Penn Carey Law professor Shelley Welton examines how governments can work alongside private markets to accelerate the clean energy transition through new public renewables models.
2 min. read
As governments face mounting pressure to meet established climate targets while addressing rising energy prices, new scholarship from University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor Shelley Welton, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Law and Energy Policy, examines the role of countries, states, and localities in accelerating the clean energy transition. In “Building Public Renewables,” Welton explores how policymakers are rethinking renewable energy development—not by displacing private markets, but by working alongside them to achieve climate goals at scale.
Drawing on case studies from New York and the United Kingdom, Welton analyzes the emergence of new models that envision public renewables companies as complements to private developers. Her work, which reflects Penn Carey Law’s interdisciplinary engagement with energy policy through the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, highlights how legal and institutional innovation can expand state capacity—offering new pathways to advance climate progress, improve energy affordability, and better coordinate the transition to a sustainable energy future.
“Public renewables fill gaps in climate governance left by reforms in both New York and the UK that deeply liberalized electricity markets, giving states a cramped set of tools to plan and steer the clean energy transition,” Welton writes. “Public renewables companies, in contrast, are envisioned as ‘complements’ to private renewables developers, working alongside and often with the private sector to accomplish climate change goals.”
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