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Incisive commentary from RAP experts
RAP experts keep their finger on the pulse of the energy sector and provide timely analysis of topics impacting stakeholders TODAY.
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November 29, 2022
Hybrid Heat: the Cool Path to Home Heating
The opportunity: If the over 50 million US homes that have central air conditioning and a separate heating system just replaced their AC with a look-alike and more efficient “two-way” heat pump unit, those households could not only cool over… View Summary +
October 27, 2022
Making the last mile electric
- Julia Hildermeier ,
- Hussein Basma
E-commerce has grown significantly during the COVID crisis, recording a 15% increase in activity and delivery traffic in urban areas between 2019 and 2021. Replacing diesel delivery trucks with battery-electric trucks can help cut harmful emissions and local… View Summary +
October 20, 2022
A Win for Building Electrification: EPA Elevates Heat Pumps over One-Way ACs
- David Farnsworth ,
- Max Dupuy ,
- Matt Malinowski
Millions of U.S. homes have central air conditioning for the summer and separate fossil fuel heating systems for the winter. A great way to boost home heating electrification is to replace those central air conditioners with look-alike “two-way” heat pump… View Summary +
October 11, 2022
How the European Union incentivises inefficient renewable heating
The EU’s renewables directives count what fuel is burned for heating, as opposed to the amount of heat produced. Never has the spotlight shone so brightly on Europe’s heating and cooling sector. And for a good reason. Fossil gas… View Summary +
August 26, 2022
EV smart charging: A golden opportunity for distribution system operators
Electric vehicles (EVs) offer a cleaner, more energy efficient means of transportation than vehicles with internal combustion engines. Less well known is that they also provide a still largely unused resource to improve grid operation. Although the additional electricity demand… View Summary +
August 10, 2022
An Escape from the “Jaws of Delusion”: Planning for the End of Cheap Gas
In 2013, Marty Kushler, senior fellow at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), gave a presentation in Chicago on gas efficiency programs. He argued that one should not make decisions about programs with lengthy multi-year effects based on… View Summary +
July 20, 2022
‘Game on’ for Germany’s heat pump transformation
Time is of the essence if Germany hopes to meet its ambitious net-zero emissions target by 2045. To achieve this goal, the country will have to rapidly transform how it heats its buildings while ridding itself of Russian gas. Alongside… View Summary +
July 8, 2022
Making sense of India’s fast-changing policy landscape: Integrated modelling to inform decision-making
- Kakali Mukhopadhyay ,
- Ranjit Bharvirkar ,
- Frederick Weston
With several notable recent economic reforms, India is one of the fastest-growing emerging economies. The country aspires to become a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25 and a $10 trillion one by 2030. There is ample evidence that India’s growth… View Summary +
July 8, 2022
The E3-India model: It’s come a long way
- Hector Pollitt ,
- Ranjit Bharvirkar ,
- Frederick Weston
In 2016, the Regulatory Assistance Project approached Cambridge Econometrics about building a new macroeconomic modelling tool for India. The rationale for the model was simple: India needed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, but much of the policy to… View Summary +
July 6, 2022
House power: the hidden powerhouse of the new energy landscape
- Sophie Yule-Bennett
Raoul Dufy’s 1937 fresco La Fée Électricité — an arresting 600 square metre tribute to “the great adventure of electricity” — depicts science and technology leaps such as Faraday’s discovery of electromagnetic induction, Gramme’s direct current dynamo, Baudot’s… View Summary +