Our mission: accelerate the energy transition through better, faster policy implementation

The state agencies responsible for implementing the next generation of clean energy policies are generally not prepared for the complexity of these policies or the speed at which they need to be turned into new regulations and programs.

The process is the problem. The system we have today suffers from many bottlenecks between the passage of a law and actual change in the regulations.

These state-level bottlenecks are not only threatening our climate goals but also depriving clean-tech innovators of vital market opportunities.

Due to these delays, a massive amount of capital is sitting idle, and our climate goals are at risk

Current results reflect the dysfunction: implementing policy takes years, and the eventual program designs are flawed because the stakeholder engagement process is more of a fight than a collaboration.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants and private capital are massively underutilized because states aren’t able to act quickly enough.

Right now, broken implementation processes are crippling promising policy initiatives

When New Jersey legislation set a statewide energy storage deployment target, it fell to the utility regulator to decide critical implementation details – a stalled process that’s taken six years and counting.

In Illinois, ambitious clean energy legislation required changes in how new resources connect to the grid; two years later, the stakeholder working group reported to the commission with zero actionable recommendations. Zero.

Our theory of impact: a design thinking approach and simple software solutions can greatly accelerate and improve policy implementation

We’re using our current projects as testing grounds for purpose-built policy design tools that will help commissions put concepts into action.

These tools, which will eventually become software applications for state agency staff, use design thinking principles, so implementing policy can be a collaborative design project instead of a zero-sum battle of competing interests.

Our Core Policy Toolkit

Roadmap Template

Helps quickly define a long-term vision and policy/market milestones

Dictionary

Ensures everyone is talking the same language in policy design

Design Library

Helps organize a policy project as a set of design questions that others have worked on

Design Playbook

Makes it easy to use the best lessons and examples from around the country in new policies and programs

Strategic investment here would be utterly transformative

Opening these bottlenecks will be crucial for climate-focused companies, investors, and philanthropists.

Donations to EPDI are an investment in the tools state agencies need to create successful markets for climate-tech and move the needle on the climate crisis

Our work in Maryland has already supported our theory of impact

With our help, Maryland recently laid crucial groundwork for its energy storage deployment target in only three months.

Our report back to the Maryland commission included best practices from around the country, helping them build from a strong foundation and avoid reinventing the wheel.

The end result was an initial roadmap with key questions for future consideration and an engaged stakeholder group eager to keep working together.

Read more about our work in Maryland

We want to build software solutions that scale across policy topics and jurisdictions

Solving these bottlenecks largely comes down to better implementation of the policies we already have, which is why investing in new approaches to policy design and implementation is so important.

Simple software tools could vastly accelerate progress across the country.

We’re taking proven design methods, successful roadmaps, and academic research and applying them to easy-to-use tools to aid regulatory staffers and dramatically increase the efficiency of energy policy implementation.

Read more about our vision

Invest in Accelerating the Energy Transition

We welcome small donations through our Donation Page

For larger donations (>$5K) or project-specific grants please contact us to set up a meeting with EPDI leadership