Lighthouse Energy Institute: Grantee Spotlight (Q3 2026)

Grantee Spotlight: Lighthouse Energy Institute

The Giving Green Fund is awarding an unrestricted grant to Lighthouse Energy Institute (LEI) to support its research and educational work on U.S. energy policy. LEI is a U.S.-based nonpartisan think tank that works to improve energy policy at the state and federal levels.

LEI's work falls within our philanthropic strategy of unleashing clean energy in the U.S. Please see Giving Green's strategy report for more information, including potential risks and co-benefits, recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, funding need, and key uncertainties.

Last updated: October 2026

What Is the Lighthouse Energy Institute?

Founded in 2026, LEI is a nonpartisan think tank working to improve energy policy at the state and federal levels. Its main goal is to remove policy obstacles that prevent the U.S. from building a cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable electricity system. These obstacles include outdated grid regulation, slow processes for building transmission lines and connecting new power plants to the grid, restrictive permitting and siting rules, and innovation programs that underinvest in early-stage technology. LEI identifies practical reforms in each area and argues for them on economic grounds.

LEI conducts research and education rather than advocacy. Specifically, it produces policy handbooks and explainers, research papers, expert working groups, regulatory comments and testimony, and direct briefings. These products in turn support state and federal policymakers and their advisors, energy regulators, journalists, and stakeholders—consumers, taxpayers, and bipartisan groups—in making better-informed decisions to build a modernized U.S. grid. What sets LEI apart, beyond its deep technical knowledge of electricity markets and utility regulations, is its ability to reach across the aisle in ways most technical organizations cannot.

What Are We Funding, and How Could It Help Address Climate Change?

We are providing LEI with unrestricted, multi-year support that will cover four areas:

• Researching and educating policymakers on electricity market and grid regulation, covering wholesale market design, transmission planning and cost allocation, and the interconnection process
• Analyzing federal permitting rules and local siting barriers, including a policy paper covering reforms in 10 or more states
• Assessing how federal research, development, and early-stage deployment programs are funded and managed, and how to sustain support for them in a constrained fiscal environment
• Educating the consumer, taxpayer, think tank, and advocacy organizations that shape these debates through policy handbooks, briefings, and working groups

Electricity policy decisions made over the next several years will shape how quickly clean generation can connect to the grid and how long legacy fossil generation is retained for reliability. By improving the technical quality of decisions on market design, interconnection, transmission, and permitting—and strengthening the organizations that influence those decisions—LEI's work will help accelerate clean energy deployment and reduce emissions from the U.S. power sector.

Why Do We Think LEI Will Use This Funding Well?

LEI has a high-quality team composed of former state utility regulators, former federal energy regulatory staff, and policy leads who have run energy programs at established think tanks and at an organization representing large industrial electricity consumers. Since its foundation, LEI’s expertise has been in high demand. So far, LEI staff have presented on electricity fundamentals at a Bipartisan Policy Center briefing and spoken before state regulators at the Northwestern Electricity Dialogue. LEI also reports that more than two dozen consumer, taxpayer, and policy organizations have already requested similar handbooks and briefings.

We believe an organization that can credibly explain interconnection queues, transmission cost allocation, and market design to audiences who are not motivated by climate fills a real gap. Given LEI's technical depth in electricity markets and grid regulation, its reach into consumer and right-of-center policy audiences, and its team's experience inside state and federal energy agencies, we think LEI is well positioned to improve the quality of U.S. energy policy decisions at a critical moment.

We publish grant spotlights to offer transparency to Giving Green Fund donors and resources for those interested in the impact strategies each grant supports. Giving Green believes our Top Climate Nonprofits have the greatest impact potential for large, unrestricted gifts. For several reasons, we also disburse and recommend grants to other organizations surfaced through our research process for work that we believe is at least as impactful as grants to our top recommendations.

This is a non-partisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.

LEI is a registered nonprofit in the U.S.