From DBL Partners before debate: Clean energy briefing book for next president

Sep­tem­ber 21, 2016 — In advance of the first pres­i­den­tial debate on Mon­day, Sept. 26, ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist Nan­cy Pfund, founder and man­ag­ing part­ner of VC firm DBL Part­ners and an ear­ly backer of Tes­la and SolarCi­ty, and Kristofer Holz, an MBA can­di­date at the Yale School of Man­age­ment, have pre­pared what amounts to a brief­ing book for the next pres­i­dent on how to fos­ter clean ener­gy poli­cies that can improve the envi­ron­ment and rein in cli­mate change, cre­ate jobs, and pro­vide reli­able, afford­able elec­tric­i­ty. Their 25-page opus, “THE 2017 INAUGURATION: Empow­er­ing a Clean Ener­gy Nation,” which sur­faced at this week’s New York Cli­mate Week, aims to build a bread-based clean­tech coali­tion with finan­cial poli­cies that encour­age inno­va­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion. It offers spe­cif­ic pol­i­cy approach­es in “An Investor’s Per­spec­tive: Pol­i­cy Rec­om­men­da­tions for the Next Pres­i­dent.” It presents a “Clean Ener­gy Tri­fec­ta” that would pro­vide eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus for coal-pro­duc­ing states, bring afford­able clean ener­gy to under­served low-income pop­u­la­tions, and help states that are primed for a solar renais­sance. It would boost weath­er­iza­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in low-income hous­ing. And it would seek to engage util­i­ties as part­ners in work­ing toward need­ed poli­cies sup­port­ing grid reform.

Final­ly, in “Super­charg­ing Our Future –Invest­ment Poli­cies That Build an Onramp to Our Clean Ener­gy Econ­o­my,” it makes spe­cif­ic pol­i­cy sug­ges­tions, like expand­ing the invest­ment tax cred­it to ener­gy storage—a much-need­ed fourth wheel. Like oth­er items we’ve high­light­ed today, it’s a paper worth studying.

To read the full arti­cle, vis­it Elec​tric​i​ty​Pol​i​cy​.com.