Clean Energy Certificate Programs
Below, you can find more information to help you understand the strengths of the two certificate offered in clean energy from the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. You absolutely can take them in any order that suits your needs best, and many participants have taken both programs!
Online Certificate Programs
Financing and Deploying Clean Energy
The FDCE program is a 10-month, admissions-based fully online certificate for professionals aiming to accelerate the transition to a clean economy. It focuses on building knowledge about the financial, technological, and socioeconomic drivers in financing and deploying clean energy, and developing key skills in policy design and analysis and project finance. The program aims to grow a powerful network of clean energy experts and learners walk away understanding how to deploy the financial and policy mechanisms that support clean energy scaling. FDCE builds understanding about this pivotal moment in our energy transition, makes sense of the complex landscape of clean energy, and, importantly, identifies key levers for change in various sectors and supports immediate implementation.
Clean and Equitable Energy Development
The CEED program is a 5-month, admissions-based fully online certificate designed for individuals who want to advance the clean energy transition through project development that produce meaningful benefits for all. CEED provides knowledge, frameworks, and practical skills design bankable energy projects with significant community benefits. It emphasizes systems-thinking, critical evaluation of policy and projects, and hands-on experience in clean energy project development.
Financing and Deploying Clean Energy
Length of Program: 10 months
Time Commitment: ~5 hours per week
Cost: $10,800
Program Calendar: One cohort a year from July to May. Check out the FDCE program calendar, here.
Admissions: FDCE is an admissions-based program. Applications are generally open January to March. Learn more, here.
Clean and Equitable Energy Development
Length of Program: 5 months
Time Commitment: ~5 hours per week
Cost: $4,500
Program Calendar: One cohort a year from January to May. Check out the CEED program calendar, here.
Admissions: CEED is an admissions-based program. Applications are generally open August to early November. Learn more, here.
Curriculum
Financing and Deploying Clean Energy
Foundational concepts of energy and finance.
Understand policy's role in clean energy scaling and levers for impact.
Economic and technological challenges of the clean energy transition.
Financial modeling and policy analysis for clean energy projects.
Clean and Equitable Energy Development
Foundational concepts of energy, project finance, and environmental justice.
Theory and practice of environmental, climate, and energy justice.
Expert guidance on clean energy project development, including risk evaluation, community engagement, and policy impacts.
Total lifecycle analysis and project management strategies, including supply chain management and oversight through construction and maintenance.
What are the key outcomes?
Financing and Deploying Clean Energy
FDCE's primary focus is on how to build and grow a market to advance a clean and just economy, understanding how to work with and innovate on policy, financial, and technological solutions. FDCE participants gain skills in financial modeling, policy design and analysis, and develop valuable networks and fluency within the clean energy sector for professional growth. Accelerate your career and the clean economy.
Advance the clean economy with new insights: Emphasizes understanding policy impacts, technological advancements, business models, and investment requirements that drive and shape the clean energy economy. Builds fluency and introduces levers for change.
Accelerate your energy career: Builds core competencies to help individuals to be nimble and impactful agents, as well as key skills in developing policy solutions, and building financial models and technological solutions to overcome challenges.
Gain hands on experience: Participants design policy suggestions, op-ed pieces, a balance sheet that incorporates resource variability and sensitivity analysis, and work in groups to design an innovative clean energy solution, incorporating knowledge built throughout the program.
Grow your network: Join a powerful network of motivated practitioners with deep expertise and insights, building capacity for individuals and organizations to meet the need for collaboration in a dynamic industry.
Clean and Equitable Energy Development
CEED emphasizes practical project development steps along with energy justice. CEED participants learn how to design a clean energy project with meaningful community engagement and benefits, understand market and policy impacts on development, and produce a bankable clean energy project for real-world impact. We're building the skills that many need, but no one else is teaching.
Learn how to build clean energy projects: Provides expert guidance on how clean energy projects are developed, including evaluating and mitigating risks, understanding policy, technology, and location impacts on project viability, and exploring energy markets and offtake agreements.
Understand how to do things better: Focuses on promoting energy justice globally and designing projects that produce meaningful and productive community engagement, including community benefits agreements and engagement strategies.
Gain hands on experience: Participants develop an energy justice case study, as well as work in groups to create or redesign a clean energy project pitch deck with guidance and feedback from the teaching team. Participants walk away with a tangible idea for advancing the transition to a clean, affordable, and equitable energy future.
Grow your network: Join a powerful network of motivated practitioners with deep expertise and insights, building capacity for individuals and organizations to meet the need for collaboration in a dynamic industry.
Who are these program right for?
Clean energy organizations and professionals wanting to build capacity and make significant impacts in the industry, would find both programs valuable. Our clean energy programs are for finance professionals, policymakers, developers, engineers, green bank and CDFI professionals, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, early-, mid- and late career professionals involved in promoting a clean energy economy. FDCE learners are ready to rethink how the transition is financed and advanced through policy, finance and technological innovation. CEED is a program for individuals and organizations ready to build thoughtful clean energy projects, engage with communities and put steel in the ground.
Can I take both programs? In what order?
Many participants have taken both programs, and you absolutely can take them in any order that suits your needs best! Those with a limited background in clean energy, should consider taking the FDCE program first to develop an understanding of how policy shapes the clean energy market, explore the technical limitations and opportunities of various clean energy technologies, and build financial modeling skills prior to designing a clean energy project idea for development in the CEED program. We do not recommendation taking the programs concurrently.
Here are some benefits to taking both programs:
- Comprehensive clean energy curriculum - There is little to no overlap in the programs' curriculum.
- Streamlined application process - If you have been admitted into one of our clean energy programs, you're granted an exemption from submitting additional Letters of Recommendation, essays, or transcripts .
- Fast-tracked admissions - If you have been admitted into one of our clean energy programs, your application to the other clean energy program will be fast-tracked for acceptance.
About Online Certificates at Yale
Online certificate programs at Yale are non-degree programs that feature multiple courses organized in an integrated curriculum, completely delivered online. These practical, high-touch programs are designed to help you reach your professional goals, benefit from an engaging online experience with Yale faculty and industry-leading experts, and deepen your networks by joining small cohorts of working professionals from around the world.
What is the time commitment of a online certificate from Yale?
Each certificate program varies in length, and enrolled learners can expect to spend approximately 5 hours a week to complete the program requirements. Most of the work can be completed asynchronously, but there is a week-long online orientation with required live sessions held midday daily at the start of the program, and during the core courses, there is a once-weekly live session attendance requirement. Please refer to the program curriculum and calendar for more details.
What do the certificate programs teach?
Each program targets different aspects of clean energy development, deployment and financing, catering to varied professional goals and emphasizing practical skills, network-building and impact. These programs build understanding about this pivotal moment in our energy transition, help learners make sense of the complex landscape of clean energy, and, importantly, highlight key levers for change in various sectors and supports immediate implementation.
How can I learn more and join?
Organizations seeking to build capacity, and individuals looking to develop critical competencies, to navigate a dynamic industry are encouraged to learn more about each of our certificate programs in clean energy. Our online certificate programs are admissions-based. Please review the program's Important Dates & Events page for admissions and program dates.
What credential will I earn upon successful completion?
Upon successful completion of the program requirements, learners in our certificate programs receive a digital certificate credential from the Yale School of Management and the Yale of the Environment.