Current Projects
In order to overcome the barriers in wide-scale renewable thermal deployment, the Renewable Thermal Collaborative hosts working groups open to RTC members and sponsors, interested thermal energy buyers, and outside experts to come together to discuss potential solutions. If you are interested in joining one of our working groups, contact Blaine Collison at blaine@dgardiner.com
Industrial Electrification
Industrial thermal energy needs, especially for heat, are a significant challenge for climate change mitigation efforts. Worldwide, industrial heat makes up two-thirds of industrial energy demand and almost one-fifth of total energy consumption. However, only ten percent of this demand is met using renewable energy. In the U.S., fossil fuel combustion to produce heat and steam used for process heating, process reactions, and process evaporation, concentration, and drying creates about 52 percent of the country’s industrial direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
There is a significant opportunity to decarbonize the industrial sector by shifting heat production away from carbon-intensive fossil fuels to clean sources such as electrification where low- or zero-carbon electricity is used.
Renewable Natural Gas
Working with the Downstream Natural Gas Initiative at MJ Bradley & Associates, the Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) Working Group is working to develop a Draft Action Plan to accelerate deployment of RNG solutions for commercial, industrial, and institutional energy users.
Solar Thermal
The Solar Thermal Working Group seeks to address the major technical, market, economic, institutional, and policy barriers impeding the scaling the development and deployment of this technology as well as its potential to deliver cost-effective and sustainable, lower-carbon thermal energy in the short-term (by 2030) and the long-term (2050).
The group’s goal is to put together a Technology Assessment focused on the acceleration of solar thermal, primarily focused on how the technology can become sustainable, cost-competitive, and scalable.
GHG Accounting & Claims
The increasing interest in renewable and decarbonized thermal energy solutions has highlighted the need to consider how these strategies and solutions are treated under greenhouse gas accounting frameworks and claims guidance.
The GHG Accounting & Claims Working Group seeks to review these issues and develop a cohesive perspective that captures industrial and corporate efforts to decarbonize thermal energy use and Scope One emissions.