Why Move Towards Cleaner Power

Why Move Towards Cleaner Power, offered by Imperial College London through edX, is an intermediate-level online course designed to explain why decarbonising the power sector matters and what it means in practice. The course looks at how rising greenhouse gas emissions are warming the climate and explores the case for reducing the greenhouse gas intensity of electricity systems. It also examines broader arguments for cleaner power, including energy security, affordability, public health, and environmental improvement, while encouraging learners to reflect critically on their own political and policy context.

Core Content

The curriculum brings together the main motivations for building a lower-carbon power sector in one place. It explores climate change and power-sector decarbonisation, while also looking at the economic, health, environmental, and energy-access arguments in favour of cleaner electricity systems. Imperial’s Clean Power Programme materials describe this course as the first in a three-course series focused on why the world needs to shift to cleaner power and how different countries can think through that transition in their own context.

Key Skills

Participants will develop the ability to understand the main arguments for cleaner power and assess how these arguments relate to climate goals, energy access, affordability, and public policy. The course helps learners build a stronger understanding of decarbonisation in the power sector and supports more critical thinking about how political and institutional contexts shape energy transitions. Its emphasis is on evaluating the case for clean power from multiple perspectives rather than from a purely technical lens.

Target Learners

This course is designed for learners interested in climate change, energy policy, power-sector transition, and clean electricity systems. It is particularly relevant for policymakers, business professionals, analysts, and general learners who want to understand why countries are moving toward cleaner power and how those arguments differ across contexts. edX’s ImperialX listing classifies the course as intermediate level, making it better suited to learners seeking more than a basic introductory overview.

Learning Format

Hosted on edX, the course is delivered in a flexible self-paced online format. Imperial’s Clean Power Program materials describe each course in the program as taking approximately two to five hours per week over five to six weeks, while the current ImperialX listing shows this course as a five-week offering. This makes it suitable for learners looking for a structured but manageable introduction to cleaner power and energy transition thinking.

Additional Benefits

The course offers practical value for learners who want to understand cleaner power through a wider systems and policy lens. As part of Imperial College London’s Clean Power Programme, it connects climate, health, economics, and energy access rather than treating decarbonisation as a purely technical issue. Imperial also describes the wider program as designed to help policymakers and businesspeople build action plans for low-carbon power transitions, which adds practical relevance to the learning experience.

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