Renewable energy sources reduce carbon production when they replace power plants using fossil fuels, but it’s possible for something like a solar array to have a measurably larger impact when built in a region with more carbon emissions and less renewable energy proliferation.

Clearloop, a carbon reduction subsidiary of solar developer Silicon Ranch, and WattTime, a data-driven non-profit researching carbon emissions, have authored a white paper titled “Curing Carbon Blindness: How Carbon-Focused Renewable Energy Development Can Accelerate Decarbonization and Confront Environmental Inequities in the US.” The goal of the paper is to provide a clearer framework for what regions in the United States could benefit most from renewable energy developments like solar.

Solar Power World spoke to white paper co-authors Laura Zapata, CEO and co-founder of Clearloop, and Laura Corso, VP of strategic growth at WattTime, about the disparity of carbon production and reduction between U.S. regions and where renewable energy deployment could make the most impact.

This interview has been edited for brevity.

SPW: What areas are you seeing the most value in carbon reduction by introducing solar or other renewable power plants?

Laura Zapata: In the middle part of the country, we haven’t seen as much renewable development. We start breaking down the different balancing authorities. Our grid in the United States is a patchwork of grids, depending on how you slice it. But essentially, the Southeast, where Clearloop is based, is still heavily fossil fuel-dependent, and those are things on the margin that we can really break down and clean up.

Laura Corso: Focusing initially in some of these southeast and southern mid-territories, we see where there has been more renewable penetration, especially in the Southwest Power Pool region, but it’s been very wind-focused. And so having a focus on an alternative, renewable asset that has a different distribution profile helps to balance out different times of the day where the wind is often going to be a great resource overnight, whereas obviously, the sun is going to counter that during the day. So being able to not only focus on renewables in general, but the types of renewables in these regions, can have very different impacts as well.

What was the process like identifying these regions that have the most need for renewable energy?

LZ: At a starting point, the first thing you can look at is the overall grid mix, what resources are in a particular region. In Tennessee and Mississippi, those areas in particular, it’s very clear that the preliminary baseload associated with those regions — the nuclear, the hydro — those are all great, but then what’s on the margin is often very reliant on those fossil resources. That’s the high level to look at, breaking the country up into the different ways that the grid is balanced. You can easily see what generators are most commonly responding on the margin. And at a high level, that’s a perfect way to start to focus in. As you get deeper and deeper into the specifics of the sub-regions, you can start to see variation in terms of what the impact a certain project will have in that stack.

LC: What we look at is that high level, the locational, marginal emissions, and then really marry that together with our specific resource or strike irradiance, and then distressed community index. We layer all those things together, and what we come up with is, how many watts of solar do you have to build in a particular area to offset a metric ton of carbon?

When you compare different states, it’s a rough way to think about it, because some states are broken down into different grids, and so that gets a little bit more complicated. But roughly speaking, when you look at those different states, you see it takes 80 W of new solar to offset a metric ton of carbon in a place like California vs. a place like Louisiana, where it takes 30 W of new solar to offset a metric ton of carbon.

What we’re trying to do then is say, “You can build something smaller, get more bang for your buck when it comes to carbon.” And we can do that across more of these communities.

I’m curious about that jump between the wattage necessary to offset a metric ton of carbon between California and Louisiana.

LZ: The basis is always marginal emissions, right? What is the carbon intensity of the grid in that particular place? What we’re saying in this white paper is that it really matters, that location and time really matter in the United States. But location sticks out from renewable energy development, because the carbon impact that you can have as a result of where you go, really matters.

How much of an undertaking is it to source nationwide carbon production data?

LC: From the emission standpoint, up until, basically, when Watt Time was founded, there was no marginal emissions data set. So that was one of the first keys we were trying to unlock, was basically make data that is available and can be used in these decisions. Then as we learn more about each grid, as there’s more data available, that then makes the model smarter and makes the model grow and advance.

Finding the bankable corporates and organizations is a really big hurdle in this space, and we need to keep finding more ways and vehicles to enable that. The first thing that we can do, and that clearly was really brought to the forefront, is prioritizing the decarbonization and emissions element of the decision-making. It’s great that there’s so many more corporates that are focusing on decarbonization, and doing VPPAs and thinking about this, but often the avoided emissions might be a deciding factor after other criteria are taken into account. And I think that’s where Clearloop really comes at this from a different angle, saying we want to make that one of the first criteria that’s being used to decide on new projects. 

How do you direct these companies trying to reduce their carbon output to have more impactful reductions rather than going where it might be easiest?

LZ: This is that intersection of: if you want to do something good for the environment, you can actually also be doing some good socially, where you’re marrying these two things and saying, by going after the most carbon-intense grids, you’re also focusing in some of the most underserved communities and you can bring to life a new clean energy infrastructure in a community that has not seen any development of any kind in many years.

The impetus, and the real thrust for me to start Clearloop, was we could do something here in our neck of the woods, and being Tennessean, proudly so, I wanted to see more investment in my home state. If we see all this private capital out there, let’s have it invested in my home state. Then looking at the data and seeing that disparity, that you can have 50% more emissions reduction in some cases, state-by-state — that is jarring.

Are there any shared characteristics among these regions that are producing more carbon emissions?

LZ: I think the intersection between fossil fuel dependence and distressed communities, where you see poverty and chronic under- investment, you do see that overlap is real. This idea of intersectionality, where you also see high poverty communities and fossil fuel- dependent communities are all interlaced. You don’t see that as much in the Rockies — the socio-economic factors that we’re also focused on. But you see it in the Mississippi Delta on down. You see that those are the same places that we haven’t invested any infrastructure in a long time.  

LC: There are certainly commonalities you could find, but it’s not necessarily 100% across all of the fossil regions today. It depends on what those different comparable metrics are. There’s definitely some from a socio-economic standpoint that have similar characteristics. But then if you look at one region vs. another, they can also look very different from each other in terms of population, in terms of just overall industry.

What are you hoping to achieve by publishing this white paper? 

LZ: This white paper is a blueprint. It’s a map that says, here’s where we should go, here’s the treasure. Now, it’s the time for action, let’s go and really scale the action that we’ve seen thus far and the success that we’ve seen thus far. It’s a really clear way to say the treasure is here and it’s worth it. Having equitable access to clean energy and going and making the investments and going through the difficulty of being the first and pioneering different ways of unlocking this is worth it.

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The full white paper, “Curing Carbon Blindness: How Carbon-Focused Renewable Energy Development Can Accelerate Decarbonization and Confront Environmental Inequities in the US,” can be accessed here.