Infrastructure Bill Leads to the Largest Climate Change Initiative US Has Seen
The areas that will benefit from the bill are renewable energy and infrastructure technology.
After months of debate, lawmakers have finally passed an infrastructure bill. It was sent to President Biden is due to be signed today. This bill is set to correct many areas of devastation caused by natural disasters earlier in the year.
According to Forbes, there are two big areas in the bill which will benefit from weather insights: growing the use of renewable resources in the U.S. and investing in technology and infrastructure to help the country adapt to the devastating impacts of extreme weather resulting from climate change. Using weather insights will help at all levels of program implementation around these initiatives to help inform decision making and planning.
The infrastructure bill includes several different programs focusing on reducing carbon emissions in the energy sector, with a focus on investments and proposed tax credits around renewable energy. Solar energy, for example, has the potential to power 40 percent of the electric supply in the U.S., and the U.S. Department of Energy, says that by 2050, wind could be a feasible source of renewable electricity in all 50 states. It takes weather to manage the weather when it comes to using it as a renewable energy source. Because weather is an important component in every aspect of renewable energy development, weather insights need to be considered during site selection and installation, when optimizing energy generation, for routine maintenance, and even decommissioning sites. Perhaps the biggest impact of weather analytics is in managing supply and demand of renewable energy.
Weather analytics plays a major role in maintaining a steady flow of energy from nature, which is very different from using a fuel source where there is more control. With renewable energy, the goal for utility companies is to compensate for source fluctuations, rather than control the flow of the resource — like with coal or natural gas — and that’s where weather insights come into play. It’s important for renewable energy companies to use a comprehensive set of weather models, along with statistical forecasting to best understand the amount of potential power available.
