Cliburn and Associates, LLC

Energy REvisioned

In less than two decades, this century has staked its claim as a new age of synergy—and the call has gone out for new energy solutions that are worth more than the sum of their parts. At Cliburn and Associates, LLC, we focus on the challenges of this time for the utility industry, its clean energy partners and stakeholders. As founder, Jill K. Cliburn, brings decades of experience in market research, policy, program design and evaluation, across resource areas from solar and wind, to storage and demand response, and a new range of emerging integration technologies. When projects require yet more expertise, Cliburn Associates readily taps its national network of project associates.

We believe the secret to successful innovation is a deep understanding of best practices across a wide range of problem-solving. Often our work includes helping clients to create new collaborations or to see new applications of the expertise they already have. In our experience, that leads quickly from conceptual solution to program announcement, publication, or "steel in the ground."

While this website is undergoing an update, we invite you to the Community Solar Value Project website. That work, introducing community-based solar plus battery solutions and more important, solar plus battery and load flexibility, has become the core of Cliburn and Associates' most recent work. See our latest Blog on that website. And for a prompt response or call-back, please use the Contact page on this site.

Research

Review our outstanding record in research services, from market assessments to business and marketing plans… to program evaluations, energy program benchmarking and best practices guides… to policy assessments and support, and find out how we can help you. See sample reports and project reviews.

Engagement

Synergistic solutions require balancing different interests as well as different technologies. We support client needs for strategy, collaboration, and communications, from policy work to detailed guidance for community solar development. Learn more about our engagement in project and policy work, training, and facilitation.

Imagination

Energy REvisioning means taking a fresh perspective, not once but over and over again. That’s because renewable energy technologies are evolving in a market and political environment that is also constantly changing. Check out our Resources section and Blog for noteworthy news and observations on the task of transforming our energy systems

Jill is a frequent presenter at industry conferences and an active participant in innovation networks. She is also on the board of the American Solar Energy Society and was recently named a Fellow in that organization. See the ASES website for the latest on its 2019 Conference and plans for the 2020 conference in Washington, D.C.

Blog Post: While I Have Your Attention...

The blog post offered below was cross-posted with the Community Solar Value Project site last year. Jill maintains the CSVP site for an audience of utility professionals, solar industry leaders and stakeholders. There are several new blogs on that site and on this site, as well. We share the one below, because it proved to be a good conversation starter.

While I Have Your Attention...
by Jill Cliburn

Not so long ago, I was presenting about the benefits of offering community solar together with other energy options, as one way to engage with utility customers in reinventing utility service for the age of renewables. Understand that I was addressing the Peak Load Management Alliance, so my audience already had experience pushing the energy-information rock uphill. Some in the audience wished that their favored solutions, from new rate designs to smart thermostats to ice energy storage systems, were as popular as solar panels. They were ready to consider working with utility solar managers and solar developers on new, packaged solutions.

Their viewpoint—which I share—was that if (in fact) the utility is engaging less than 15 minutes per year, either personally or digitally, with the average customer, then they’d better make it relevant, and (I mean this in the healthiest way) they’d better make it viral.

Of course I know that not every utility is going to offer community solar packaged with other options; our CSVP Solutions Toolkit is specifically designed for customization, so you can meet whatever your immediate and long-term program needs might be. But I also know it is time for customer engagement to be about much more than real-time outage reports and paperless bills. And I will tell you why.

More...

Telling the Story