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SOLAR: Hurricane Helene’s damage to a North Carolina town home to the purest quartz in the world highlights the solar industry’s precarious reliance on materials produced from a single location, especially in the face of escalating weather disasters. (Grist)
ALSO:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Hyundai begins producing electric SUVs at its new, $7.6 billion Georgia factory ahead of a grand opening planned for 2025. (Associated Press)
GRID:
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: A federal court hears arguments in a lawsuit by Louisiana community groups alleging a parish government “intentionally discriminated against Black residents” by placing polluting industrial facilities near majority-Black communities. (Associated Press)
OIL & GAS: A Houston-based pipeline company heads up emergency response to a 100-foot oil-laced saltwater geyser that erupted in a part of Texas that’s experienced a recent rash of earthquakes linked to wastewater injection. (Houston Chronicle)
CARBON CAPTURE: Texans testify to U.S. EPA officials about a planned carbon dioxide injection site in the Permian Basin that would be part of the largest direct air capture facility in the U.S. (Texas Tribune)
HYDROPOWER:
NUCLEAR: The U.S. Supreme Court agrees to review a ruling in a dispute over a company’s plans to store nuclear waste at a dump located in Texas’ Permian Basin. (Houston Chronicle)
UTILITIES: Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick calls for the resignation of CenterPoint Energy’s CEO due to the utility’s botched response to power outages in Houston caused by Hurricane Beryl. (Houston Chronicle)
COMMENTARY:
NUCLEAR: Federal officials finalize a $1.52 billion loan to restart a southwestern Michigan nuclear plant, which has now secured $3.1 billion in subsidies to be the first shuttered U.S. nuclear plant to restart. (Bridge)
ALSO: The AI boom has left big tech companies scrambling to find large amounts of low-carbon energy to power data centers, creating new demand for nuclear power. (Mother Jones)
GRID:
WIND: Wind turbine service technician is projected to be the fastest growing occupation in South Dakota through 2032, according to state labor officials. (South Dakota Searchlight)
SOLAR:
OIL & GAS: North Dakota regulators approve plans for a $3.2 billion plant that would convert natural gas into diesel fuel and lubricants. (North Dakota Monitor)
CLIMATE:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Ford will start offering customers who buy or lease an electric vehicle a free home charger and installation in an effort to relieve range anxiety. (Detroit Free Press)
NUCLEAR: The Energy Department approves a $1.52 billion loan guarantee to restart the closed Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, part of a resurgence of interest in nuclear power in the U.S. (New York Times)
ALSO: The AI boom has left big tech companies scrambling to find large amounts of low-carbon energy to power data centers, creating new demand for nuclear power. (Mother Jones)
NATURAL GAS:
CLIMATE: Environmental advocates are skeptical of a federal effort to establish guidelines for voluntary carbon markets. (Grist)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
ELECTRIFICATION:
WIND:
GEOTHERMAL: The U.S. House last week passed a bipartisan bill that aims to speed up approval for geothermal projects. (Think Geothermal)
POLITICS: Climate change is rarely acknowledged by either candidates in a hotly contested U.S. Senate race in Ohio, where some communities are experiencing new clean energy investments under the Inflation Reduction Act. (Inside Climate News)
COMMENTARY: A columnist describes a “tragedy of errors” that has led to the U.S. falling behind China in the race to lead on solar technology. (Bloomberg)
Residents with heat pumps in four Massachusetts towns will soon pay hundreds of dollars less for their electricity over the winter, thanks to a new pricing approach advocates hope will become a model for utilities across the state.
State regulators in June approved a plan by utility Unitil to lower the distribution portion of the electric rate from November to April for customers who use heat pumps, the first time this pricing structure will be used in the state. It’s a shift the company hopes will make it more financially feasible for residents of its service area to choose the higher-efficiency, lower-emissions heat source.
“We asked, is there a way we can structure the rates that would be fair and help customers adopt a heat pump?” said Unitil spokesman Alec O‘Meara. “We recognize that energy affordability is very important to our customers.”
Electric heat pumps are a major part of Massachusetts’ strategy for reaching its goal of going carbon-neutral by 2050. Today, nearly 80% of homes in the state use natural gas, oil, or another fossil fuel for space heating. Looking to upend that ratio, the state has set a target of having heat pumps in 500,000 homes by 2030.
One of the major obstacles to this goal is cost. To address part of this barrier, Massachusetts offers rebates of up to $16,000 for income-qualified homeowners and $10,000 for higher-income residents for heat pump equipment.
The cost of powering these systems though, can be its own problem. Natural gas prices have been trending precipitously downward for the past two years and Massachusetts has long had some of the highest electricity prices in the country. This disparity can be particularly stark in the winter, when consumers using natural gas for heating get priority, requiring the grid to lean more heavily on dirtier, more expensive oil- and coal-fueled power plants, said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director for climate and energy nonprofit Acadia Center.
So switching from natural gas to an electric heat source — even a more efficient one like a heat pump — doesn’t always mean savings for a consumer, especially those with lower incomes.
“Electric rates are disproportionately higher than gas rates in the region,” Murray said.
Unitil’s new winter pricing structure is an attempt to rebalance that equation. In New England, electric load on the grid is generally much lower in the winter, when people turn off their air conditioners and switch over to gas or oil heating. That means that the grid, built to accommodate summer’s peak demand, has plenty of capacity for the added load of new heat pumps coming online — no new infrastructure needs to be built to handle this demand (for now, at least).
“The marginal cost of adding demand is lower,” said Mark Kresowik, senior policy director at American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, which supports heat pump-specific rates.
Unitil, which provides electricity to 108,500 households, decided to let customers share in that lower marginal cost. The company estimates customers will save about six cents per kilowatt-hour, which would work out to a monthly savings of more than $100 for a home using about 2,000 kilowatt-hours per month. The new rate should go into effect in early 2025, O’Meara said.
As Unitil is preparing to deploy its heat pump rate, environmental advocates and other stakeholders are pushing for adoption of this strategy beyond Unitil’s relatively limited territory.
Public utilities regulators are in the middle of considering a rate case filed by National Grid, which serves some 1.3 million customers in Massachusetts. National Grid has proposed what it calls a technology-neutral “electrification rate,” which would provide discounts to certain high-volume energy users, which would include heat pump users.
However, several advocates for low-income households and clean energy — including Acadia Center, Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Low-Income Energy Affordability Network — as well as the state energy department and Attorney General Andrea Campbell argue that this approach is inadequate. They’ve submitted comments urging regulators to require National Grid to offer a heat pump rate similar to Unitil’s plan, but modified to work within National Grid’s pricing model.
“Every intervenor in the docket who commented on the electrification proposal in any capacity was negative on it,” Murray said. “And the [department of public utilities] in its questioning seemed fairly skeptical as well.”
National Grid declined to comment on the pending rate case.
The electrification rate, opponents argue, would lower costs not just for households with heat pumps, but also for those with inefficient electric resistance heating and even heated pools, effectively running counter to the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“The ‘electrification’ proposal would apply to all electricity consumption, whether or not consistent with the Commonwealth’s climate policy of reducing greenhouse gases,” said Jerrold Oppenheim, a lawyer for the Low-Income Weatherization and Fuel Assistance Program Network and the Low-Income Energy Affordability Network.
It would also do nothing to encourage heat pump adoption among low- and moderate-income households, they say: Some 48% of low-income customers interested in switching to a heat pump would actually see bill increases of up to 33%, according to a brief filed by Oppenheim for the network.
Beyond the National Grid rate case, other stakeholders are also pushing for seasonal heat pump rates. The state has convened an Interagency Rates Working Group to study and make recommendations on the challenges of changing how electric rates are designed to encourage electrification of home heating and adoption of electric vehicles. In August the group released an analysis that found seasonal rates created significant savings for homes with heat pumps.
“They came to the same conclusion, that this is the right approach,” Kresowik said.
Eventually, the introduction of advanced metering technology will simplify the process of applying lower rates to desired uses, like heat pumps and electric vehicles. But the full deployment of these systems is still several years in the future, and action to ease adoption of heat pumps must be taken much sooner, advocates argue.
In the meantime, many have expressed some optimism that regulators will require National Grid to make its electrification proposal more responsive to the state’s climate and equity priorities.
“I would be surprised if the electrification pricing proposal exists as is in the final [regulatory] order,” Murray said.
CLEAN ENERGY:
ALSO: Despite ongoing critiques from Sen. JD Vance, the Inflation Reduction Act has benefited Ohio residents, including in his hometown of Middletown, with new clean energy investments. (New York Times)
UTILITIES: Xcel Energy spent more on lobbying state lawmakers than any other organization in Minnesota last year, when lobbying spending ballooned 18% from 2022. (Minnesota Reformer)
RENEWABLES: While wind and solar made up 64% of Iowa’s electricity generation last year, the state needs to speed up efforts to transition from coal to meet climate change targets, a statewide environmental group reports. (Radio Iowa)
GRID:
NUCLEAR: A resolution is near in a yearslong tax dispute over the value of a Michigan nuclear plant, which could result in a roughly $4.3 million cut in tax revenue for local schools and governments next year. (MLive)
SOLAR: A southern Indiana farmer says a proposed 2,050-acre solar project around his land would look like an “industrial wasteland,” while others see an opportunity to generate revenue for their farm. (WHAS)
BIOMASS: The University of Iowa is leaning heavily on various biomass crops for power generation as it continues plans to phase out coal by next year. (Daily Iowan)
CARBON CAPTURE: A carbon capture demonstration project at a large North Dakota coal plant receives a $4.1 million grant as part of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal support expected for the project. (Power Magazine)
OIL & GAS: The Ohio Court of Appeals denies the state attorney general’s request to hear a case seeking to hold a gas pipeline company responsible for discharging millions of gallons of drilling liquids into wetlands. (Bloomberg Law, subscription)
OFFSHORE WIND: In a major milestone, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approves New Jersey’s first offshore wind project, though opponents have vowed to keep fighting the development. (Associated Press)
ALSO: Officials in New Bedford, Massachusetts, vote to amend zoning regulations to clear the way for more construction at a marine terminal intended to serve the offshore wind industry. (New Bedford Standard-Times)
ELECTRIFICATION: Massachusetts regulators order National Grid to create a seasonal discounted rate for households with heat pumps, months after approving a similar plan by another utility. (Energy News Network)
SOLAR
NUCLEAR:
CONSUMER PROTECTION: Big energy companies in Maryland argue that a law intended to protect consumers from predatory energy suppliers will limit their ability to market their renewable energy products, hurting their business and slowing the state’s progress toward its climate goals. (Maryland Matters)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A Massachusetts startup unveils a new, slow electric vehicle charger in Concord, New Hampshire, testing the idea that the less-expensive equipment can help expand charging infrastructure in places where cars remain parked for several hours. (Concord Monitor)
HYDROGEN: A Massachusetts company claims its equipment can make hydrogen at greater scale, using methods that produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions than the traditional process. (MIT Technology Review)
BUILDINGS:
ELECTRIFICATION: Two of the world’s largest building materials companies invest $75 million in a Massachusetts company that makes cement using an electric current instead of emissions-intensive fossil-fueled kilns. (Canary Media)
The growing solar industry needs more workers equipped to get panels into fields and onto roofs. Meanwhile, disinvested populations — including communities of color and formerly incarcerated people — often lack access to such jobs.
An Illinois program aims to tackle both of those problems at once — and goes beyond a few months of training to ensure workers have everything they need to succeed, Audrey Henderson reports for the Energy News Network.
With funding from community solar developer Cultivate Power, the Chicago-based Renewing Sovereignty Program works with a training partner to provide a 13-week solar installation program for people leaving the criminal justice system. Last year’s cohort of 12 trainees all got jobs in solar and related industries. Jacqueline Williams, who works with a social services organization that administers RSP, said this year’s 18 cohorts are on track for similar results.
RSP’s holistic approach to jobs training is a big reason for that success.
“Anything that you can think of that would prevent someone from being successful in a really intensive 13-week program, we’re going to assess that barrier and we’re going to provide it,” Williams told ENN. That includes housing, food, child care and transportation — and that support continues for a year after trainees graduate.In turn, those newly trained solar workers are helping Illinois meet its ambitious clean energy and climate goals.
Read more about RSP’s solar training success at the Energy News Network.
🐢 Hydrogen’s holdup: Uncertainty surrounding federal tax credit rules has left the clean hydrogen industry stuck in neutral, but experts say the delay is providing much-needed time to figure out the best uses for the fuel. (Canary Media)
🪧 Who’s behind anti-protest laws: Records reveal how fossil fuel lobbyists worked with state lawmakers to craft anti-protest laws that increase penalties for non-violent participants and aim to quiet opposition to fossil fuel infrastructure. (The Guardian)
🚘 City charging deserts: Rideshare drivers are adopting electric vehicles at five times the rate of other drivers but say they’re struggling to find places to charge in major cities. (Axios)
🥵 Heat waves: Advocates sound the alarm over a lack of policies stopping utilities from shutting off customers’ power for nonpayment during deadly heat waves. (The Guardian)
👷 Building a clean workforce: The governors of 22 states launch an initiative aimed at getting 1 million residents to complete climate-related apprenticeships by 2035, pledging to set up funding and partnerships to expand the clean energy workforce. (The Hill)
🌡️ Hands-on grid management: Utility customers around the country are signing up for programs to save money in return for allowing power companies to remotely adjust their thermostats to manage grid demand. (Washington Post)
⚛️ Nuclear resurgence: The Energy Department approves a $1.52 billion loan guarantee to restart the closed Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, part of a resurgence of interest in nuclear power in the U.S. (New York Times)
🇺🇲 Plus, some politics
NUCLEAR: The owners of Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant are seeking a $1.6 billion, taxpayer-backed federal loan guarantee to help finance its plans to restart and sell electricity to Microsoft. (Washington Post)
ALSO: The Three Mile Island plant will need extensive and rigorous safety inspections if it is to come online again to provide power. (Scientific American)
WIND:
GRID: PJM Interconnection refuses to let power generators add battery storage to facilities that have surplus grid capacity, confounding clean energy advocates. (Canary Media)
NATURAL GAS: A proposal to build a natural gas power plant in Newark, New Jersey – the fourth in the same neighborhood – faces intense local opposition from residents who say the plan runs counter to the state’s renewable energy goals. (NJ Spotlight News)
OIL & GAS: A Pennsylvania Republican introduces a bill that would sell state alternative energy credits and use the funds to cap abandoned oil and gas wells. (Pennsylvania Business Report)
SOLAR:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Electric vehicle ownership in Connecticut is concentrated in wealthy Fairfield County, raising questions about how the state can better encourage more widespread adoption. (CT Post)
TRANSPORTATION: Vermont is holding public meetings as part of its investigation into the possibility of using a cap-and-invest strategy to lower emissions from transportation in the state. (WCAX)
BUILDINGS: A 17-story Boston office building is the first commercial project to use cement made by a Massachusetts company with technology to significantly reduce emissions during the production process. (CommonWealth Beacon)
CLARIFICATION: A Pennsylvania solar bill would not require developers to pay up front for future costs of removing panels. An item in yesterday’s newsletter mischaracterized the bill.
A newly published study examining property values near dozens of large Midwest solar farms has found no significant negative impact — and even a slight positive effect — from the projects, according to the data.
Loyola University researcher Gilbert Michaud has attended scores of community meetings about proposed solar projects across the Midwest. In past research, he quantified that property values were the most common concern brought up in local hearings about proposed utility-scale solar.
And while solar arrays may have an aesthetic impact, property values are influenced by a wide range of other factors, such as the quality of schools and the local economy.
“I’ve observed a lot of the negative comments framed as ‘I think’ or ‘I saw something on social media,’” said Michaud, an assistant professor of environmental policy at the School of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago. So he sought to “elevate the discussion from ‘I think, I think, I think,’” by injecting it with some hard data.
His latest study, published in the December 2024 issue of the journal Solar Compass, looked at property values surrounding 70 utility-scale solar projects in the Midwest and found they actually had a minor positive effect — increasing values 0.5% to 2%.
“While the impact itself — of a few thousand dollars — might not be incredibly meaningful,” said Michaud, “clearly these projects drive economic development in rural communities, through jobs, tax contributions, etcetera, which in turn increase residential property values.”
Michael Wildermuth, a landowner in Allen County, Ohio, was glad to hear about the proposed 300 MW Birch Solar farm, since he supports clean energy and welcomed the economic benefits. Wildermuth cofounded an organization, Allen Auglaize Coalition for Reasonable Energy (named for the two counties where the project would be sited), to advocate for the project as it faced local opposition.
“The nearest neighbors became enraged so quickly and voiced their rage so loudly that others were placed in a reactionary mode,” Wildermuth said. “The neighbors were greatly concerned with property values and flooding. The landowners were afraid of these vocal neighbors, the public officials were afraid of being on the wrong side of a political ‘hot potato’ issue.”
The developer appealed to the Ohio State Supreme Court, and Allen Auglaize Coalition for Reasonable Energy filed an amicus brief in support of the solar farm. Wildermuth wishes more data about property values had been available during the debate. He also thinks opponents ignored the $81 million the developer estimated it would contribute to the economy, with local officials saying the project would have little local economic benefit since the power would go to an Amazon facility.
“Just get people ‘all het up’ and you don’t have to deal with reason and facts,” Wildermuth said.
“Do I think solar farms could actually improve property values or the financial well-being of landowners and neighbors of solar farms? Yes, I do. We argued that. We also pointed out that, in the rural area where the farm was planned, the properties would remain stable for 30 years,” preventing them from being developed for other purposes that neighbors may find less desirable.
The study, co-authored by Loyola graduate Sampson Hao, notes that the benefits of rooftop solar on energy bills and property values are well-documented. But less is known about how utility-scale solar farms impact nearby properties — even though utility-scale solar accounts for about three-quarters of new solar development.
The study reviewed 70 solar farms built in the Midwest between 2009 and 2022, from a database by Berkeley Laboratory including solar farms over 5 MW. Hao and Michaud analyzed property values compiled by real estate firm Zillow, comparing values five years before a solar project became operational, with values at the operational date, which is often about two years after construction starts.
They aggregated by zip code, and controlled for factors like the COVID-19 pandemic that could affect housing values in a given year. Three-bedroom houses were used as a measure of overall property values. They also analyzed “control group” zip codes near the solar farm zip codes, but without solar farms, to account for other factors that might affect property values.
Michaud noted that while the number of bedrooms and other factors have a much larger impact on property values, the small positive impact that nearby solar farms could have could be similar to that of cultural amenities, like arts centers. Solar farms can also have an impact on schools — a major factor in determining property values — since solar projects augment local tax bases. Solar developers also often make ongoing contributions to school districts in the form of donations, supplies and energy education opportunities.
The study showed high numbers of solar farms going online in 2017 and 2021, with a smaller spike in 2020.
The projects included in the study range from a 10 MW urban installation in Chicago, installed by Exelon in 2010, to the 268 MW Riverstart Solar Park in Indiana, from 2021. Only 11 of the 70 projects studied were over 100 MW in capacity. Indiana had the most arrays at 22, followed by 14 in Minnesota, eight in Michigan and seven in Illinois.
The most beneficial impact on property values was from solar farms between 5 and 20 MW in size, perhaps in part because these can be hidden by vegetative buffers.
“The paper is not about a house that’s 200 feet away from a solar project, that’s very rarely the case,” said Hao, noting that developers often offer to buy properties at above market value in such situations. “We wanted to look at a bigger scale. A project between 5 and 20 MW, you’re really not supposed to even see these with your bare eyes.”
Michaud said that debunking myths around solar farms is particularly important in the Midwest, where there is much untapped potential for solar. While it has less sun than the Southeast and California, which have led the nation in solar farm development, the Midwest has massive stretches of agricultural land where solar can be deployed along with crops.
“This is a really important finding for Midwestern government officials, land owners, and many others to know about,” Michaud said. “Many of these folks are now making decisions about whether to host a large-scale solar project in their community, and the potential impacts to property values is often something that comes up in local debates and at local hearings. Data can help tell a story and move the debate beyond anecdotal or subjective arguments.”
The Loyola study cites a 2018 analysis of 956 specific solar farms by a University of Texas researcher that found no conclusive evidence of impact on property values one way or another. The Loyola researchers also noted a study by Berkeley Laboratory that found about a 1% decline in property values around 2,000 solar farms in six states on the east and west coasts and in Minnesota.
“Most Midwestern states have 10 to 20 gigawatts of potential utility-scale solar in their queue, and developers are coming off of the coasts where the grid is more congested and there is less land for development, targeting agricultural land in the center of the country,” Michaud said. “Finding a large plot of land with good solar irradiation and access to a substation is the sweet spot for a lot of solar developers, and in essence, positive attributes of farming crops in the Midwest are also positive attributes for farming ground-mounted, large-scale solar.”
The study notes the irony that perception plays a significant role in determining property values, and fears about property value declines can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“Projection and speculation drive market forces,” Michaud said. “A farmer might be angry that a solar farm is going in the community, he’s going to sell and move to Florida. A buyer thinks, ‘maybe I can negotiate this price down,’ and the house sells for less than its value, and an appraiser looks at that. But none of this is real, it’s just based on speculation and emotion, which then drives data points … it all started with an emotional response.”
Hao theorized that developers who make poor choices in siting and managing solar farms can have an impact on property values elsewhere, if negative stories about solar spread by word of mouth or social media.
“Is a developer doing their best to have as much of a buffer as economically feasible?” he asked. “Is the developer making vegetative screenings so you’re not going to see millions of panels? Is the developer doing their best to move the inverter to the center of the leased land so noise doesn’t get over the road? There’s a lot of things at the end of the day that developers can do better. It’s up to the developers to really step up their game to eliminate those potential negative effects.”
The Loyola study notes that solar developers often do things like hosting county fairs or supporting local organizations that can increase property values. Michaud said it’s possible such dynamics were reflected in their data showing small increases in property values, along with other benefits.
“From an economic perspective,” Michaud said, “locals should increasingly look at these data to understand the job opportunities, wages paid, new tax revenues and negligible or positive impacts on property values, and realize that large-scale solar projects might actually be an amenity in their community.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Michael Wildermuth planned to lease land for the Birch solar project, and that he personally filed an amicus brief in the case. The story has also been updated to clarify the scope of Gilbert Michaud’s research.
COAL: Clean energy advocates push back on Duke Energy’s new plan to extend the life of the country’s second-largest coal plant, the Gibson plant in Indiana, by three years to 2038 to meet rising electricity demand. (Inside Climate News)
CLEAN ENERGY:
UTILITIES: Protesters outside We Energies’ headquarters in Milwaukee call on the utility to invest in more renewable energy instead of gas plants, and to limit requests for rate increases. (Wisconsin Public Radio)
GRID: A new U.S. Energy Department study identifies parts of U.S. grid territories that could be suitable for new transmission interconnections. (Utility Dive)
OIL & GAS: The Ohio Supreme Court rejects a company’s effort to block a gas pipeline from traversing its property in Maumee after raising safety and environmental concerns. (Ohio Capital Journal)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
CLIMATE: Researchers in northern Minnesota are testing different formulations for biochar, a charcoal-like material that advocates say stores carbon dioxide that would have otherwise been released into the atmosphere. (MPR News)
NUCLEAR: Regulators and lawmakers should do more to make nuclear reactor licensing more accessible and craft regulations that allow existing reactors to support data centers and hydrogen producers, panelists say during a clean energy conference. (Utility Dive)
COMMENTARY: Advocates continue to see longstanding failures in enforcing groundwater protections from the widespread injection of oil and gas drilling wastewater, including in Ohio. (Natural Resources Defense Council)
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