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About the Organization

Founded in 2001, the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) is a  national nonprofit organization that unites finance, policy, and technology to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy economy. ACORE is the focal point for collaborative advocacy across the renewable energy sector, supported by members spanning renewable energy technologies and constituencies, including developers, manufacturers, top financial institutions, major corporate renewable energy buyers, grid technology providers, utilities, professional service firms, academic institutions, and allied nonprofit groups.

ACORE accomplishes much of its work by convening key stakeholders, facilitating partnerships, educating senior officials on important policies, publishing research and analysis on pressing issues, and undertaking strategic outreach on the policies and financial structures essential to renewable energy growth.

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Renewable energy is at a disadvantage in the competition for investment dollars.

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ACORE unites renewable energy leaders to educate policymakers and advocate for investment.

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ACORE convenes forums and provides technical information to support a level playing field.

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ACORE is a leader in the movement to show that green energy creates jobs and promotes a better future.

Ambition for Change

Accelerating America’s transition to a renewable energy economy.

Path to Scale

ACORE’s diverse, pan-renewable membership, valuable in-house research, influential communications arm, and effective engagement and collaborative leadership on the policies that matter most make it a uniquely impactful advocate for America’s renewable energy sector and the modern, decarbonized grid it is determined to build.

Skoll Awardee
Michael Eckhart

Adjunct Professor, Columbia University

Mike Eckhart worked at the leading edge of the energy field for over three decades, conducting pioneering studies on renewable energy for the Carter Administration and working for major energy corporations. In 1995, he founded the Solar Bank Initiative to finance sustainable solar energy in Brazil, India, and South Africa. He was named “Renewable Energy Man of the Year” in India in 1998 and later was named U.S. Chair of the World Council of Renewable Energy. In 2001, along with other U.S. leaders, Mike formed ACORE as the way to create a broad-based renewables community in the United States and build international partnerships. This approach was intended to disrupt the pattern of each type of renewable energy having its own small lobby or trade group. Mike founded ACORE to unite representatives of all renewables around common interests, yielding more effective results. Mike left ACORE in 2011 to become the Global Head of Environmental Finance and Sustainability at Citigroup. There have been several leadership transitions since then; the current President and CEO is Greg Wetstone as of December 2015. [i] [i] http://acore.org/resources/news-media/press-releases/5848-gregory-wetstone-to-be-new-president-and-ceo-at-the-american-council-on-renewable-energy

Impact & Accomplishments
  • ACORE strategically promotes and defends the policy reforms and market drivers most important to accelerating investment in, and deployment of, renewable energy and enabling grid technologies.
  • ACORE has won broad praise for its advocacy in critically important national policy engagements, including its leadership in opposition to efforts to undermine the renewable power business model in the 2017 federal tax bill, its forceful role fighting proposals to subsidize coal and nuclear power at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and its spearheading the groundbreaking campaign to enact important clean energy incentives in the 2019 year-end spending bill.
Affiliated
Gregory Wetstone
President & Chief Executive Officer, American Council on Renewable Energy
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