THE PROBLEM

Communities across the U.S. are fighting to retire fossil-fuel power, deploy more clean energy, and increase electricity affordability. Horizon Climate Initiative aids those communities and their advocates by empowering them to target an often ignored but pervasive problem: electric utilities running costly coal-powered plants when existing cheaper power is available in the market, then passing those losses on to captive customers.  

By deploying overpriced fossil  ahead of lower-priced power, utilities create excess costs estimated at $1 to $2 billion a year as well as an annual average of 175 million extra tons of CO2. They pass those costs onto their ratepaying customers while propping up money-losing power plants and shoving existing cheaper, clean energy offline. This widespread practice, known as “uneconomic dispatch,” stands in the way of affordable energy, a level playing field for renewable power, and fossil fuel retirements.

We can change this.

THE SOLUTION

HCI and our partners have crafted an ambitious, multiyear campaign strategy. It weaves together technical and legal analysis and expertise, hard-hitting communications, public education, and direct engagement with decision-makers, amplifying the voices of impacted communities. To make this strategy go, we partner with consumer and energy justice advocates, community-based organizations and grassroots groups, experts and think tanks, watchdogs and good governance groups, clean energy buyers, environmental organizations, funders, and other voices and constituencies.

To fully implement our strategy, we are seeking direct or aligned funding and are excited to work with funding partners to resource this important effort. To find out more about partnership opportunities, please email frank.rambo@horizonclimate.org.

About HCI

Horizon Climate Initiative is a re-granting nonprofit that began in 2023 with initial backing from the philanthropic arm of a family office. To achieve the goal of a clean energy economy, we must prioritize advocacy that takes the economic concerns of consumers seriously and addresses them with a coordinated campaign to stomp out noneconomic fossil power. By putting dollars back in the hands of ratepayers, easing the energy affordability crunch so many feel, and delivering meaningful greenhouse gas reductions over the short- and long-term, this is a campaign that meets the moment.

Based in Charlottesville, VA, HCI is led by Executive Director Frank Rambo, who has decades of experience working to reduce air pollution and advance clean energy, most recently with Southern Environmental Law Center, where he ran the Clean Energy Program for many years