.

If anything, industry leaders say, COVID-19 has intensified the urgency of making buildings more energy efficient and healthy for workers. 

For Workday, with some 12,300 employees worldwide, decisions are still being made of how and when to return to its mix of owned and leased office spaces. But this hasn’t diminished the software company’s plans to add onsite solar panels and battery storage at its headquarters in the Bay Area in California.COVID-19 has intensified the urgency of making buildings more energy efficient and healthy for workers.

“Our focus on sustainability in our office buildings has remained strong. Leadership agreed we should be making this a priority and gave us their full support to make our buildings more environmentally friendly,” said Erik Hansen, Workday’s director of sustainability at a breakout session during GreenBiz Group’s clean economy conference last week, VERGE 20.

Landlords are seeing similar trends. “My tenants are very concerned about the erosion of environmental gains because of COVID,” said Sara Neff, senior vice president of sustainability at Kilroy Realty Corp., a Los Angeles-based landlord and developer with properties in San Diego, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Pacific Northwest. 

It’s not just renewable energy anymore

Tenant concerns go well beyond energy issues. “Tenants are worried about things like, ‘What happens to our scope 3 emissions when nobody takes public transit? What happens to building energy consumption if we are constantly running the ventilation systems? What happens when our waste diversion numbers tank because we’re throwing away so much PPE and are back to single-use plastics in our kitchens?’” Neff added, referring to recent client conversations. 

“But nobody has backed off,” she added. “We’ve had [tenant] companies make new commitments since COVID began.”

As more companies engage in this process, they’re learning that making green upgrades can be more complicated when they lease, rather than own. Historically, inflexible, standard lease terms can make it difficult for a tenant to influence green building factors such as the kind of energy their landlord taps into, or even accessing detailed data on resource consumption. Workday has found that when setting up offices in multi-tenant buildings, negotiating technical lease terms early offers the best opportunity for success.

Workday has found that when setting up offices in multi-tenant buildings, negotiating technical lease terms early offers the best opportunity for success. “It’s best to have a dialogue with the landlord early on — while the lease is being negotiated — so that key language about procuring renewable energy can make it into the contract,” said Hansen.

The more tenants push, the more landlords can begin to drive change. “When a tenant asks about [things such as renewable energy or energy performance data] that’s when landlords start hiring people to run sustainability programs. Investments start getting made,” said Neff. “I can’t emphasize enough the importance of asking these questions and getting key terms into the lease.”

Rising expectations

Sure enough, tenants are beginning to do so. Momentum for change has been building since before COVID-19. “Starting 12 or 18 months ago, we started to see tenants really push us, and to collaborate on environmental projects, which has been great,” said Neff. 

As she sees it, tenants’ expectations have increased as more companies staff up to support their sustainability commitments. “Some of our big tenants are just now starting to hire heads of sustainability, so their sophistication is rising. Tenants who have been on the sidelines are now in the game,” she explained.

With tenants such as Workday and landlords such as Kilroy getting smarter about green building upgrades, gains can compound as trust deepens. “There tends to be more transparency and collaboration with landlord-tenant green building transactions,” said Rob Federighi, vice president of sales at Edison Energy, a global energy advisor based in Newport Beach, California. 

In practice, to make green building investments succeed, landlords need the right tenant, and vice versa. Tenant commitment can help landlords finance the investment necessary for major upgrades, such as solar plus storage. Tenants, meanwhile, need landlord support to achieve the sorts of zero-carbon energy goals more and more are committing to, Federighi added. 

Resources to help you green your lease

For both tenants and landlords exploring greener leases, libraries of standard lease terms have been developed and refined to help avoid common pitfalls. “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel,” said Neff. The panelists recommended these resources: 

And as more players steer into this space, Neff emphasizes that climate urgency dictates pragmatism. For instance, green project developers should not shy away from offsite renewables. There can be a bias towards doing as much onsite efficiency investment as possible, followed by as much onsite renewable as possible, but off-site renewable energy is sometimes regarded as less impactful.

“We have nine years to solve climate change,” Neff said. “Let’s first get fossil fuels off the grid.’”

View the original story at Greenbiz.com here.