Energy Decarbonization Pathways and Tools
Included in Terra.do membership
A four-week online course that explores the fundamental principles, mathematical concepts, and interconnections driving global clean energy transitions.
$49/mo- access full catalogue
7-Day free trial. Cancel anytime.
Created by —
Zach Birnholz
Clean Energy Senior Specialist at Con Edison
Intermediate level
Prior experience in finance reporting recommended but not required
Flexible schedule
Learn according to your schedule with fully asynchronous learning
4 weeks / 4 hours per week
Expected commitment. We will help keep yourself accountable with timely check-ins
Certificate & Office-hours
Coming soonOptional add-on: Certificate and office-hour meetings with course creator and other learners
Course overview
This course will delve into the foundational principles and terminology of clean energy transitions and will equip you with essential quantitative tools required to play a role in these transitions.
The course begins by examining the fundamental need to electrify everything, providing examples for organizations across sectors. You’ll learn how the grid works and what policies, regulations, and behaviors best support a clean and resilient grid. Along the way, we will demystify the many units used across the energy sector, including megawatts, joules, British thermal units, kilowatt-hours, amps, and volts.
You will then learn how to use quantitative techniques to help you make impactful data-driven energy decisions. We will also dig into various obstacles and opportunities that often come up in clean energy transitions. You’ll synthesize these learnings by creating an energy action plan relevant to your profession.
You will leave with the systems thinking skills to make informed energy decisions that are beneficial for business, the grid, and the climate while building a network of like-minded peers in the space.
$49/mo
7-Day free trial
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Skills you will learn
Analyze energy scenarios
Calculate opportunities, costs, and impacts related to clean energy transitions
Identify decarbonization potential
Uncover high-impact pathways to decarbonize energy systems
Detect transition constraints
Identify bottlenecks in the clean energy transition value chain
Systems thinking
Apply an overlapping system lens to understand the interconnectedness of policy, justice, technology, labor, and markets in any clean energy transition
Who is this course for?
Business professionals targeting clean energy
Product managers, software engineers, sales professionals, consultants, and others targeting, or are newly in, clean energy careers.
Professionals who oversee energy usage
Energy analysts, energy specialists, energy consultants, sustainability managers, and others who help manage a company’s energy consumption, impacts, and costs.
Traditional energy policy and regulatory specialists
Government relations specialists, energy policy advisors, energy regulatory consultants, energy compliance officers, and others seeking to navigate the clean energy landscape.
Course syllabus
Clean energy landscape and energy lingo refresher
Readings/viewings: Energy forms, currencies, and units, global energy context, current trends with renewables, quantitative energy analysis skills.
Electrification and the grid
Readings/viewings: The case to electrify everything, opportunities and challenges with scaling the smart grid, the role of batteries, quantitative tools for power sector planning.
Assignment: Assessment of your personal energy context as a tool for understanding energy impact areas and addressing energy misinformation.
Energy solutions across sectors
Readings/viewings: EVs and decarbonizing long-haul transport, heat pumps and other options for buildings, cleaning up industry: steel, cement, fertilizers, and plastics, applying a systems lens.
Energy policy and finance
Readings/viewings: Policy, regulation, and market design for enabling energy transitions, nuts and bolts of electricity rates and economics, politics and justice in energy (including equitable policies and supply chains), optional in-depth clean energy case studies
Assignment: Design an energy action plan for your workplace
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$49/mo
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What you get with Terra.do Membership
Growing library of climate courses
Access to our full catalogue of solutions-based courses taught by world's top climate experts
Global community
Join our global community of 5k+ professionals from 80+ countries with 200+ expert mentors
Live events & workshops
Attend immersive events and practical workshops with top climate voices and peers
World's largest climate job board
Leverage the world's most comprehensive climate job board to forward your climate career
AI-assisted learningComing soon
Cutting-edge learning experience enhanced with AI for deeper learning.
What learners say about this course
Erin Hemenway
"Energy Decarbonization Pathways and Tools is a practical and manageable course for busy people who may only be able to spare a few hours per week. The course is focused on a very practical area where nearly anyone can take what they've learned and start making positive changes in energy consumption in their own lives"
Energy Decarbonization Pathways and Tools graduate (USA)
Divyesh Tyagi
"If you are starting out and want to get inducted into climate change a wonderful set of mentors, trainers, content and community is waiting for you here at Terra.do."
Consultant at ReHive (India)
Meet the course creator
Zach Birnholz is dedicated to moving the needle on climate change by directly addressing its #1 contributor: our emissions from energy use. In his work in the distributed energy resources (DER) sector, he has enabled clean, demand-side assets to displace hundreds of megawatts of fossil fuel-generated power by enrolling large energy users such as Walmart into grid operators’ demand response programs. He holds a Master’s in Environmental Science and Engineering from Stanford University and, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, was on the team that turned Stanford’s introductory computer science class into a free online Python course for over 10,000 students (and 1,000 small-group instructors). Zach is also an instructor for Terra.do’s Learning for Action course.
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Try this course for free — Join Terra.do
Access this course and other top-rated climate courses with a free trial.
$49/mo
or $37/mo when paid annually
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