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It’s called the “solar coaster:” The ups and downs the industry faces as solar-friendly policies ebb and flow. And in North Carolina, rooftop installers are in the middle of one wild ride.
On the heels of cutting bill credits for residential solar panels in October, Duke Energy is now poised to offer new rebates for rooftop arrays that are paired with batteries. Combined with federal incentives, the new “PowerPair” rebates could cut the cost of solar and battery systems in half and inject new interest in rooftop solar, which many installers say waned last fall.
“We definitely saw a dip,” said Doug Ager, the CEO and co-founder of Sugar Hollow Solar, describing his company’s business in the last quarter of 2023. But at least in the short-term, he said, “PowerPair will change all that.”
Approved to roll out in May, the pilot program will initially serve only an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 households. But proponents say it could pave the way for a new paradigm in which Duke invests in and manages distributed renewable energy and storage the same way it might a traditional power plant.
“It’s opening the door to active load management from Duke that is going to be increasingly important,” said David Neal, the senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center who helped negotiate the program. Heralding the pilot as one of the first of its kind, he said, “it’s going to be a lot more cost effective than just building new generation to meet expected loads.”
Ultimately, advocates are also hopeful that the solar coaster can be smoothed out a little.
“The rooftop solar industry really has experienced quite a bit of ups and downs,” said Matt Abele, executive director of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, which also helped devise the rebates. There’s still the question of what long-term strategies would support installers, he said. “But I would say this is not an insignificant program in the interim.”
Greenlit by regulators last month, the rebates grew out of a years-long dispute between Duke Energy, advocates, and the solar industry about how rooftop solar owners should be compensated for the electricity they produce.
About 40,000 rooftops across the state boast solar arrays, the bulk of them on homes and in Duke territory. The figure accounts for a tiny fraction of North Carolina’s roughly 5 million housing units.
Despite these small numbers, Duke, like other investor-owned utilities around the country, has long sought to lower the state’s one-to-one net metering credit, which it says unfairly burdens both the company and customers that don’t have solar panels.
Solar installers and advocates contend that rooftop arrays provide more benefits than costs, including cleaner air, fewer electrons lost in transmission, and reduced need for electricity from centralized fossil fuel power plants. Their assertion is backed up by most independent studies of rooftop solar, a 2019 analysis found.
Still, a pair of state laws, both heavily influenced by Duke, mandate a change to the current net metering scheme by 2027. To avoid the bruising battles and excessive fees on solar customers seen in California and elsewhere, some of the state’s leading clean energy advocates and solar installers forged a complicated truce with the utility.
The crux of the agreement is a move toward “time of use” billing. New residential solar owners are charged and rewarded more for electrons they add to or subtract from the grid during peak demand hours of 6 to 9 p.m. in the summer and 6 to 9 a.m. in the winter. On a monthly basis, any net solar electrons added to the grid are credited at the “avoided cost” rate — akin to a wholesale rate and currently about 3.4 cents per kilowatt hour.
Diligent solar owners can squeeze benefits out of this complex billing scheme, some installers say. But to ease the transition, they also negotiated a simpler, lower-risk “bridge rate” with Duke, in which solar customers enrolling before 2027 get a monthly credit at the wholesale rate for any electrons they add to the grid.
Regulators on the utilities commission accepted these compromises last March and ultimately ordered new rates to begin October 1. But they rejected another component of the deal, which would have given customers with electric heat an extra rebate for enrolling in Duke’s smart thermostat program, in which the utility can make temperature adjustments from afar.
“Instead, the Commission directs Duke to develop a pilot program,” their order read, “to evaluate operational impacts to the electric system, if any, of behind the meter residential solar plus energy storage.”
PowerPair is the result. “This program was in many ways a result of our negotiations around net metering,” Dave Hollister, the president of Sundance Power Systems, said over email.
Devised after months of conversations between Duke, solar installers, clean energy advocates, and others, the new rebates would be based on the size of the solar array and battery and capped at $3,600 and $5,400 respectively. Combined with a 30% federal tax credit, the cash back could cut the cost of an average $40,500 system down to less than $20,000.
For customers, the deal is “actually really, really good in terms of the economics,” one installer said. And for Duke, the rebates could prove a low-cost strategy for smoothing out spikes in demand and strengthening the resilience of the grid.
“Cost effective and dispatchable customer-sited resources are key components of our clean energy transition,” Lon Huber, a senior vice president at Duke, said in an email. “We are committed to expanding the scope and adding ways for our customers to deploy grid beneficial technology.”
Customers will be divided into two equal cohorts. Those subscribed to the simpler bridge will allow the utility to remotely control their battery up to 18 times a year and will earn an extra $37 a month on average. Enrollees in the more complicated time-of-use rate plan, on the other hand, won’t get monthly incentives but would have control of their batteries.
“It will be interesting to see how many folks will allow Duke to control their battery and who wants to have that freedom and independence to manage their customer-generated electricity themselves,” Hollister said. “ We deal with so many folks who are looking for self-reliance and the idea of ‘smart grid’ is somewhat of a third rail for them.”
Already, batteries are popular options for rooftop solar customers. Installers say between a quarter and 40% of their clients were already choosing them for a variety of reasons, from a desire to save money to a quest for energy security in the face of outages.
Sugar Hollow Solar’s Ager said residential storage fits with the western North Carolina vibe. “Being in the mountains,” he said, “people just want batteries.”
With the PowerPair, the percentage of solar arrays paired with storage will undoubtedly rise, and many installers predicted it would double.
“I fully anticipate us selling tons of systems with batteries,” said Brandon Pendry, communications and outreach specialist with Southern Energy Management, one of the state’s oldest installers and a negotiator for both the bridge rate and the PowerPair scheme.
To avoid the problem installers and their clients faced with the last round of rooftop solar rebates — when demand far exceeded supply each year and available grants disappeared in minutes — the architects of the program gave it an overall cap of 60,000 kilowatts but no annual limits. That way, rooftop solar and battery owners can get the rebates on a rolling basis.
“In this case, there is only one capacity and it’s not time dependent,” said Pendry. “It’s just: when it runs out, it runs out.”
If customers choose the maximum allowable size of a 10 kilowatt solar array, a total of 6,000 households could benefit. But no one really knows when the capacity will be reached, with some predicting 18 months from May and others estimating as few as four.
Duke projects it will connect 11,400 residential rooftop systems this year. But a spokesperson said it was simply too early to tell when PowerPair rebates would dry up.
Once they do, the hope is that data gathered during the pilot will inform whatever comes next.
“It may possibly be a win-win for everyone,” Hollister said, “especially if it can be extended or transformed into a more permanent program.”
Since half of the PowerPair cohorts will be using the bridge rate, there’s some chance a permanent program would extend that rate’s life — a key priority for some in the industry.
No matter what, while most installers contacted for this article eagerly await the pilot, they’re also clear-eyed about their business plan for the future.
“We have been installing solar in [the state] for over a decade and have certainly seen lots of incentives come and go, said Jesse Solomon, vice president and director of sales for N.C Solar Now, in an email. “But we have always been able to design the investment to make sense for our clients.”
Solar installers also focus on the overall trends buoying their industry: Fossil fuels are becoming more expensive, while the materials designed to harness and store forever-free sunlight are getting cheaper.
Every year Duke raises rates, said Pendry of Southern Energy Management, “solar becomes a better and better investment.”
Almost 50 environmental justice groups on Tuesday sent a letter to leaders of the federally-funded Midwestern hydrogen hub, imploring them not to try to loosen requirements for tax incentives for hydrogen produced with clean energy.
The U.S. Treasury in December published draft rules saying that to receive lucrative 45V tax credits for producing clean hydrogen, the energy used must not be diverted from the grid, but be “additional” energy created specifically to power the electrolysis process used to produce pure hydrogen from water.
Environmental advocates are largely pleased with Treasury’s draft rules, which also say clean energy must be generated around the same time and near where it is used for hydrogen production, to reap incentives. But organizations are worried that industry groups are lobbying to weaken the draft rules, which are open for public comment through Feb. 26.
The Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen (MachH2), a coalition of industry and research groups that won up to $1 billion in Department of Energy hydrogen hub funding, has proposed to produce much “pink hydrogen” powered by nuclear energy from Illinois. Critics say this, as well as “green hydrogen” produced with solar and wind, could divert zero-emissions power from other users and hence prolong the lives of fossil-fuel-fired generators that fill the gaps.
“If MachH2 imperils the achievement of our states’ climate goals, harms the health of our communities, and causes electricity price spikes that disproportionality impact low- and moderate-income households, it will face stiff opposition from our coalition and from communities that will bear the brunt of harmful, and avoidable, pollution,” says the letter from 47 organizations, including We the People of Detroit, Interfaith Power & Light, North Dakota Native Vote, StraightUp Solar, the Sierra Club, Eco-Justice Collaborative and Illinois People’s Action.
MachH2 declined to comment for this story.
The environmental and justice groups praised the draft 45V rules for including “three pillars” the groups see as crucial to making sure “clean hydrogen” is truly clean. Those pillars mean clean hydrogen production tax credits will only be awarded if new clean energy is used to power the projects, and the clean energy can actually be delivered to the site of the electrolysis around the time it is needed. The draft rules say that to be considered “additional,” the energy source must have been built within 36 months before the hydrogen production goes online.
Accounting known as hourly matching, which can be verified with Environmental Attribute Certificates, ensures that hydrogen production isn’t removing clean energy from the grid that could be used by consumers at times of high demand.
A 2023 study by researchers at Princeton University’s Center for Energy and the Environment modeled the emissions impact that hydrogen production by electrolysis would have in the western U.S., and found that all three “pillars” would be necessary to ensure overall emissions don’t exceed fossil fuel generation.
The environmental justice organizations’ letter notes that the EPA has supported the Treasury department’s decision that induced emissions on the grid — caused by replacing electricity diverted for hydrogen production — should be counted as indirect emissions of hydrogen.
“Backsliding on Treasury’s proposed rule… would lead to significant emissions increases from hydrogen production, in violation of 45V’s statutory requirements,” said the organizations’ letter. “It would also directly harm communities that are home to some of our states’ dirtiest power plants, which would run more to replace the zero-carbon energy diverted to hydrogen production.”
Lauren Piette, a senior associate attorney in the clean energy program for Earthjustice, said, “The important thing now is to make sure Treasury holds the line against pressure to weaken the rules.”
Treasury asked for comment on possible exemptions to the additionality requirement, including the possibility that existing nuclear and hydroelectric plants could receive the tax credit, or that existing plants could get the tax credit if it helps them avoid retirement. Advocates have called these possible changes in the rules “loopholes.” An analysis by the Rhodium Group found these exemptions would generally increase greenhouse gas emissions, compared to modeling under the rules without exemptions.
“Treasury needs to reject the loopholes industry is demanding, which would create enormous subsidies for dirty hydrogen, lock in more fossil fuel production and use, and increase dangerous health and climate-harming pollution,” Piette said. “Especially damaging would be any loopholes to the incrementality requirement, which are based on industry’s speculative claims about retirement risk, curtailment, and modeling. Such loopholes would reward the hydrogen industry for siphoning critical zero-carbon energy from the grid, creating a massive power demand that would be filled by our dirtiest power plants – the ones that should be retiring, not ramping up.”
The letter charges that if the three pillars aren’t mandates for receiving tax incentives, the electricity diverted from the grid to hydrogen production will cause consumers’ energy bills to spike. They point to cryptocurrency mining as an example of how this phenomenon has played out.
“Cryptomining, which is subject to minimal constraints and requirements, has increased utility bills by tens to hundreds of millions of dollars for households and businesses in upstate New York and led to costly grid strains in Texas,” the letter says.
BP’s Whiting oil refinery in Northwest Indiana is a focal point of the proposed Midwest hydrogen hub, as the company plans to ramp up hydrogen production at the site and provide it to regional users. BP asked the Treasury department to allow hydrogen made from existing generation to receive tax credits.
“We encourage the IRS and Treasury to adopt flexible criteria on ‘additionality’ especially at this nascent stage,” said BP America’s comment to the IRS. “Strict additionality rules requiring electrolytic hydrogen to be powered by new renewable energy is not practical, especially in the early years, and will severely limit development of hydrogen projects.”
BP and other members also argued against the requirement for hourly matching of renewable energy generation to use in hydrogen production, arguing instead for yearly matching. The draft rules currently allow for yearly matching until 2028, then hourly matching becomes mandatory.
“Stringent requirements such as hourly zero-emission matching have the potential to devastate the economics of clean hydrogen production,” said BP’s comment. “Moreover, such restrictive requirements are likely not practical or feasible in these early stages. If a green hydrogen production facility can only produce during hours when wind and solar are available, the low utilization rate will dramatically increase the price of the hydrogen produced.”
Bloom Energy Corporation, which manufactures electrolyzers, also said that adequate technology does not exist to timestamp energy generation and use in order to ensure that clean energy is generated when it is needed for hydrogen production.
“Since electrolyzers will comprise a very small percentage of the overall EAC-qualifying energy produced for many years to come, there is ample time for those state, regional and voluntary bodies to work through their stakeholder processes and make any changes as needed to adjust those systems so as to avoid unintended outcomes,” said Bloom Energy in its comment, referring to Environmental Attribute Certificates.
The Princeton study noted that hourly matching can add considerable costs to hydrogen production, but said the 45V tax credit would be lucrative enough to compensate for those costs while driving the market development of better hourly matching mechanisms.
Constellation Energy, owner of Illinois’s nuclear plants, also supported a mandate for hourly matching.
“Setting an expectation of hourly matched clean energy will provide a market signal for the clean energy investments needed to further drive decarbonization in the power sector,” said the nuclear company’s comment.
But Constellation is asking for exemptions to additionality, asking the government to decide that hydrogen made with behind-the-meter generation from existing plants qualifies for tax credits. The MachH2 hydrogen hub proposal calls for an electrolyzer on the site of Constellation’s LaSalle nuclear plant in Illinois, which could provide behind-the-meter electricity. But this electricity would still represent clean power that otherwise could have been sent to the grid, critics say.
Constellation also argued against adding carbon emissions related to the nuclear supply chain when calculating hydrogen’s lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.
“Measuring carbon content for nuclear fuel is not typically done by the mining, enrichment, fabrication and transport vendors in the nuclear fuel supply chain, and it would be extremely cumbersome, costly, and labor intensive to impose these requirements on said vendors,” Constellation said.
The letter to MachH2 comes as grassroots groups and environmental organizations are increasingly organizing around still murky but well-funded plans for hydrogen to be used in everything from power generation to steelmaking to transportation, including as part of the seven federally-funded hubs.
On February 1, the national collaborative Just Solutions Collective released an Environmental Justice Platform on hydrogen, demanding strict limits on the type of hydrogen production and use that is incentivized as part of a clean energy shift.
The organization says hydrogen production from natural gas, and hydrogen produced with power from the grid, should be “ruled out” since “fossil fuel-based hydrogen fails to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” by many estimates. They also demanded strict safety protocols around new hydrogen development, strident protections for water resources, protections around chemicals added to hydrogen fuels, and transparency in all hydrogen-related projects.
Just Solutions leaders hope their platform influences policymakers and also helps community groups more effectively weigh in on plans for expanding hydrogen, including as the U.S. Department of Energy invests $7 billion in the seven hydrogen hubs nationwide.
“The framework is meant to be a resource for climate and environmental justice advocates so they can advance clean energy technology that meaningfully addresses the climate crisis and to stop false solutions from taking root in our communities,” Just Solutions senior fellow and strategist Sylvia Chi said in a January webinar.
Environmental justice organizations in other parts of the country have also opposed hydrogen hub plans. Last summer Indigenous, environmental justice, and youth groups urged the Biden administration not to fund a hydrogen hub based in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, and that proposal was not among the seven selected.
“DOE is saying a lot of the right things, but there is widespread concern that environmental justice is going to be set off to the side and figured out later, after contracts are signed and projects are approved,” said Piette. “We have yet to hear a clear answer on whether communities will be able to say no to a Hub project. DOE needs to give its own guidance teeth and hold Hubs accountable to local communities, especially those already experiencing cumulative burdens of decades of fossil fuel pollution.”
The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) produced a report released in January commissioned by the Just Solutions Collective.
The report points to a pilot program in New York state where the Nine Mile nuclear plant is powering hydrogen production. While the nuclear power is zero emissions, it displaces energy from the grid that, when replaced by New York’s natural gas-heavy energy mix, increases overall greenhouse gas emissions.
IEER argues that the ideal place for zero-emissions-produced hydrogen is in areas like California and Texas where there’s often much more wind or solar power available than the grid can handle. These renewables are regularly curtailed, or kept off the grid, simply going to waste. A possible exemption to the additionality requirement for tax credits that Treasury has floated includes existing generation during times that renewables would be curtailed.
The IEER report estimates that curtailed renewables at current levels could produce 34,000 tons of hydrogen annually in California, and 150,000 tons in Texas. And the availability of renewables in those and other states is only expected to increase.
The environmental justice organizations’ letter similarly says that in the Midwest, MachH2 could successfully procure new renewables to power green hydrogen production.
“The MachH2 hub is one of the best situated in the country, able to take advantage of excellent wind and solar resources in the Midwest,” the letter says. “With the anticipated buildout of new renewable energy in this region, the projects funded by the hub will have no difficulty procuring cost-competitive, new, hourly-matched power from the proposed deliverability zone to claim the 45V tax credit.”
Minnesota community solar developers are adjusting their business plans as the state’s program undergoes some of the biggest changes since its launch over a decade ago.
One of the oldest and largest in the country, Minnesota’s community solar program has spurred development of more than 800 megawatts worth of solar capacity since launching in 2013. Customers subscribe to shares of projects and receive monthly credits on their utility bills, typically lowering overall energy costs.
The concept has been hailed as a way to spread the benefits of solar to customers who lack rooftop space, sun exposure, or the financial means to install solar panels on their own. In practice, the biggest beneficiaries have been commercial customers, which subscribe to 82% of the program’s capacity, according to data tracked by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
State lawmakers passed legislation last session aimed at increasing the share of power going to residential subscribers, especially low- and moderate-income customers, as well as attempting to address long-simmering complaints by solar companies about the program’s administration by utility Xcel Energy.
“I think there were thoughts that it could be handled in a more unbiased way outside of the utility,” said Rep. Patty Acomb, a Democrat whose district covers a suburban area west of Minneapolis.
The Minnesota Department of Commerce will now manage the program and has formally begun accepting applications. However, Xcel Energy will continue to handle interconnection applications, which have been a source of friction between the utility and developers.
Community solar developers will be allowed to build larger projects with fewer geographic restrictions, up to 5 megawatts anywhere in Xcel’s service territory. Previously, projects were limited to 1 megawatt, and developers could only sign up subscribers who lived in the same or an adjacent county as the project’s location.
The biggest changes come with the mix of subscribers developers must recruit for projects. At least 30% of a project’s subscribers must be low- or moderate-income residential customers. Another 25% must be allotted for schools, government agencies or other public interest organizations. Each project must have at least 25 participants.
“We were trying to address equity and economics and making sure that the benefits are going to a more underrepresented group,” Acomb said.
With the new application process and subscriber requirements, as well as ongoing congestion in Xcel’s interconnection queue, developers expect a slow first year under the new rules but generally support the program’s new direction.
Brendan Dillon, president of Minneapolis-based solar developer Nokomis Energy, said the new program “much better reflects what community solar should be, which is a tool that allows people who, for whatever reasons — whether it’s financial, or they don’t own their home or condo or they don’t have roof space — to be able to access clean energy and apply its financial benefits.”
Nokomis Energy plans to work through existing community groups and those associated with local governments to reach the designated income-qualified subscriber pool. Dillon said solar developers will do more community outreach and engagement to reach potential low-and-moderate subscribers.
Rob Appelhof, CEO and president of Cedar Creek Energy, said he works with another company to market subscriptions, and they already have a strong representation of low and moderate-income participants, so recruiting “should not be a problem.”
Developers said removing the geographic restrictions will help them build more projects and allow more farmers to benefit from leasing land to solar companies.
“It opens up more opportunities for urban residents to subscribe to community solar,” said Eric Pasi, CEO of Enterprise Energy.
US Solar Corporation President Reed Richerson said that “there are plenty of farmer landowners who want to host community solar on a portion of their land, and they’ve been unable to because they live in areas where, despite there being achievable permitting and achievable interconnection, there was a constraint with accessing subscribers.”
The dual application process splits the interconnection approval, Xcel’s responsibility, with the project approval from Commerce.
“In these early days, it is becoming a bit stickier than I think we might have imagined, mainly because I think Xcel isn’t necessarily on the same page as the Department of Commerce or the way the law is written,” Richerson said.
Richerson said he does not expect projects under the new rules to win approvals from Xcel and Commerce “until, at earliest, March,” he said. “And then, upon the award, you can go build your projects. But with timelines of these things, having anything online by the end of the year will be challenging.”
Unlike before, the program will now have annual caps, starting at 100 MW from 2024 to 2026, 80 MW through 2030 and 60 MW from 2031 on. That will create new pressure and uncertainty for developers, who could spend thousands of dollars to secure a site and an interconnection agreement only to have Commerce turn the project down.
“I guess the biggest uncertainty is getting your projects approved when there’s only a limited amount of them,” Appelhof said.
Cooperative Energy Futures has served low-income subscribers through community and rooftop solar for years. Policy and Regulatory Director Pouya Najmaie said developers will leverage income-qualified participation necessary for the state program to take advantage of incentives in the federal Inflation Reduction Act.
With enough low-income subscribers, a developer can add as much as 20% to 30% tax credit available for community solar, reducing the cost of a project by half, he said. “We’re doubling down more on low-income (customers) because of the IRA,” Najmaie said.
Cooperative Energy Futures will not seek to build larger, remote projects but instead focus on smaller ones built nearer to subscribers’ homes.
“We’re going to be concentrating a lot on the city and looking for warehouses and large building rooftops for hosting,” he said. “The capacity is much better there, and you’re closer to load, so it’s generally more efficient.”
Xcel Energy is still studying the cost impact of the legislation and “won’t know more until we understand what the customer makeup of the new gardens will be, because the legislation creates several different bill credit rates based on customer groups,” said spokesperson Theo Keith.
The utility supports the focus on residential, income-qualified and public interest subscribers because it will “expand options for income-qualified customers to participate directly in the clean energy transition,” he said.
Xcel has also asked regulators for more time to solve a persistent and confusing issue for community solar. Customers currently receive two bills, one from the community solar developer and another from Xcel that includes credit for the electricity their subscription produces. The legislation requires Xcel to develop a combined bill for those customers.
SOLAR: Texas breaks its record for the amount of grid power coming from solar, with more than 15 GW of solar providing 36% of power on the grid on Sunday. (KUT)
ALSO:
EFFICIENCY: Louisiana regulators narrowly vote to approve new energy efficiency rules during a raucous meeting in which protestors chanted, “Vote! Vote! Vote!” over a commissioner’s speech. (Louisiana Illuminator)
OIL & GAS:
PIPELINES:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
UTILITIES: The Southern Group’s Florida lobbying firm staffs up. (Florida Politics)
COMMENTARY:
CLEAN ENERGY: Renewable energy and transmission permitting reforms will be a key focus for Minnesota lawmakers this session in an effort to hit long-term clean energy targets. (Star Tribune)
OIL & GAS:
FINANCE: Minnesota leaders plan to launch the state’s green bank this year with $45 million in starting funds to help finance clean energy and climate projects. (Sahan Journal)
WIND: North Dakota’s top utility regulator questions Verizon’s purchase of power from a proposed 200 MW wind project, saying the company doesn’t need it and is merely trying to “get environmental activists off their backs.” (North Dakota Monitor)
SOLAR: An energy justice cooperative is selected to develop three community solar projects around Chicago that backers say will help lower energy costs for low- and moderate-income communities. (Inside Climate News)
POLITICS: Vulnerable Democrats in swing states call on the Biden administration to dial back plans to slash power plant pollution, boost electric vehicle sales and pause natural gas exports. (Bloomberg)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
MINING: South Dakota legislation would bring the state closer to reopening uranium mining, which environmental advocates say has left a legacy of polluted waterways. (KEVN)
CLIMATE: If a Biden administration review finds that liquefied natural gas exports are a significant driver of climate change, it could lead to a permanent ban on the practice. (E&E News)
CARBON CAPTURE: Summit Carbon Solutions reaches an agreement with a major biofuel producer that would add 17 ethanol plants to the developer’s proposed carbon pipeline in Iowa and South Dakota. (Iowa Capital Dispatch)
TRANSPORTATION: Officials in Springfield, Missouri, consider a host of short and long-term recommendations to improve its local transit system. (Daily Citizen)
HYDROGEN: Indiana advocates worry that federally funded plans to create a Midwest hydrogen production hub built around natural gas and carbon sequestration could perpetuate local pollution. (Energy News Network)
NUCLEAR: The Biden administration is reportedly preparing to offer a conditional $1.5 billion loan to reopen a shuttered nuclear plant in southwestern Michigan. (Reuters)
MINING: A Michigan panel delays voting on a $50 million grant for a copper mining project in the far western Upper Peninsula, which the developer says would provide key materials for electric vehicles. (Bridge)
PIPELINES:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A new report finds electric vehicles account for about 4.5% of new vehicle sales in Indiana, which is less than half the national rate. (Times of Northwest Indiana)
COAL: More than $3.1 million in federal funding is available this budget cycle to reclaim abandoned coal mines in North Dakota. (KXNET)
SOLAR: Two small manufacturers in Missouri receive a total of $90,000 in federal funding for onsite solar installations. (KBIA)
ELECTRIFICATION: A coalition of Minnesota advocacy groups seeks participants to help draft a roadmap for expanding home electrification as a climate strategy. (Spokesman-Recorder)
TRANSPORTATION: Michigan officials begin surveying residents on their attitudes toward replacing a gasoline tax with a road usage charge as more fuel efficient and electric vehicles are adopted. (WOOD-TV8)
GRID: Ameren completes upgrades to a 140-mile transmission line that utility officials say will improve reliability for seven southern Illinois counties. (KFVS)
CLIMATE: A community mapping project supported by NOAA scientists identifies the urban cores of Cedar Rapids and Iowa City as more vulnerable to dangerous heat than surrounding areas. (Gazette)
WIND: Dominion Energy receives the final two federal approvals for its $9.8 billion 176-turbine offshore wind farm near Virginia, opening the way for the utility to begin construction in May. (Virginia Business)
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OIL & GAS:
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GRID: The Texas Supreme Court hears arguments over state regulators’ decision to raise energy prices to their maximum allowable levels to incentivize power production during the 2021 winter storm. (KUT)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
SOLAR: An energy company announces it’s obtained financing to move forward with a 600 MW solar farm in Texas. (Solar Industry)
UTILITIES:
COAL:
COMMENTARY:
Correction: Oil companies will pay $7.4 million to settle a pipeline spill on Sac and Fox Nation land in Oklahoma. Yesterday’s edition of Southeast News included the wrong amount.
UTILITIES: Xcel Energy’s latest long-term energy plan would keep its two Minnesota nuclear plants until the early 2050s and add 3,600 MW of renewables, 600 MW of storage and two new gas plants. (Star Tribune)
OHIO: Lt. Gov. Jon Husted says any provisions linked to the state’s scandal-tainted House Bill 6 should be repealed, exposing an ongoing divide among Ohio Republicans over how much of the law should remain in place. (WCMH)
TRANSPORTATION: A Minnesota work group recommends making refineries buy credits that would fund grants to clean fuel producers, but environmental groups oppose the inclusion of ethanol among beneficiaries. (Star Tribune)
GRID:
PIPELINES: North Dakota regulators are set to vote next week on when state rules preempt local ordinances on pipeline zoning issues. (North Dakota Monitor)
SOLAR: Researchers are piloting a roadside snow fence with 6-inch-wide solar panels along a Minnesota highway. (MPR News)
HYDROGEN: Critics say utility plans to burn hydrogen for electricity at natural gas plants as a way to cut emissions would be a costly distraction from pursuing other technologies. (Canary Media)
POLITICS: Missouri Democrats grill Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft for requesting $1.2 million in public funding to defend his legal fight against environmental, social and governance driven investing. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A Minnesota company begins producing electric fire trucks that can get up to 150 miles on a charge and include new safety features for operators. (WCCO)
OIL & GAS: A power outage Thursday at a Northwest Indiana oil refinery caused significant flaring and will likely increase gas prices in the near term. (WLS)
CLEAN ENERGY: Analysts and advocates urge clean energy developers to consult with tribal nations early in the planning phase and earn their support rather than risk expensive legal challenges later in the process. (Grist)
CLIMATE: Proposals to mitigate the effects of climate change with solar geoengineering could infringe on tribal nations’ sovereignty, Indigenous advocates say. (High Country News)
SOLAR:
WIND: Oregon lawmakers call on federal agencies to address their concerns about proposed offshore wind development along the state’s southern coast. (Cannon Beach Gazette)
COAL: Utah lawmakers advance a bill aimed at keeping a coal plant running long after its scheduled retirement date, even if it means taxpayers end up purchasing the 40-year-old facility. (Salt Lake Tribune)
POLITICS: Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signs a bill into law aimed at allowing the state to sidestep federal regulations it deems objectionable, such as the U.S. EPA’s “good neighbor” ozone pollution reduction rule. (Deseret News)
OIL & GAS:
GRID: Unusually extreme cold grips south-central Alaska, straining natural gas supplies and leaving thousands of households without power. (Anchorage Daily News)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
COMMENTARY:
Clean energy is aligned with conservative values. So says North Carolina Rep. Kyle Hall, a Republican legislator in his fifth term from a small town near Winston-Salem.
“It’s conservative to support market competition, consumer savings, property rights, and innovation,” Hall said at an event last November, when he received an award for spearheading a bill to promote rooftop solar and other clean energy measures in 2023.
The event also showcased what pollsters have known for years: Energy independence, less pollution, economic development, and other aspects of clean energy are popular with voters across the political spectrum.
Still, last year’s defeats and half-wins in North Carolina – where Republicans control both houses of the state legislature – show those factors aren’t always enough to propel policies favoring solar, wind, and electric vehicles forward. Obstacles remain in this purple state, including powerful special interests, misinformation, and individual lawmakers who have the power to make or break legislation.
“Polling consistently shows overwhelming public support statewide — in every community and across political ideologies — for more clean energy and for freer energy markets,” Carson Butts, the director of Conservatives for Clean Energy North Carolina, said in an email. But, he acknowledged, “clearly, we have more work to do.”
Advocates like Butts believe they’re making progress in winning Republicans over to their cause, and there’s evidence for that.
In 2013, for the first time in over 100 years, the North Carolina GOP assumed control of the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the General Assembly. Members of their ranks immediately sought to weaken clean energy policies, with some success. Today, state-level solar tax incentives are gone, and land-based wind turbines are scant albeit legal.
But strong bipartisan support for clean energy also started to congeal, culminating in 2021, when the legislature and a Democratic governor elected in 2016 crafted a law to zero out electricity sector carbon emissions by midcentury. It remains the only such bipartisan measure in the region.
John Szoka, who helped write that law, may be the greatest testament to the efforts of right-leaning clean energy advocates. A former legislator who took office the first year of the GOP trifecta, today he leads the Conservative Energy Network, a nationwide association of state-based groups like Conservatives for Clean Energy.
“I’m the perfect example,” Szoka said in an interview, about how conservatives can evolve through education.
“When I first ran for office, I thought solar only existed because of subsidies and a bunch of crazy stuff,” he said. “But then, I ended up being a proponent for it. I made the transition because I had people who are trusted conservatives tell me what the truth was.”
Though Republicans regained a legislative supermajority in 2022, the bipartisan emissions law faced no attacks last year. A largely symbolic measure to ban ocean-based wind turbines in state-controlled waters also never got a hearing.
“Sometimes we define success as something that didn’t happen,” said Brian Turner, a former Democratic state representative who now directs policy for Audubon North Carolina. “We didn’t get another wind moratorium,” he noted at a November energy conference. “That’s something we were able to bottle up and keep from moving.”
What’s more, Republicans allocated at least $10 million in matching funds for an avalanche of clean energy grants headed to North Carolina thanks to federal initiatives like the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“There was significant funding allocated for clean energy related items, and that wasn’t necessarily a given,” said Cassie Gavin, policy director at the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association. “Every state hasn’t done that.”
Rep. Hall also moved to raise the current cap on leasing rooftop solar from 1% of Duke Energy electricity sales to 10%, a key change for businesses and nonprofits looking to rely more renewable energy. After paring down the scope of the bill to satisfy Duke, it cleared the house with just 10 “no” votes — a milestone he called significant.
“Being able to carry it through,” Hall said in an interview, “I think was kind of a victory.”
This activity aligns with poll after poll showing that voters across the political spectrum support wind, solar, and other forms of clean energy. Last year, a trio of surveys continued that trend.
The left-leaning North Carolina League of Conservation Voters found divisions between conservative and liberal voters on fossil fuels, but strong majorities in favor of “solar energy,” “clean energy,” and “renewable energy.”
Szoka’s group found that 67% of voters support community solar — in which individuals pay in for a share of a large solar farm — including 59% of Republicans.
And Conservatives for Clean Energy found that 73% of voters, including a majority of Republicans, would be more likely to support a candidate who backed policies to encourage “wind, solar, and waste-to-energy technologies.”
Consultant Paul Shumaker conducted the latter poll, a survey of 500 North Carolina voters last spring. In terms of running election campaigns, he said during a presentation of the results, “anything over 70% is a winning issue.”
But lawmakers didn’t always heed these surveys.
Shumaker’s poll, for instance, found that more than three quarters of voters, including 72% of Republicans, favored more competition in the electricity market.
Slightly smaller majorities said they would support “current legislation that would authorize a study to examine the public benefits of restructuring options for the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in North Carolina.”
The question references House Bill 503, aimed at analyzing the pros and cons of Duke joining a competitive wholesale electricity market, among other reforms. Like similar measures introduced in 2019 and 2021, it saw no movement last year.
“With the overwhelming numbers of voters supporting competition, why can’t we even study it?” asked Kevin Martin, the director of the Carolina Utility Customers Association, after the presentation.
“That’s a question for lawmakers,” Shumaker answered. He then relayed an adage he said came from the late historian David McCullough: “Special interests drive the narrative.”
Duke has a long public record of opposing the market reform study and did not respond to a request for comment for this story. But it wasn’t the only special interest that influenced policy last year.
The state budget prohibited an effort by Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, to reduce pollution from the state’s transportation sector. Called the Advanced Clean Truck Rule, it would have required manufacturers to sell increasing percentages of electric heavy-duty vehicles.
The provision originated in the House and endured when the Senate passed its version of the state spending plan. Still, Hall said he fought to remove it in conference — to no avail.
“That sent a signal to electric vehicle companies across the country that you’re not welcome in North Carolina,” Hall said.
The source of the provision, Hall believes, was the North Carolina Chamber, the business lobby that represents a host of companies including truck makers Daimler Truck and Volvo Group. “They wanted that in the budget,” he said, “and like Duke Energy, they wield a lot of power.”
The Chamber celebrated the budget language on its website in September. “Government mandates and intervention into the market would stifle… innovation and investment, as well as increase costs in new trucks, on which nearly all of our members rely,” it said.
The lesson, said Hall, is that companies with a vested interest in clean energy policy — in this case manufacturers and fleet managers who want their companies to go electric — need to do a better job of educating both lawmakers and the trade groups they belong to.
“Groups like Duke and the [electric] co-ops are doing it,” Hall said. “This side of the energy sector needs to do it as well.”
Still, the clean energy economy remains nascent compared to the entrenched business interests that benefit, at least in the short term, from the status quo. That was certainly true last year, when the well-organized building lobby faced off against the more diffuse energy efficiency industry.
State standards for insulation thickness, window quality, and other energy-saving building features in new single-family homes have remained virtually unchanged for over a decade.
The state’s Building Code Council sought to change that, tying updated standards to a 2021 international model code. The move was expected to add an average of $5,000 to the cost of a new house but generate a positive cash flow immediately by lowering energy bills.
The math was generated by an independent government lab and confirmed anecdotally by green builders, who supported the code updates. But the powerful North Carolina Home Builders Association refused to accept it. A major campaign donor and presence in the legislature, the builders lobby instead claimed the average cost would exceed $20,000.
With the state in dire need of affordable housing, the builders’ reasoning was potent – convincing several Democrats and every single Republican to vote for a measure to reject the update and freeze the 2009-era codes in place until 2031.
“We do have an affordable housing crisis,” said Hall, a realtor by trade who’s observed soaring home prices even in his small town of King. And if the builders had less “burdensome regulations,” he said, they could build homes more cost-effectively. “I think that was a compelling argument.”
Special interests aren’t the only ones with sway in Raleigh. Sen. Paul Newton, a Cabarrus County Republican and former Duke Energy North Carolina president, is widely viewed as the arbiter of clean energy policy for the Senate.
A lead negotiator for the 2021 decarbonization law, his positions frequently align with Duke’s. But he also asserts himself on bills that don’t directly concern the utility, and his influence extends beyond his chamber.
For four years in a row, he was thought to be the sticking point for government building efficiency legislation — a measure with no organized opposition and few detractors in the House. The 2023 Conservatives for Clean Energy poll found the measure had 79% support, including 68% of Republicans. Last year, the measure was reintroduced in the House with bipartisan support, but never got a hearing.
Newton’s key imprint from 2023 was his bill to promote nuclear, a carbon-free but non-renewable power source. The measure is more message than substance, but one key provision removes a requirement that Duke pursue more cost-effective measures like energy efficiency and renewables before trying to build a new nuclear plant.
“We support energy efficiency as the most affordable energy resource, and so we remain concerned about the changes to the [Certificate of Convenience and Public Necessity] section,” said Gavin of the Sustainable Energy Association.
When the bill first cleared the House, it included language sought by Hall to increase the solar leasing cap. That provision was rejected by Newton and other senators in the conference committee between the two chambers. “The Senate just stood their ground,” Hall said, “and flat out said ‘no.’”
Though his solar leasing bill is still eligible this year, Hall lamented its failure to become law in 2023. “That’s probably the most disappointing thing from the session,” he said.
Dan Crawford, director of governmental relations with the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, said the situation was indicative of the dynamic on energy policy at the General Assembly.
In the House, “you have conservatives that are trying to lead and do something positive,” he said. “But then you have the Paul Wall in the Senate.”
Newton didn’t respond to a request for a comment for this story.
Along with Hall, many observers point to Rep. Larry Strickland, a Johnston County Republican in his fourth term, as an emerging leader on energy in the House.
But they also note the absence of Szoka, who left in 2022, and former Republican representative Chuck McGrady, who now sits on the state’s Board of Transportation.
“Those are two really big losses,” Crawford said.
Szoka says one reason Republicans don’t always seem to follow the will of the majority of voters traces back to conservative grassroots circles.
Of the GOP voters his group polled who self-identified as “more conservative” on energy than their party as a whole, a whopping 64% said there was either no reason to be concerned about climate change or that more research was needed.
“So, that raises a question,” Szoka said. “How do you get elected? What’s going on in Republican grassroots organizations? Where do they get their information from?”
While outlets like Fox News have largely abandoned outright climate denial, misinformation persists about climate science, renewable energy sources, and energy policy. Throughout much of last year, for example, conservative media amplified false claims that offshore wind development was killing whales along the Atlantic Coast, an analysis by the liberal group Media Matters found.
Former president Donald Trump also trumpets such falsehoods, deepening distrust of the clean energy transition among Republican voters. And numerous studies have shown social media algorithms tend to push some users toward conspiracy theories and other misinformation.
At the same time, activists fighting solar, wind, and transmission projects, sometimes backed by fossil fuel interests, sow untruths in otherwise receptive or neutral rural communities.
“That stuff is still prevalent in a lot of rural areas, because there are people who actively work against clean energy, and they perpetuate misinformation,” Szoka said. Debunking it — a key mission of his organization — takes time and patience, he said, but it can work. “You’ve got to convince them,” he said, “and separate fact from fiction.”
Even so, with districts increasingly gerrymandered for partisan advantage, Republican candidates who support clean energy may never campaign on it: it doesn’t necessarily help them win a primary, and it rarely distinguishes them from their Democratic opponents.
“Most people don’t talk about it enough,” Szoka said, especially considering clean energy’s importance to unaffiliated voters – now the largest cohort in the state’s electorate. “And in some of these tight races, conservatives should talk about it more and the race wouldn’t be quite as tight.”
Still, advancing the clean energy transition may not be a simple matter of translating popular polling issues into policy. As politics becomes more nationalized and more polarized, with top Republicans deriding wind and solar, there’s some evidence that voters could be following suit.
Conservatives for Clean Energy has conducted polling for eight years. In 2015, nearly 87% of voters were more likely to vote for candidates who supported wind and solar. But that figure has seen a steady, if slight, decline ever since, and last year reached a new low of 73%.
The fossil fuel industry has also likely benefited from the centuries-old term “natural gas,” which despite its coinage describes a fuel that contributes substantial heat-warming pollutants to the atmosphere.
While most voters in the Conservative Energy Network poll believe we should put “less emphasis” on developing coal and oil, most said production of natural gas should stay “about the same.” Similarly, the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters poll found that 68% of all voters, including 55% of “left-leaning voters,” had a favorable view of natural gas.
Hall, who doesn’t advocate a full transition to “things like solar and wind,” believes the key is focusing on not just economics, but independence.
“If you ask people, ‘do you want to be energy independent, or do you want to rely on China and Russia for your energy,’ everybody’s going to vote for America first,” Hall said. “When I speak to constituents, their number one concern is that when they flip the switch that the light turns on — and if you could do it cheaper, cleaner, and made right here in America, that’s what they care about.”
Some way or another, clean energy advocates on the right are going to have to figure out what works. For all the intrigue in this year’s elections, legislative district lines leave little doubt that Republicans will retain control of the General Assembly. And left-leaning advocates say they’re not the best messengers in that case.
“There is an important role for Conservatives for Clean Energy to be that validator on the economy and clean energy,” Crawford said.
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