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Dear Clean Coalition friends,
As the third quarter of 2026 comes to a close, the case for local clean energy is gaining urgency. Growing electricity demand, rising infrastructure costs, and threats to grid security are converging around a fundamental question: how can we make our electricity system more affordable, capable, and resilient while accelerating the transition to clean energy?
Two recent New York Times articles highlight why the answer must include distributed energy. A September 25 article explores efforts in Sweden to organize electricity around interconnected local networks that produce, store, and share power. A September 28 opinion piece makes the national security case for a more distributed grid that can contain disruptions and keep essential services operating when the wider system goes down. Together, these perspectives reinforce a long-standing Clean Coalition principle: empowering communities with local clean energy strengthens the electricity system as a whole.
This is the opportunity behind the Clean Coalition’s Grid Optimization by Leveraging Distributed Energy Resources (GOLD) initiative, featured in this newsletter. GOLD provides a framework for strategically deploying and coordinating solar, energy storage, electric vehicles, flexible loads, and other distributed energy resources (DER) to unlock more value from the grid we already have. These resources can balance energy, voltage, and frequency; accelerate connections for new generation and electricity demand; and, through properly configured Solar Microgrids and Community Microgrids, sustain critical community services during outages.
Realizing this potential requires utility planning, operating practices, and compensation mechanisms that recognize the full range of services DER can provide. A battery supporting its owner’s resilience can also relieve a local grid constraint. Flexible charging can help accommodate more electric vehicles using existing infrastructure. Compensating these contributions can improve project economics, broaden participation, and reduce the need for costly grid upgrades.
For the Clean Coalition, GOLD connects our work on local clean energy deployment, Community Microgrids, and policy reform to a shared objective: delivering an unparalleled trifecta of economic, environmental, and resilience benefits. The technology and early programs are already demonstrating what is possible. The opportunity now is to make these capabilities an integral part of how we plan, operate, and invest in the grid.
Explore our work below, and please reach out with opportunities to collaborate.
Power on!
Gregory Young
Program Director
Clean Coalition
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