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OFFSHORE WIND: Federal ocean energy officials officially designate a 32 GW wind energy area in the Gulf of Maine that is 80% smaller than what was first marked as a potential leasing area and excludes fishing and lobstering areas. (Maine Public)
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GRID:
FOSSIL FUELS: A fatal Pittsburgh-area home explosion reopens emotional wounds for a nearby town where six people died in a separate gas-related explosion last year. (Trib Live)
TRANSIT: As Philadelphia’s transit agency considers significant regional rail cuts that threaten the independence of disadvantaged seniors along the city’s northwest Chestnut Hill line. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
WORKFORCE: Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island labor leaders hold a joint conference to push for better wages and working standards within offshore wind projects. (CT Examiner)
COMMENTARY: A New Jersey editorial board questions whether the state’s governor is getting in his own way of driving electric vehicle adoption. (Star Ledger)
SOLAR: Indiana’s utility-scale solar market rebounds from supply chain issues and interconnection delays with its strongest year yet in 2023. (WFYI)
UTILITIES: ComEd and Ameren Illinois file scaled back infrastructure spending plans after regulators rejected previous proposals to align with the state’s Climate and Equitable Jobs Act. (Capitol News Illinois)
NUCLEAR: A Minnesota nuclear plant is back to full power after an outage dragged on for nearly two months longer than expected and drew questions from state officials. (Star Tribune)
PIPELINES:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: An Indiana Congress member wants the Biden administration to investigate the potential security risks of U.S. reliance on Chinese-made electric vehicles and battery components. (E&E News)
OHIO: An Ohio disciplinary board says the state’s former top utility regulator, who faces state and federal corruption charges, violated attorney ethics rules in his relationship with FirstEnergy. (Bloomberg Law, subscription)
WIND: A new study finds wind turbines have a negligible effect on property values, and the negative impact on homes close to wind turbines disappears within a decade. (CNN)
CLEAN ENERGY: Advocates urge the Biden administration to encourage manufacturers to revitalize domestic aluminum production to support the clean energy transition. (Canary Media)
FOSSIL FUELS: The National Park Service and a regional foundation announce that national parks around Lake Superior have begun efforts to transition park operations off fossil fuels. (Michigan Advance)
CLIMATE: The $10 million allocated to fund Minneapolis’ climate action plan includes $4.7 million for energy efficiency in buildings and $1.4 million for workforce training. (Minnesota Daily)
CLEAN TECH: A state-funded program in Minnesota is providing seed funding for clean energy startups to scale their technologies and help make the state economically competitive. (Star Tribune)
COMMENTARY: The executive director of the Sierra Club says the Line 5 pipeline trespasses on tribal land and is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. (Sun-Times)
COAL: The Intermountain Power Agency urges Utah Gov. Spencer Cox to veto legislation that would force the agency to sell its coal plant to the state to keep it operating beyond its scheduled retirement date, saying it could provoke a federal backlash. (Salt Lake Tribune)
TRANSPORTATION: Colorado researchers find electric scooters are the most efficient means of commuting for limiting life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions. (Colorado Sun)
UTILITIES: New Mexico’s Supreme Court upholds regulators’ denial of a utility’s bid that would have allowed it to collect $5.2 million from ratepayers for exceeding mandated renewable energy targets. (Las Cruces Bulletin)
SOLAR: A food manufacturing company installs solar-powered microgrids at six of its California bakeries expected to offset about 20% of the facilities’ energy use. (Deli Market News)
CLEAN ENERGY: Washington state local officials urge the U.S. Energy Department to add clean industrial facilities and energy storage to its plans to develop solar at the Hanford nuclear site. (The Chronicle)
HYDROPOWER: An advocacy group’s study finds four Northwest hydropower dams targeted for removal emit 1.8 million tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent of methane annually, casting doubt on claims they provide clean energy. (E&E News, subscription; news release)
ENERGY STORAGE: A national lab identifies 1,800 sites in Alaska suitable for closed-loop pumped hydropower energy storage facilities. (news release)
OIL & GAS:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
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BIOFUELS: A Hawaii biofuel company expands its feedstock crops and considers developing a second refinery. (Hawaii Public Radio)
COMMENTARY: A former U.S. lawmaker urges Washington state regulators to help tackle climate change by expediting solar and wind development rather than hampering clean power based on faulty science. (Seattle Times)
POLICY: As Vermont lawmakers consider requiring most utilities to procure only renewable electricity by 2030, a new analysis finds the clean energy switch will cost ratepayers between $150 million and $450 million, or less than half of what a state agency previously estimated. (VT Digger)
EMISSIONS: The mayor of Burlington, Vermont, says the city has notched notable emissions reductions since 2018: 18% from the transportation and thermal sectors and 19% in buildings. (WCAX)
BUILDINGS:
WIND: A Pennsylvania legislative committee advances a bill to form a framework for the state to build up a Lake Erie wind industry. (Pennsylvania Capital-Star)
GRID: New England’s power grid may still see resource adequacy problems even if it makes annual transmission investments of $1 billion through 2050 to keep up with clean power adoption, ISO New England reports. (Utility Dive)
UTILITIES:
BIOENERGY: A New York firm buys a Maine biowaste-to-power plant that was built less than a decade ago, planning to refit the facility to produce methane gas. (Mainebiz, Reuters)
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TRANSIT: Washington, D.C., prepares to roll out the first application round for its e-bike voucher program, reserved for in-need communities like those enrolled in food assistance like SNAP. (Axios DC)
SOLAR: An Arizona utility brings a 260 MW solar project and the state’s largest battery energy storage installation online to power a Phoenix-area Google data center. (Energy Storage News)
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ELECTRIFICATION: A southern Nevada county seeks a $500 million federal grant to support heat pump installations, efficiency upgrades and other climate-friendly improvements for low-income households. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
OIL & GAS:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Automaker Stellantis agrees to comply with California’s strict auto emissions standards requiring that 68% of light-duty vehicle sales be zero-emission or plug-in hybrid by 2030. (Associated Press)
COAL: Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signs legislation directing state and federal funds toward cleaning up abandoned coal mines. (Wyoming Public Radio)
CARBON CAPTURE: A startup announces plans to build a direct air carbon capture facility in Wyoming using its relatively-low cost technology. (Heatmap)
GEOTHERMAL: Bipartisan U.S. lawmakers from Nevada, Idaho and Utah introduce federal legislation aimed at encouraging geothermal energy development by streamlining the permitting process. (news release)
LITHIUM: A company proposing a direct-lithium extraction project in southeastern Utah expects its pilot processing facility to come online this spring. (Moab Times-Independent)
SOLAR: Federal officials will spend $475 million to fund five clean energy projects on current or former mining lands across the country, including $90 million for Pennsylvania’s Clearfield County, where a former coal mining area is slated to become a 402 MW solar field. (news release, electrek, WHYY)
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OFFSHORE WIND:
POLICY: Pennsylvania’s governor is going to need Republican buy-in to form his newly proposed Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative alternative. (Spotlight PA)
GRID: In Connecticut, United Illuminating plans to build a replacement to the Pequonnock substation five feet above federal 100-year flood estimates and further from the shore to avoid storm outages. (News 12)
BUILDINGS:
HYDROGEN: A Delaware newspaper recounts what is currently known about the development of the Mid Atlantic Hydrogen Hub, although few firm details are available. (Delaware News Journal)
UTILITIES: If New York legislators can’t pass a bill to arrange a vote on whether to transition the Long Island Power Authority into a fully public utility, contracted operator PSEG might have its deal extended. (Newsday)
CLIMATE: Philadelphia’s Drexel University launches a new research center focused on policymaking that protects city dwellers from the health and equity impacts of climate change. (WHYY)
COMMENTARY: A founding faculty member of Syracuse University’s energy program writes New York will need a massive amount of lithium to reach its energy storage and electric vehicle adoption goals, though there’s no real strategy to recycle the material. (Syracuse.com)
GRID: Texas regulators approve rules governing a new $5 billion energy fund that the state will loan to companies to build new natural gas-fired power plants. (San Antonio Express-News)
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CARBON CAPTURE: A company breaks ground on a direct air carbon capture plant in Texas, part of the leading edge of new technology the oil and gas industry is relying on to reduce its emissions, though critics say it’s too costly and energy-intensive. (Yale360)
ELECTRIFICATION: Austin, Texas, looks to revamp its “cash for clunkers” equipment recycling program to encourage residents and landscaping businesses to trade in gas-powered lawnmowers, leaf blowers and weed trimmers for electric models. (Austin Monitor)
POLITICS:
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CLEAN ENERGY: The U.S. Energy Department announces $475 million for solar, storage and geothermal projects on current and former mine lands in five states: Arizona, Kentucky, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. (Associated Press)
EMISSIONS:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
OIL & GAS: Sixteen Republican-led states sue the federal government over its pause on new LNG export terminal approvals. (Axios)
GRID:
GEOTHERMAL:
CARBON CAPTURE: A company breaks ground on a direct air carbon capture plant in Texas, part of the leading edge of new technology the oil and gas industry is relying on to reduce its emissions. (Yale360)
ELECTRIFICATION: Two climate reporters share how they moved their house off natural gas, installing an electric heat pump, water heater and appliances. (Grist)
COMMENTARY:
The United States is facing a new energy crisis — one that could make the climate crisis even worse.
After more than 30 years of falling or flat demand for electricity, electric utilities are forecasting the nation will need the equivalent of about 34 new nuclear plants, or 38 gigawatts, over the next five years to supply power for data centers, electrification and new industry according to filings made to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and compiled by Grid Strategies.
Since those reports, several utilities have further increased their near-term forecasts.
And those estimates don’t necessarily include the growth of hard-to-track, but energy-hogging cryptocurrency or cannabis farming, which are estimated to be using up to 2.3% and 1%, respectively, of the nation’s electricity. Energy demand in these industries has skyrocketed as the popularity of cryptocurrency and as legalization of marijuana have spread.
The utilities “were either just caught unaware or not believing what they were hearing,” said Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, which provided a cumulative look of the demand in December.
In response to this demand, which seems to have power providers in the United States flat-footed, many utilities want to build new power plants to burn methane, a fossil fuel also known as natural gas, or to delay closing their coal plants.
“I can’t recall the last time I was so concerned about the U.S. energy trajectory, as major utilities maneuver for mass gas capacity expansion in the face of load growth. Unless course is changed … (greenhouse gas) goals are effectively dead,” Tyler Norris, a doctoral fellow at Duke University, said in a recent tweet.
The issue is also a global one, as a recent International Energy Agency report says electricity for data centers, including for AI and cryptocurrency, could double by 2026.
At the same time, there hasn’t been enough construction of enough new transmission to bring renewables such as solar and wind to the grid.
“We see (the gas buildout) as a huge threat — we are at a moment where we need to be phasing out fossil fuels and not locking it in for decades longer,” said Gudrun Thompson, energy program leader for the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Norris said in 2022 he pointed out in hearings on Duke Energy’s carbon plan that the company seemed to be “low-balling” the need for more electricity, including for the growing amount of electric vehicles. At about the same time, Georgia Power told regulators it only needed the equivalent of one more mid-sized power plant to meet growth for the rest of the decade after its two new nuclear units at Vogtle came online.
But late last year, Georgia Power said it will need 17 times more electricity — the equivalent of four new nuclear units — than what it had forecast just 18 months earlier because of new data centers and manufacturing in this state.
One Georgia Public Service Commissioner, known for backing Georgia Power, questioned whether the company should have seen that growth coming ahead of time.
“Talk with me about why I should have any confidence whatsoever in these projections when the 2022 projections were so off,” a heated Tricia Pridemore asked in a PSC hearing.
Economic development interests in the state call the demand a measure of success. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has aggressively recruited new industry to the state, and its economic development arm and Georgia Power tout low electricity prices there as a way to attract that industry.
The same is true in Texas, where data mining centers have requested the equivalent of roughly 41 new nuclear power plants to power their energy-intensive computer processes to find the cryptocurrency.
In Virginia, data centers are no longer as welcome as they once were. Dominion has threatened to turn away new centers, saying it can’t meet the power demand.
The utility said in 2023 that demand for electricity from those centers would increase 376% by 2038. Even if that demand is tempered, Dominion still expects overall demand for power to grow by 85% over the next 15 years as consumers shift to electric appliances, heating and cooling units and vehicles.
The Tennessee Valley Authority is also a hotspot for new data centers, with 65% of its new load growth since 2019 coming from data centers. TVA has contracts from additional centers not yet online that will increase its load another 40% to 50%. The quasi-public utility has proposed or is building eight new natural gas plants to fill the demand.
“The timeframe that they can get online has been aggressive on their part,” said Lori Stenger, TVA’s director of enterprise, forecasting and financial planning.
This underscores one point made by observers: Data centers and data miners aren’t just going to places where power is cheap, but where they can get power the fastest. In fact, some crypto miners are purchasing coal plants to provide electricity for their operations.
Utilities say they can’t meet the skyrocketing growth with wind, solar and other renewable energy, but a large group of businesses including Google and Microsoft, beg to differ. The 400-member Clean Energy Buyers Association said fossil fuels are not aligned with their goals.
“Georgia Power’s proposals to add more fossil fuel resources into its resource mix in this docket send the wrong message to the business community and large customers evaluating Georgia as a place to do business,” said Priya Barua, CEBA’s director of market and policy innovation, in written testimony over Georgia Power’s request to add more capacity.
Despite the utility’s forecasts, it’s still unclear exactly how much power is needed.
Jeremy Fisher, a principal advisor for climate and energy with the Sierra Club, said while data centers in Northern Virginia are using roughly the equivalent of three nuclear plants worth of energy, the centers themselves are building almost four times that much in backup diesel generation around their centers, according to a review of permitting data. The backup power could be an indication those centers are preparing for future growth, Fisher said.
“There’s such little data, it’s frustrating,” said Mandy DeRoche, a lawyer at Earthjustice who has been tracking data centers.
That lack of clarity around the nation’s electricity use — no single agency has a full picture of how much is needed or used — was in the spotlight this year after the federal Energy Information Administration sent an emergency request to cryptocurrency miners requiring them to share how much electricity they use.
Texas miners sued to stop the request, and the EIA has agreed to go through a more formal process that will take longer to gather that data.
At least one publicly traded Bitcoin miner, Riot, which sued the EIA to stop the data collection, highlighted the risk of such data becoming public in its annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission last year.
“It is possible that mandatory surveys such as this will be used by the EIA to generate negative reports regarding the Bitcoin mining industry’s use of power and other resources, which could spur additional negative public sentiment and adverse legislative and regulatory action against us or the Bitcoin mining industry as a whole.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.
A group of energy equity advocates in Boston is launching a community solar cooperative they say could be a scalable model for both reducing carbon emissions and building wealth in disadvantaged communities.
The Boston Community Solar Cooperative is in the pre-development stage of an 81 kilowatt solar project on the roof of the Dorchester Food Co-op, in one of the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods. Residents will be able to buy or earn ownership stakes in the project, which will be governed by a board of community stakeholders. The food store will buy the power at a discounted rate and the revenue created will be shared among this group of owners.
When the Dorchester project is up and running, the coalition plans to replicate the model in other neighborhoods around Boston, as well as share details and lessons more widely so other communities can create their own co-ops.
“The idea is that the majority of the ownership for the Dorchester project will be owned by Dorchester community members,” said Gregory King, a co-founder of the cooperative and interim president of the board. “It’s about a community empowerment movement.”
Community solar, in which subscribers or co-owners pay for a share of the power generated, has been around for close to 20 years. Though it took about a decade to catch on, adoption began to pick up in the mid-2010s, and, today, some seven gigawatts of community solar capacity has been installed nationwide, up from just one gigawatt in 2018. Massachusetts is home to 882 megawatts.
From the beginning, advocates saw the potential in community solar to help bring the benefits of renewable energy to low-income and other historically disadvantaged communities. The approach allows anyone to buy clean energy, usually at a lower price than utility supply, without needing a sunny rooftop of their own or thousands to invest upfront.
“If you’re a renter, actually having your own solar array is almost impossible,” said Kendra Beaver, climate justice coordinator at the Fairmount Indigo CDC Collaborative in Boston and a co-founder of the cooperative. “For folks who do own their homes, there’s still a huge financial investment you have to make to put solar panels on your home.”
So far, though, the promise of using community solar to help narrow the wealth gap has not been realized: In 2022, just 2% of community solar customers were low-income, according to a report produced by Wood Mackenzie in collaboration with the Coalition for Community Solar Access. The trend is moving in the right direction, however. By the second half of 2023, low-income households made up 10% of community solar customers. And provisions of the 2022 federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are likely to expand opportunities for low-income consumers even further.
“Community solar is a really great tool for energy equity and environmental justice. But our very first wave of community solar programs and projects served a more general market, with a larger portion of middle-income to upper-income customers,” said Kate Daniel, Northeast regional director for the coalition. “The trend is growing really quickly toward the direction of serving low-income customers.”
The Boston Community Solar Cooperative grew out of a desire to maximize the economic and social impact community solar could have in disadvantaged neighborhoods. To achieve this goal, organizers designed a strategy with several key differences from standard community solar models.
“We’re laying out a framework for what I refer to as ‘community solar 2.0,’ that really provides ownership to members,” King said.
Most community solar developments use a subscription model: Consumers sign up to buy a share of the power produced by a given development, but the array is owned by a third party that operates the system and keeps the revenue. Projects developed by the Boston cooperative will also have local subscribers who realize savings on the cost of electricity, but the arrays will be owned by community shareholders and governed by a board of local stakeholders.
Area residents can pay $1,000 for a share in the development. A “solidarity fund” will allow the organization to fund ownership stakes for some interested community members who can’t afford the cost. There will also be worker members who will help with project development and community outreach, earning a regular hourly rate for their work and eventually becoming entitled to an ownership share, much in the way corporate employees can earn stock options.
For the first project, the cooperative will accept roughly 30 investor members, to ensure that each owner receives meaningful money from their investment, King said. More members will be added as new projects are developed.
The coalition is also dedicated to hiring people of color and women or minority-owned businesses whenever possible in the design and construction process, allowing more money to flow into the community.
“A lot of solar developers are not inclined to erode their profit by taking on more expensive labor than they need to — we have the opposite mindset,” King said. “We’re making sure we’re proactively engaging minority businesses and trying to create an income stream for contractors that work for us.”
The community solar cooperative could also offer benefits beyond the financial, Beaver said. Seeing more solar panels on your block and hearing your neighbors talk about their investments in them could increase engagement in climate solutions, she said.
“There’s empowerment in participating in something that feels meaningful with people who live in your neighborhood,” she said.
There is growing interest in cooperative ownership of community solar and the ways it can share the financial benefits of renewable energy with community members, Daniel said. However, it has traditionally been difficult to make the model work.
“The challenge is just that this is a very hard thing to do to organize,” she said. “It takes a lot more effort, it takes more intricate funding and financing mechanisms.”
Indeed, it is a provision in the relatively new IRA that has really made the numbers work for the Boston coalition, King said. Tax equity financing, in which an investor puts money into a project in exchange for the tax credits it generates, has long been a common component of community solar financing. In the past, however, federal rules required the investor to remain an owner in the project for years. The IRA modified that regulation, allowing investors to simply take the tax credit without continuing on as part owners. That change allows community solar cooperatives to retain the revenue and profits for themselves — and their members.
The Solar for All program, another program created by the IRA, could also expand opportunities for low-income community solar cooperatives. Massachusetts has applied for $250 million from the program, and its plans include provisions that would help community solar cooperatives get more traction. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency anticipates making awards to winning plans starting in July 2024.
Even as it continues to watch these developments and hone its plans for the Dorchester installation, the Boston cooperative is already actively looking for sites for additional arrays, focusing on the neighborhoods of Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan, and considering how to communicate everything they’ve learned to other communities interested in forming their own cooperatives.
“One thing we’re hoping to do is share some of the things we’ve learned on our journey,” King said. “We’d love to see other communities around the state of Massachusetts adopt a similar model.”
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