Current Project Opportunities

• Expand the Renewable Energy Maps and National Grid Maps on the GENI website. Check current maps on GENI website against those referenced in Lesley's paper. Upload any that we don't have or that are better than what we have.
  
  
• Where are the gaps in global cross-border interconnections? Who are the decision makers in those gap-countries? Focus on marketing GENI Initiative information to countries in the gaps.
  
  
• Follow-up to the Damascus Declaration from MENAREC 4 in Syria: The Way Forward for Renewable Energy Development & Technology Transfer, EU-MENA Cooperation. There is a MENAREC 5 in Morocco in 2008 and MENAEC 6 in Libya in 2009. Project would be to:
  1. Obtain list of participants.
  2. Lend GENI's support and endorsement to their plan.
  3. Ask the question 'how do we accelerate the process?'
  4. Make GENI's network of relations available (e.g. IEEE, …)
     
     
• Complete "Global Energy Trends" on GENI website in the Library.
  
  
• Research how we can use Google Earth's capabilities for enhancing awareness of the GENI Initiative. An example might be attaching pictures of renewable facilities around the world to the map, or putting maps of interconnections on Google Earth. Find out more about Google Earth Outreach, Google.org and how they help not-for-profit organizations to raise funds.
  
  
• How do we open the flood gates of support for the GENI Initiative? Who have we missed in the infrastructure when the flood comes?
  1. Send articles through 400 global media and Energy Biz and PR Newswire (costs$$)
  2. Contact UPI and Associated Press
  3. Issue alert: 155 Coal Power Plants Scheduled - needs an article.
     
     
  
  
• Research International Renewable Energy Policies by continent/country (resource: DSIREUSA.org). What types of incentives exist? Where and what are best practices? 'Cap-and-trade-regulatory systems,' 'Taxes in various forms,' 'Electrical feed-in laws,' 'Government buy-downs,' and 'Incentives and subsidies in various forms.'
  
  
• We need a global price for carbon. What does it take to change the economic model of the carbon industry? Research pros & cons of various strategies: carbon tax, cap & trade, carbon credit, carbon auction. Who are the decision makers in setting this price on carbon? Is it the Chicago Climate Exchange, Cap & Trade, GROCC (contact with Jeffrey Sachs), and legislators?
  
  
• Study of Carbon Market Mechanisms
  
  
• Find the wind/solar maps for Africa and make the case for their development, like in the Power Point regarding Hydro for Africa (see Patricia's GENI email, Apr 8, 2008)
  
  
• Rural Electrification: Who in the world is doing such projects? Has anyone developed a turnkey, small village, small island renewable electrification energy package? This is a great entrepreneurial project, a business of the future, doing good in the world, the services for which could be paid for by various local governments who want "rural or island electrification."
  
  
• Swap debt-for-renewables development in developing countries: Find the top 5 - 6 CO2 emitting countries; list the countries which are indebted to them and the indebtedness amount. Get contact information for whoever is responsible for managing those debts in the 'lender country' and debtor country. Contact WWF for the legal and operational framework for this transaction based on their debt-for-nature exchange in Madagascar. Suggest this debt-for-renewables development exchange to the UN and the individual lender countries.
  
  
• What are the Best Renewable Energy Practices in Sub-Saharan Africa?
  
  
• Create a marketing plan for the top 120 utilities, beyond the E8, to ask the same four questions which were sent to the 2007 WEC.
  
  
• Expand the paper on Five Nations Using Renewable Energy by going deeper and increasing the number of nations researched. This could be combined with a survey of the leading nations and states which are leaders in use of renewables. These would include Costa Rica, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Denmark, California, Pennsylvania and Texas. This could include the impact on the nation or state, standards they've set, types of incentives and also industries that have emerged and the impact on the economy - jobs, tax revenues, etc.
  
  
• Chart where in the US (or other region) renewables are being developed; who are the developers; what country are they from. Write an article highlighting the fact (using numbers to substantiate the case studies) that international companies see an opportunity for developing renewable resources in the US that we are missing out on. Address article to Congress and the candidates.
  

If you see a project you like or have an idea of your own, contact GENI or call us at +1-619-595-0139