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SOLAR: A study finds California’s 17,000 MW of rooftop solar capacity saved residents about $2.3 billion on their utility bills this year, casting doubt on “cost-shift” arguments used to support net-metering rate cuts. (Canary Media)
ALSO:
WIND:
STORAGE: Arizona Public Service agrees to purchase power from a proposed 250 MW battery energy storage system in central Arizona. (Solar Quarter)
TRANSITION: Arizona utilities award three communities a total of $125,000 to help them weather coal plant retirements. (Independent)
ELECTRIFICATION: Climate advocates say California and Washington state election losses for initiatives aimed at phasing out natural gas do not accurately reflect public sentiment on electrification. (Heatmap)
CLIMATE: New documents reveal California’s oil and gas lobby pioneered strategies in the 1950s aimed at obscuring fossil fuel-burning’s contributions to pollution and climate change and downplaying the risks. (DeSmog)
PUBLIC LANDS:
BIOFUELS: An Oregon city proposes a recycling facility that would produce pipeline-grade methane fuel from diverted organic waste. (OPB)
MINING: Arizona advocates challenge the state land board’s approval of a pipeline right-of-way for a proposed copper mine in the southern part of the state. (AZ Mirror)
A successful regional collaboration to secure federal Inflation Reduction Act money in northeast Ohio has inspired a new, ongoing effort to help cities, counties, utilities and community groups coordinate on clean energy.
Three Cleveland-area foundations last month announced the launch of Power Up Local, which aims to play both a matchmaker and wedding planner role on large-scale, regional clean energy developments. The initiative plans to help connect potential partners, maximize projects’ community benefits, and facilitate joint funding opportunities such as federal grants, tax incentives, or green bank loans.
“This is really looking for the larger, more ambitious stakeholder projects that have direct stakeholder benefits,” said Daniel Gray, Power Up Local’s executive director. A big emphasis will be on assembling groups who “might not have worked with each other originally or understood where there’s an overlap” between clean energy and other goals.
The initiative could offer a new path for local leaders to advance in a place where state government remains hostile to clean energy. The continued availability of federal funding is in question following former President Donald Trump’s reelection, but Gray and others said they are confident some form of federal support for clean energy will remain during his second term.
The idea for Power Up Local grew out of collaboration among Cuyahoga County, the cities of Cleveland and Painesville, and other organizations on a $129 million grant application under the federal Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program. The application was among those awarded funding in July. It includes money for closing a coal plant and building multiple solar arrays, including on four closed landfills.
Beyond reducing pollution, the project will help lower electricity costs and generate revenue. Some of that will in turn aid in conservation efforts for the West Creek Conservancy, including lakeside access for residents in Lake County. Gray did some work on the project as director of local strategies for the Citizens Utility Board of Ohio, and local philanthropic support also helped in assembling the grant application.
The Cleveland Foundation, George Gund Foundation and the Fund for Our Economic Future are providing initial funding for Power Up Local. Initially, the program’s three full-time employees are being housed under Fund for Our Economic Future, with a goal of spinning it out as an independent nonprofit by 2027.
The George Gund Foundation also provides funding to the Energy News Network. Like other donors, it has no oversight or input into the editorial process and may not influence stories.
Gray said Power Up Local will help stakeholders think bigger and more broadly about projects. For example, a project to redevelop a former industrial site may be able to help bring in other properties from a land bank or other group, potentially expanding into an economic redevelopment district that might support a microgrid, he suggested.
“We can add efficiency to projects, both financially and timewise,” Gray said.
Power Up Local will be a resource for organizations that want to add clean energy to a project but may not have the time or bandwidth to figure out how to do it. “They don’t necessarily know how to engage the marketplace,” Gray said.
And when it comes to funding, competitive grants will just be part of the story. A range of other credits or incentives can also help bring more clean energy. That raised a question, said Stephen Love, program director for environmental initiatives at the Cleveland Foundation: “What would it look like at scale beyond just the competitive grants to really unlock the whole scale of federal resources?”
While Power Up Local will work on clean energy projects, those projects must still be “net-neutral or revenue-positive” in order to promote economic development, Gray said. “We’re looking to develop as much community benefit as possible.”
Those benefits can come from lower electricity rates for people with high energy burdens, health benefits from lower pollution, job opportunities, conservation, access to parks, redevelopment of properties to attract businesses, and so on.
“This is about economic development. This is about creating economic opportunity in our communities,” said Love. As he sees it, clean energy can help drive that development.
No one knows what Trump’s presidential victory will mean for federal clean energy funding, but advocates are confident some funding will still be available.
“There are still grants to go after, and will likely still be grants to go after in the future,” Gray said. A repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law would take time, and much of the grant funding has flowed to districts that supported Trump in 2020.
Even if agencies under Trump stopped carrying out the law, “I don’t think the bulk of the IRA direct credits are going to go away,” Gray said. He noted that Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Bainbridge Township) is among 18 members of Congress who wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson this summer to support continuation of the energy tax credits.
Atlas Public Policy’s Climate Portal Program estimates those tax credits could exceed a quarter of a trillion dollars, with nearly another $250 billion of potential credits under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Those credits can serve as refunds for nonprofits and local governments, which is how sewage treatment authorities in Columbus and Cincinnati plan to offset big chunks of the costs for biogas plants at two of their wastewater treatment facilities.
Financing opportunities will also be available from green banks, Gray said. Commercial banks also are looking to expand their portfolios for financing clean energy projects as part of corporate sustainability goals, he noted.
Power A Clean Future Ohio has already been working for several years to help its 50 local government members find ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, based on their individual interests and priorities. Executive Director Joe Flarida said Power Up Local’s work will be a welcome complement to its ongoing work.
“It just underscores the huge needs we have in the state of Ohio to invest locally and ensure that our local leaders and local governments have all the resources they need to do this work efficiently,” he said.
In Flarida’s view, an anti-climate approach by the incoming Trump administration “is also an anti-jobs approach.” And even if the federal government no longer treats climate change as a key priority, “that doesn’t change the reality that this is an issue we have to address head on,” he said.
Gray encourages local governments and other organizations with ideas for projects to reach out in the coming weeks and months.
“Now is the time to start thinking about what might be possible,” he said.
NOTE TO READERS: This newsletter has been updated to correct the numbers for MidAmerican Energy’s resource plan.
BIOENERGY: As livestock producers tap federal climate funds to build biodigesters, advocates point to the threat that expanding feedlot operations pose to water quality, and call on the EPA to use its emergency authority to address nitrate pollution. (Cedar Rapids Gazette, Iowa Capital Dispatch)
UTILITIES:
NUCLEAR: The CEO of Wisconsin’s Dairyland Power Cooperative says the utility is “absolutely interested” in returning to nuclear power, suggesting smaller nuclear plants could be viable in the next 5-6 years. (Wisconsin State Journal)
GRID:
PIPELINES: A fossil-fuel backed organization has been mailing “weird” newspapers to North Dakota households criticizing years-old pipeline protests ahead of upcoming hearings for developer Energy Transfer’s lawsuit against Greenpeace. (Floodlight / North Dakota News Cooperative)
EQUITY:
NATURAL GAS: A Missouri utility says it is waiting for guidance from regulators on how to design its recently approved $900 million natural gas plant to operate in extreme cold. (KSDK)
WIND: An Iowa community college will decommission its 2.5 MW wind turbine due to age and maintenance needs, a year after the school closed its energy production program. (Cedar Rapids Gazette)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
MATERIALS: The U.S. EPA has increased air monitoring around a Missouri battery recycling facility that caught fire last week, and says pollution has not exceeded harmful levels since the initial blaze. (Missouri Independent)
FINANCE: Michigan launches a new business accelerator to help lenders access federal climate funds. (Crain’s Detroit Business, subscription)
WIND: Washington Gov. Jay Inslee greenlights the proposed Horse Heaven Hills wind facility in the southern part of the state and urges regulators to streamline turbine permitting, saying it is essential to meeting “urgent clean energy needs.” (Seattle Times)
UTILITIES:
GRID:
CLEAN ENERGY:
CLIMATE:
OIL & GAS: A judge orders a New Mexico oil and gas operator to pay the Navajo Nation, Jicarilla Apache Tribe and federal government more than $3.55 million in lost royalties after she submitted fraudulent drilling production records. (news release)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: The Denver Police Department adds 27 electric bicycles to its patrol fleet. (KDVR)
POLITICS: Colorado advocates say Chevron’s support for an election-reform ballot measure is aimed at increasing corporate influence in politics and electing candidates weak on environmental policy. (CPR)
COMMENTARY:
UTILITIES: North Carolina regulators approve Duke Energy’s long-term resource plan, which ramps up renewable energy and retires the utility’s final coal plants, but also includes 9 GW of new natural gas-fired power and gives up on the state-mandated goal of cutting emissions 70% by 2030. (Energy News Network)
ALSO:
SOLAR: New solar installations in North Carolina fell 40% from last year after Duke Energy lowered the rate it pays for rooftop solar, but longtime installers remain optimistic because of new home battery incentives. (Energy News Network)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Electric vehicle startup Canoo furloughs 30 workers in Oklahoma as it struggles to raise capital, and company officials report it might have to “terminate or significantly curtail” its operations there. (Tulsa World)
WIND: Members of the Muscogee Nation in Oklahoma say they’re worried about potential environmental and property value impacts from a proposed 100-turbine wind farm. (KOKI)
PIPELINES: Anti-pipeline activists who spent the last decade fighting the Mountain Valley Pipeline turn their efforts to blocking a 26-mile project in Virginia that’s part of a broader Southeast expansion. (WVTF)
STORAGE: A startup receives $20 million in federal funding to build a Texas factory for containers that hold used electric vehicle batteries that can be assembled for stationary energy storage. (Canary Media)
OIL & GAS:
GRID: A Tennessee man faces federal charges for allegedly planning to damage an electrical substation in Nashville with a drone armed with explosives. (CNN)
CLIMATE:
POLITICS: Virginia Congress members call for reauthorization of the landmark 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, which funded abandoned mine land restoration, accelerated the energy transition and paid for transportation projects. (Virginia Mercury)
COMMENTARY: The Tennessee Valley Authority owes an apology to the families of more than 50 workers who helped clean up the utility’s 2008 coal-ash spill in Tennessee and have since died from illnesses related to their exposure, writes a columnist. (Knoxville News Sentinel)
ELECTIONS: Rhode Island voters approve a $53 million green economy bond bill, which includes $15 million to help develop the Port of Davisville into an offshore wind hub. (Rhode Island Current)
ALSO: Control of the Pennsylvania state House and Senate is still up in the air as of this morning; if Democrats hold on to the House majority and flip the Senate, which is unlikely, it could be good news for Gov. Josh Shapiro’s plans for a carbon cap-and-trade system. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: An unexpected surge in electric vehicle sales in Maine has drained the state’s $3.5 million incentive fund, though low-income buyers are still eligible for rebates. (Maine Public)
OFFSHORE WIND: Turbine blades spotted in transit off the Massachusetts coast are part of a plan to strengthen some of Vineyard Wind’s turbines, after a blade broke and fell into the water in July. (New Bedford Standard-Times)
TRANSMISSION: Preliminary work has begun along the path of a 70-mile transmission line in Maryland, even as opposition remains high and opponents say they will continue to fight the project. (Baltimore Sun, subscription)
NUCLEAR: The owner of Three Mile Island forges ahead with plans to reopen the plant and sell power to Microsoft, following federal regulators’ rejection last week of another plan to colocate a data center at a nuclear plant. (Utility Dive)
GRID: In central Massachusetts, National Grid gets approval for new and upgraded substations and power lines intended to accommodate greater use of solar and energy storage. (Worcester Telegram and Gazette)
SOLAR: In western Massachusetts, a growing number of agrivoltaic projects showcase the commercial potential of installing solar panels on active farmland. (Christian Science Monitor)
COMMENTARY: New York’s plan to require increasing electric truck sales promises significant health benefits, particularly in low-income communities of color, and should not be delayed despite vocal opposition, says an environmental justice advocate. (Streetsblog NYC)
ELECTION: Washington voters reject a ballot measure that would have repealed the state’s landmark 2021 cap-and-invest program. (Washington State Standard)
ALSO:
GRID:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A California startup runs a low-speed demonstration of its solar-powered electric vehicle. (PV Magazine)
NUCLEAR: Xcel Energy officials consider deploying small modular nuclear reactors in Colorado to replace fossil fuel generation and meet expected long-term power demand growth. (Aurora Sentinel)
BIOFUELS: A firm begins construction on a California facility designed to convert landfill gas to pipeline-grade methane fuel. (news release)
MICROGRIDS: California officials look to improve a state-funded program aimed at developing clean energy-powered microgrids on tribal land. (RTO Insider, subscription)
CLIMATE: Oregon researchers work to develop seaweed-based cattle feed designed to reduce livestock’s methane emissions. (OPB)
COMMENTARY: A Colorado county commissioner says a $2.5 billion federal grant will help Tri-State Generation transition away from coal, curb planet-warming emissions and reduce utility bills. (Colorado Sun)
CLEAN ENERGY: The Biden administration awards Tri-State Generation $2.5 billion in loans and grants to retire existing coal plants and develop and acquire new clean energy capacity for its member cooperatives in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona. (Colorado Sun)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A nonprofit “green bank” launches a $250 million financing program to purchase about 500 electric trucks for freight companies serving the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports. (Canary Media)
LITHIUM: The U.S. Energy Department finalizes a $2.26 billion loan to the controversial Thacker Pass lithium mine under development in Nevada as part of the Biden administration’s effort to bolster the domestic battery supply chain. (Reuters)
UTILITIES:
OIL & GAS:
COAL:
SOLAR: An Oregon farm launches an agrivoltaics project consisting of a mobile tracking solar-plus-storage array that shades cool-weather crops from climate change-driven heat. (Microgrid Knowledge)
BATTERIES: A developer brings an 80 MW battery energy storage system online in California’s Central Valley. (news release)
POLITICS: Observers say Nevada’s debates over clean energy development and lithium mining are not falling along political lines and are unlikely to affect voters’ choice for president. (E&E News)
NUCLEAR: A mining company’s proposed uranium mill in an economically depressed Utah town shows little progress even though commodity prices remain high. (Salt Lake Tribune)
SOLAR: A coalition of solar developers say they’ll lobby Virginia lawmakers to restrict local bans against such projects, spotlighting the local rejection of 33 utility-scale facilities totaling 3,236 MW over the past year and a half. (Virginia Mercury)
PIPELINES:
OIL & GAS:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
GRID:
FINANCE: Memphis, Tennessee, launches a “green bank” to fund energy efficiency, green infrastructure and renewable energy projects. (WREG)
OVERSIGHT: Critics complain that West Virginia officials scheduled meetings about a proposed ranking system for plugging gas wells and the planned Appalachian hydrogen hub at the same time, preventing concerned residents from attending both. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
EMISSIONS:
CLIMATE: The Federal Emergency Management Agency has paid out more than $190 million so far to individuals in North Carolina for damage from Hurricane Helene, while thousands of Virginia residents and businesses apply for more. (Asheville Watchdog, Bristol Herald Courier)
UTILITIES: Florida Power & Light asks state regulators for a rate hike to recover $1.2 billion in costs for restoring power after hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton, and to replenish a storm fund. (News Service of Florida)
FOSSIL FUELS: West Virginia’s coal and gas leaders discuss ways to grow the market for their products at an energy conference, while the state’s Republican candidate for governor promises to fight federal regulation. (WV Metro News, Parkersburg News and Sentinel)
OFFSHORE WIND: Four offshore wind lease areas in the Gulf of Maine net nearly $22 million at auction, but four more parcels go unclaimed as the wind industry slows. (Maine Public)
ALSO:
HYDRO: Massachusetts consumers will pay an additional $521 million to help cover construction delays on a transmission line intended to import hydropower from Canada, though developers say the project should eventually yield savings. (CommonWealth Beacon)
STORAGE: A solar company and a utility partner to provide free batteries to more than 300 New York homes with solar panels to help clean up the grid at times of peak demand. (Canary Media)
CLIMATE: Massachusetts’ long-awaited climate bill stalls again, as the state House speaker announces plans to delay a vote until a new formal session is convened. (CommonWealth Beacon)
TRANSPORTATION: Philadelphia’s port authority receives $77.6 million in federal funds for electric cargo-moving equipment, sharing in the $3 billion Clean Ports grant program. (WHYY)
POLITICS:
SOLAR: Pennsylvania launches a $25 million grant program to help schools install solar panels to reduce energy expenses. (ABC27)
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