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OFFSHORE WIND: Eversource Energy says it will sell its stake in the South Fork and Revolution wind projects to Global Infrastructure Partners for $1.1 billion as it posts a fourth-quarter loss. (Reuters)
ALSO: A nonprofit business program selects nine Maryland companies aiming to enter or expand in the domestic offshore wind industry for free consulting and project development services. (news release)
TRANSIT: Boston’s city council may consider a traffic congestion pricing plan similar to that of New York City to improve air quality and support public transit use. (Boston Herald)
FOSSIL FUELS:
GRID:
BUILDINGS:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Vermont Electric Cooperative begins tracking how many electric vehicles are plugged in to charge overnight and manages their charging times to prevent grid overload but still fulfill demand. (WCAX)
SOLAR: A central Maine town’s board sends solar-related zoning recommendations to its city council centered around wetlands protection and when it’s appropriate to rezone land for solar. (Morning Sentinel)
NUCLEAR: The chair of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission tours the Oswego, New York, nuclear plant and says nuclear power is critical for the state to reach its clean power goals. (Spectrum News 1)
CLIMATE: The future of some traditional New England sports like pond hockey are threatened by the milder winters and thinner ice coverage associated with climate change. (Associated Press)
RENEWABLES: Corporate climate commitments along with federal incentives are helping get clean energy projects off the ground, panelists say at a Cleveland event. (Energy News Network)
ALSO:
PIPELINES:
GRID: Iowa Republicans for the second time advance a bill to give incumbent utilities first rights to build transmission lines, criticizing a state Supreme Court ruling that blocked lawmakers’ previous attempt. (Des Moines Register)
UTILITIES: Michigan regulators issue several new orders to establish a framework for utilities to comply with new energy laws that include higher clean energy targets and energy storage requirements. (MLive)
OHIO:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: An oil and gas lobbying group aims to engage voters by taking out an ad during the Super Bowl in key swing states accusing the Biden administration of forcing people into buying electric vehicles. (Detroit News)
EFFICIENCY: Michigan regulators approve a settlement agreement that will require Consumers Energy to increase energy efficiency investments in communities most affected by high energy burdens. (Michigan Advance)
SOLAR:
AIR POLLUTION: A Detroit neighborhood will install six air quality monitors to provide data that residents hope will force city leaders to take action. (WDIV)
CLIMATE: Teenage climate activists call on Wisconsin’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies for their role in contributing to climate change. (WKOW)
GEOTHERMAL: The Biden administration awards $60 million to three enhanced geothermal energy pilot projects in California, Utah and Oregon. (The Hill)
TRANSPORTATION: New Mexico lawmakers pass legislation requiring reductions in transportation fuel greenhouse gas emission intensity and establishing a carbon credit market for fuel producers. (NM Political Report)
OIL & GAS:
WIND:
SOLAR: A report finds California and Arizona lead the nation in rooftop solar capacity, but recent net metering policy changes threaten further progress. (news release)
UTILITIES:
COAL:
CLIMATE:
NUCLEAR: Gillette, Wyoming, looks to lure a nuclear microreactor company to establish a manufacturing facility in the Powder River Basin coal mining town. (Cowboy State Daily)
MINING: A Wyoming company claims to have found a 2.34 billion metric ton deposit of rare earth minerals in the southeastern part of the state. (Cowboy State Daily)
COMMENTARY: A Wyoming columnist urges lawmakers to drop a proposed $10 million carbon dioxide-enhanced oil recovery stimulus bill, saying it would only benefit ExxonMobil. (WyoFile)
WIND: Virginia lawmakers delay until 2025 consideration of a bill to allow entities other than Dominion Energy to build offshore wind facilities, rewarding the utility’s intense lobbying against the bill and disappointing clean energy advocates. (Energy News Network)
BIOMASS: Financially troubled biomass company Enviva, which operates wood pellet factories across the Southeast, reaches a critical point as its 30-day grace period to pay bond holders expires, likely requiring either a streamlining of its operations or a move toward bankruptcy. (Wilmington StarNews)
SOLAR:
NUCLEAR:
PIPELINES: A lawyer for six Virginia landowners along the Mountain Valley Pipeline says they’ll appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after a judge dismisses their suit challenging the pipeline’s use of eminent domain to build on their property. (Cardinal News)
OIL & GAS: At least six liquified natural gas projects are underway in Mexico but will rely mostly on gas shipped from the Permian Basin and other regions in the U.S., including from facilities currently under scrutiny by federal officials. (Canary Media)
EMISSIONS:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
GRID: A Texas Congress member carries legislation to require the state’s standalone power grid to connect with the nation’s major grids. (KEYE)
HYDROGEN: California’s transportation department plans to spend $127 million to purchase six hydrogen-powered passenger trains. (Bloomberg)
OIL & GAS:
POLITICS: New Mexico’s oil and gas industry shifts some of its political donations away from Republicans to Democrats, who hold most of the state’s elected offices. (Capital & Main)
PUBLIC LANDS: The federal Bureau of Land Management proposes withdrawing 4,213 acres in New Mexico from new oil and gas leasing and mining claims in an effort to protect sacred tribal land. (news release)
CARBON CAPTURE: A California oil and gas company that has reduced emissions by electrifying equipment now looks to make its operations “carbon negative” by capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide. (Forbes)
UTILITIES:
SOLAR:
GEOTHERMAL: New Mexico lawmakers pass legislation creating a geothermal energy research and development grant fund. (NM Political Report)
MICROGRIDS: San Diego Gas & Electric unveils four new battery-powered microgrids in southern California communities aimed at increasing grid resilience. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
MINING: An Australia firm plans to invest $2.16 billion in its proposed zinc and manganese mine in southern Arizona. (KVOA)
TRANSPORTATION: Denver’s climate action office experiments with paying residents to ride their bikes instead of driving cars. (Denverite)
COMMENTARY: A Colorado advocate calls on state leaders to improve residents’ quality of life by redirecting transportation spending from highways to public transit and bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure. (Colorado Sun)
SOLAR: An Arizona company announces plans for a $344 million solar panel recycling facility in rural Georgia, which will also manufacture enough glass to supply 5 GW worth of new panels per year. (Associated Press)
ALSO: Virginia lawmakers table separate bills that would have increased the state’s cap on distributed generation and allowed the state to override county rejections of solar farms. (Utility Dive, Suffolk News-Herald)
GRID: ERCOT officials are skeptical of a U.S. House bill to connect Texas’ grid to the rest of the country, suggesting the plan could disincentivize construction of new generation in the state. (E&E News, subscription)
LITHIUM: An inaugural Lithium Innovation Summit in Arkansas attracts more than 700 people, as boosters say the state could meet more than 15% of global demand for the element. (Arkansas Advocate)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
WIND: Louisiana businesses with expertise in oil and gas extraction are finding opportunities in offshore wind. (Governing)
UTILITIES:
NUCLEAR: Kentucky lawmakers introduce bills to support development of nuclear energy in the state. (WKMS)
OIL & GAS: Federal regulators approve two projects along the Gulf Coast that are expected to accelerate natural gas exports. (E&E News)
COAL: A federal lawsuit claims a coal company owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice improperly paid millions to settle a bank debt that should have gone to other creditors. (Cardinal News)
SOLAR: The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe expects to break ground later this year on a planned 756 MW solar installation on its land in southwestern Colorado. (KSUT)
ALSO: A California lawmaker introduces legislation that would require state regulators to consider all economic and environmental benefits of rooftop solar when setting net metering rates. (PV Magazine)
CLEAN ENERGY:
UTILITIES:
OIL & GAS: Occidental Petroleum predicts its plan to inject captured carbon into its Permian Basin oil and gas wells will increase crude production by as much as 12,000 barrels daily by 2026. (E&E News, subscription)
PIPELINES: Tribal nations and advocates push back against a proposed pipeline that would carry Permian Basin natural gas to an export terminal in Mexico, saying it threatens sacred sites and could fuel the LNG boom. (DeSmog)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
CLIMATE:
GRID: Los Angeles’ municipal utility votes to move forward with joining California’s grid operator’s extended day-ahead power market. (RTO Insider, subscription)
WIND: Oregon commercial fishermen and Indigenous communities criticize the Biden administration’s finalization of wind energy areas off the state’s southern coast, saying the federal agency failed to account for potential impacts. (Oregonian)
Companies have a smoother road for getting management to greenlight clean energy projects now than they did five years ago, thanks to corporate climate commitments, federal incentives and more.
And if last month’s turnout of more than 800 people for the Greater Cleveland Partnership’s sustainability summit is any guide, businesses want support and guidance on navigating a process that is more compelling yet also more complex than it was years ago. The Jan. 23 program drew twice as many attendees as last year’s inaugural event.
Sustainability “is a major market trend at this point. It’s a massive market opportunity,” said Baiju Shah, president and chief executive officer for the Greater Cleveland Partnership, which is one of the United States’ largest metropolitan chambers of commerce. At the same time, sustainability is crucial if businesses want to stay competitive in a global marketplace, he said.
Roughly a third of the Greater Cleveland Partnership’s largest member companies have pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050, according to Emily Keller, GCP’s manager of sustainability initiatives. And, she added, practically all member companies have committed to some environmental sustainability practices.
Those pledges and goals have an impact when it comes to getting the green light for clean energy projects, especially when companies report on their progress towards environmental, social and governance objectives.
“Explaining an energy efficiency project [to management] or even being able to get a renewable energy project across the finish line five years ago was much different than what it is today,” said Rebecca Karason, the environment and sustainability director for Huntington National Bank. Decisions on three solar arrays for the company were based on economic factors, but a good part of the decision also hinged on the company’s renewable energy commitment, she said.
Ideally, clean energy projects add to businesses’ bottom lines.
“At its core, the development and the analysis of these projects is no different than any other capital project, but it is a complicated process,” said Gino Scipione, whose practice with Cohen & Company centers on compliance and financial reporting.
For any project, “you have to be able to prove at its core that it’s going to return value,” Scipione said. Most projects are capital expenditures, so for accounting purposes they get capitalized and depreciated over time, instead of being treated as an expense for a single year. How much comes from equity versus debt financing affects the calculations, too.
Beyond the general tax considerations that enter into any business deal, companies should also consider if a project can qualify for tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy incentives, Scipione noted. Those reductions in tax liability reduce the total cost for a project. And larger tax credits are available if projects are located in disinvested or energy communities and satisfy other requirements. In some cases, there also may be an opportunity to sell renewable energy credits, or RECs, which can provide income to further offset costs.
All of that, for example, means a company can see savings sooner from an investment in solar energy compared to the costs of otherwise purchasing electricity from the grid.
“The amount of money that I’ve seen in the last two years coming from the federal government is really helping,” said Rishabh Bahel, Nestlé’s manager of energy and sustainability for North America, who is based in Solon, Ohio. The company has announced it plans to power all its operations sites with renewable electricity by 2025, and one of its strategies has been investing in solar farms.
If a project meets enough requirements for the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits, “essentially you can get 40 to 50% paid by the government,” Bahel said. “So you have to make sure you’re looking at all the incentives and plans available in the market.”
Energy efficiency is another big emphasis for Nestlé.
“Any time you’re saving energy, you’re saving money,” Bahel said.
Those energy savings cut the costs of production and support the business case for the investment. In contrast, if companies merely pay for carbon offsets, “that really doesn’t have any payback,” he said.
Businesses in disinvested neighborhoods also need the economics of clean energy projects to work, because a company with too much debt won’t succeed, said Michael Jeans, CEO of Growth Opportunity Partners and its GO Green Energy Fund. He and others at Growth Opps often guide companies through the financing process and provide advice to help them make projects succeed.
Even as financial incentives boost the business case for clean energy investments, companies also face added compliance requirements for reporting greenhouse gas emissions.
“It’s sort of a carrot and stick,” said Kaitlin Bergan, head of sustainable client solutions for BlackRock’s U.S., Canadian and Latin American team, as she reported on overall trends in industry.
In 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued proposed rules for publicly traded companies to report on climate risks and their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions. The rule will likely be finalized sometime this spring. The European Union already has adopted reporting requirements for some companies. And as Karason sees it, reporting requirements will trickle down even to smaller companies.
Reporting requirements can be a challenge, especially if different customers need data reported in different formats, said attorney Richik Sarkar, Dinsmore & Shohl’s ESG equity partner in Cleveland. Yet as sustainability managers do that, he suggested they also should think about how to explain projects to their companies’ financial officers.
So, Sarkar challenged: “How do you make the business case and explain to them it’s not only a matter of doing good, but it’s a matter of doing well?”
To be sure, not all companies are moving ahead on clean energy projects. About 50 attendees walked out during Bergan’s talk, as a protest against BlackRock’s continuing investments in fossil fuels. And last week, FirstEnergy reneged on its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2030.
Craig Ickler is an energy democracy organizer for Cleveland Owns, which was among the groups organizing the protest. With BlackRock being an exception, Ickler felt the Greater Cleveland Partnership is “talking about sustainability seriously.” He also wants more involvement of local neighborhoods in energy projects and decisions. “My focus is as much on removing fossil fuels from the energy equation as it is about who’s going to own those clean energy assets and who’s going to benefit from them,” he said.
Emily Bacha, vice president of public affairs for the Ohio Environmental Council, also attended the Jan. 23 conference. She said she saw “real momentum to push forward equity in climate and sustainability strategies” — something she wouldn’t have expected ten years ago.
Now Bacha and others will be watching to see what further strides companies make. “It’s important that we’re not just talking the talk, but walking the walk across all sectors,” she said.
RENEWABLES: At least 15% of U.S. counties have halted new wind and solar projects through moratoriums, outright bans and construction impediments, making projects harder to build amid new clean energy targets. (USA Today)
COAL: A newly formed Michigan advocacy group wants a local government to buy a retiring Consumers Energy coal plant along Lake Michigan and keep it operating as a first step to create a municipal utility. (MLive)
BIOMASS: Two Michigan wood-fired biomass plants are set to close in the coming months as a utility seeks cheaper power options, raising questions about the future of the industry in Michigan. (Crain’s Grand Rapids Business)
OVERSIGHT:
OIL & GAS: A 2011 Ohio law keeps details about the companies bidding to frack under state parks and wildlife areas confidential. (Cincinnati Enquirer)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: DTE Energy proposes a nearly $125 million plan to boost electric vehicle charging in low and moderate-income communities by providing rebates to residents and businesses. (Planet Detroit)
FINANCE: A group of Wisconsin state pension holders press a state investment board to divest from all fossil fuel-related funds. (Wisconsin Examiner)
PIPELINES:
POLITICS: A nonprofit funded by Michigan’s largest utilities contributed at least $600,000 to three fundraising accounts tied to Michigan Democrats the year before sweeping clean energy laws narrowly passed the legislature. (Detroit News, subscription)
CARBON CAPTURE: A company hopes its plan to capture carbon emissions from a fertilizer production plant to be stored underground will serve as a model for the industry. (Indianapolis Star)
SOLAR:
SOLAR: Duke Energy prepares to offer new rebates in North Carolina for rooftop solar arrays paired with batteries, which along with federal incentives could create a new wave of business for solar installers even after Duke reduced net-metering credits. (Energy News Network)
ALSO: An Arkansas city board agrees to move forward with development of a 4.9 MW solar farm that officials hope will provide 70% of the power for city operations. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
POLITICS:
CARBON CAPTURE: Southeastern Louisiana University deploys four buoys to monitor the ecosystem of a lake where a company wants to inject carbon dioxide captured from a blue hydrogen facility. (The Advocate)
OIL & GAS:
COAL: Private club property owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice will be auctioned off to satisfy more than $300 million in unpaid loans issued by a Virginia bank for the Justice family’s coal, agricultural and hospitality businesses. (Cardinal News)
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Community advocates rally to support a historically Black community in Alabama that’s seen repeated flooding problems since the state expanded a nearby highway. (Inside Climate News)
FINANCE: A multi-month pause in operations by a state-approved clean energy home improvement lender in Florida last year has caused problems for a couple who installed an air conditioning unit but haven’t been able to pay the contractor. (WKMG)
NUCLEAR: A truck carrying low-level nuclear waste catches fire on Interstate 40 near Nashville, leading to the revelation that up to 75% of low-level radioactive waste in the U.S. goes to Tennessee for processing. (WKRN)
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