Charging the Transition: CEED Spring 2025 Cohort Designs Community-Centered Clean Energy Projects

A remarkable group of 31 practitioners from the U.S., U.K., Uganda, and China completes Yale’s Clean and Equitable Energy Development (CEED) Certificate Program. These professionals bring with them diverse experiences—from early-career innovators to clean energy veterans with over two decades of leadership—yet they share a unifying ambition: to catalyze a clean energy transition grounded in equity, community, and impact.

Offered by the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY), CEED is an online certificate program that trains developers, policy experts, advocates, and institutional leaders who want to rethink how clean energy systems are designed, financed, and implemented. Over 16 weeks, learners move through an interdisciplinary curriculum that begins with technical fundamentals and culminates in a comprehensive team project simulating real-world energy development.

Taught by powerhouse instructors—including Professors Gerald Torres, Michel Gelobter, and Robert Klee and practitioners Jaime Carlson and Sarah Slusser—participants are guided not only in learning about Energy Justice and Clean Energy Development, but also in re-imagining and building designing new, fundable clean energy projects that reflect both innovation and inclusion impact.

At the end of the program, the cohort gathers virtually to present their final projects: six full-scale clean energy proposals, each responding to a real site, community need, and set of structural barriers.

Turning Theory into Practice: The Final Projects

While distinct in geography and design, the CEED Spring 2025 cohorts’ projects share a commitment to restoring agency, redistributing power (in all senses of the word), and anchoring clean energy in place-based collaboration.

In the sun-soaked terrain of Doña Ana County, New Mexico, one team propose a 150 MW solar, and 50 MW battery storage project designed to help El Paso Electric meet its 2045 renewable energy targets. The project’s scale matches its vision for equity: beyond site viability and transmission access; the team built in workforce training, tribal partnerships, and local ownership pathways. As one faculty member notes, “This is not a theoretical exercise. I would greenlight a follow-up meeting if I were at the state energy office.”

In Hamden, Connecticut, a second team reimagines the African American Society (AAS) headquarters as the anchor of a community resilience hub. Their microgrid design combines rooftop solar and battery storage with an 83-acre urban farm, training facilities, and cultural programming—all linked to state green bank funding and community ownership models. “We don’t believe in gatekeeping this knowledge,” one team member states. “Our goal is to replicate this model across neighborhoods that have historically been left out of energy planning.”

In Puerto Rico’s San Sebastián municipality, another team addresses the fragility of island energy infrastructure by proposing a school-based resilience hub powered by 154 kW of solar and 500 kWh of battery storage. The site could serve dual purposes: a shelter and energy lifeline during outages, and a living laboratory for energy education. With a strong emphasis on local contracting, revenue recycling, and fast payback financing, the project reflects both urgency and feasibility. “Resilience promises are built into this,” the team emphasizes.

In Utah’s Beaver County, geothermal energy is brought to the forefront. The team proposes a 400 MW enhanced geothermal system tailored for export to Los Angeles via High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission. Their design leverages U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) heat flow maps streamlined Bureau of Land Management (BLM) permitting pathways, and AI-enabled cost optimization tools. Beyond its technical depth, the project also proposes upskilling programs to transition oil and gas workers in the region to clean energy roles—demonstrating that a just transition must be economic as well as ecological.

Off the southern coast of Puerto Rico, a fifth team explores the immense potential of floating offshore wind. Their 1,200 MW project proposal pushes the audience beyond engineering considerations into questions of territorial governance, gender equity, and storm resilience. They propose childcare and job placement programs for women in the trades, integrated permitting strategies, and equity-centered public engagement. “This isn’t a clean, linear process,” one member admits. “But in many ways, that’s the point. We design for the complexity we know exists.”

And in the hills of Questa, New Mexico—on a site scarred by mining and decades of contamination— the final team envisions turning a Superfund site into a green hydrogen production hub. Using contaminated water from an abandoned molybdenum mine, powered by solar electrolysis, the project not only offers a vision for clean fuel production but for environmental repair. With Kit Carson Electric Co-op as a potential partner, and a robust plan for community engagement, the project asks: What if our dirtiest places could become our cleanest?

A Learning Community, A Call to Action

Throughout the CEED program, learning is anything but passive. Participants don’t just absorb content—they help shape it. Weekly modules anchored in timely policy analysis, industry trends, and applied tools. Articles from sources like Heatmap News, Canary Media, and Bloomberg NEF, along with curated podcast episodes from Volts and Open Circuit, offered real-time insights into a rapidly evolving energy landscape.

At the heart of the experience is the final project—a culminating exercise that transforms theory into action. For many, the project brings the full arc of the program into focus and provides valuable and tangible takeaway.

As one participant shared: “[The final project is] an excellent way to contextualize the topics discussed in our weekly modules to a real-world application.”

Moving from modules to project development meant grappling with real complexities: market dynamics, permitting timelines, interconnection strategies, and community engagement. “We effectively applied what we learned regarding understanding and creating markets, site control, interconnection, permitting, and more.”

For others, that effort sparked deeper independent research and collaboration across disciplines. “The different questions raised during the development process led us to consult and research about policies, regulations, and available incentives — which was useful.”

Complementing this hands-on work were live sessions featuring leaders at the forefront of clean energy. Speakers like Katie Heath (EVP, Risk and General Counsel, Copia Power), Vanessa Sciarra (VP of Trade and International Competitiveness, AISI), Mattew Teraldi (CEO and Chair, Greenlight America), Tom Neyhart (Executive Chair of the Board, PosiGen) Supria Ranade (Head of Power Markets, SB Energy), and Clara Pratte (Co-founder, Navajo Power) shared practical insights on everything from energy markets and supply chains to tribal energy sovereignty and equitable policy.

Guest speakers' engagement with the participants of the program not only informs—it inspires:

“Katie was so engaging — she made a complicated topic feel energizing.”
“Vanessa’s session on tariffs could’ve gone another hour — it was that timely.”

Critical content, collaborative learning, and engagement with visionary guest experts distinguish the Yale online certificate program as a transformational and extraordinary educational experience for working professionals in clean energy.

From Cohort to Collective Impact

As the latest cohort of CEED completes their program, they join a growing global Yale network of professional leaders. Participants advance their careers understanding that energy systems, when designed with consideration to the communities they impact, can generate benefits for all, fuel job growth and economic opportunity, meet energy demand and build resilience while addressing affordability. The clean energy transition is underway. The only question is how quickly the industry can respond to the demand and maximize benefits to communities. The participants of the CEED program demonstrate that we can build systems that reflect our values and create a future where access to energy and equity goes hand in hand.

And with this cohort leading the way, that future feels a lot closer to life!