Discover the Latest News and Initiatives for a Sustainable Future

GRID: Virtual power plants, dynamic line ratings, and other advanced grid technologies could open up space on the grid for more electricity while staving off the need for costly, time-consuming transmission construction, a new U.S. Energy Department roadmap finds. (Canary Media)

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ALSO:

• The insatiable power needs of Virginia’s rapidly growing data centers lead to plans to build additional power lines from aging coal fired-power plants in West Virginia. (Washington Post)
• A company’s plan to build a 320-mile transmission line to firm up regional connections to Texas’ independent state grid is running into opposition in both Mississippi and Louisiana. (Grist/Verite News)
• A federal judge rejects tribal nations’ and advocates’ bid to halt work on a segment of the SunZia transmission project in a culturally and ecologically significant part of southern Arizona. (Associated Press)
• More than 40 utilities participate in a program aimed at connecting Navajo Nation homes to the power grid. (Navajo Times)

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EMISSIONS:

• The Biden administration will reportedly release as many as four rules next week targeting fossil fuel power generation’s carbon emissions, air pollution and waste. (E&E News)
• U.S. climate envoy John Podesta announces a new task force aimed at cutting carbon emissions associated with global trade and manufacturing. (Reuters)
• Improving wastewater treatment processes could save the U.S. $15.6 billion, reduce energy costs and slash the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions, a peer-reviewed study finds. (The Hill)

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WIND: The world installed a record 117 GW of new wind power generation capacity last year, up 50% from the year before, a wind power advocacy group finds. (The Hill)

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ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Black Americans are more likely than other racial groups to say they’re “very” or “fairly” concerned about pollution, and are more likely than White Americans to be displaced by environmental contamination, a survey finds. (The Hill)

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CARBON CAPTURE: Illinois bills would add a series of restrictions on carbon sequestration and pipeline projects as developers seek to capitalize on the state’s geology and lucrative federal tax credits. (Energy News Network)

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SOLAR:

• Residents living within three miles of commercial solar projects tend to favor projects that are smaller than 100 MW, while local opposition increases as projects grow larger, according to a new survey. (Inside Climate News)
• New Hampshire’s Supreme Court decides a town can’t block solar projects over aesthetic or property value fears if the project otherwise satisfies local ordinances. (New Hampshire Bulletin)
• Hundreds of utilities and solar companies lobby congressional lawmakers to act fast on permitting and transmission reforms to promote “energy security.” (E&E News, subscription)

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Cities across the U.S. are building out electric vehicle charging networks to meet anticipated EV growth. (Utility Dive)

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POLITICS: House Republican leaders are poised to cut a provision to reverse the Biden administration’s LNG permitting ban from critical foreign aid packages. (E&E News)

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TRANSMISSION: A federal judge rejects tribal nations’ and advocates’ bid to halt work on a segment of the SunZia transmission project in a culturally and ecologically significant part of southern Arizona. (Associated Press)

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MINING:

• Advocates push back on the federal Bureau of Land Management’s plan to approve a slightly scaled-back version of the proposed Rhyolite Ridge lithium mine in Nevada, saying it will not adequately protect an endangered wildflower’s habitat. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
• The Biden administration is expected to reject the proposed 211-mile Ambler industrial road through northwestern Alaska wilderness that would access a copper deposit under ecologically sensitive land. (New York Times)  
• Wyoming officials predict tightening global supplies and rising prices of nuclear fuel will revitalize the state’s near-dormant uranium mining industry. (Cowboy State Daily)

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OIL & GAS:

• Federal regulators greenlight a controversial proposed natural gas pipeline expansion in the Northwest after Republican federal lawmakers from Idaho push the project. (E&E News, subscription)
• Oregon regulators seek public input on a proposal to renew a controversial Portland-area fuel storage terminal’s air quality permit. (OPB)

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CLIMATE:

• Oregon regulators issue air quality permits to Intel’s microchip factories while reprimanding the tech firm for understating its 2022 carbon emissions. (Oregonian, subscription)
• A Colorado entrepreneur looks to tackle climate change by capturing a shuttered coal mine’s methane emissions and using them to fuel a brick and tile-baking kiln. (CPR)

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WIND: A Colorado electric cooperative and wholesale power supplier agree to purchase the full output of a 200 MW wind facility in the eastern part of the state. (news release)

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UTILITIES:

• Colorado regulators seek public input on Xcel Energy’s planned outage aimed at reducing wildfire hazards earlier this month. (Denver 7)
• A utility executive predicts California will continue to rely on natural gas-generated electricity for at least two more decades as it transitions to cleaner energy sources. (Reuters)
• More than 40 utilities participate in a program aimed at connecting Navajo Nation homes to the power grid. (Navajo Times)

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COAL:

• Montana advocates file a lawsuit alleging the state’s justice department illegally withheld documents relating to pollution from a Canada coal mine that crosses the border into the state. (Daily Montanan)
• New Mexico receives $2.8 million in federal funds to reclaim abandoned coal mines. (KRQE)

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GEOTHERMAL: The federal Bureau of Land Management plans to exempt some geothermal exploration projects from environmental reviews to expedite development. (E&E News, subscription; news release)

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: An Arizona community college launches an electric vehicle technician training course. (news release)

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COMMENTARY: Nevada advocates urge the federal Bureau of Land Management to push utility-scale solar projects toward low-conflict, previously disturbed public lands. (Nevada Independent)

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Just about every week, Shawn Grant, who works for Salt Lake City-based Rocky Mountain Power, gets an inquiry from another utility looking for information about the company’s Wattsmart battery program.

“We want to do something. … How did you guys do it?’” Grant, the company’s customer innovation manager, says he’s often asked. “We’re always fielding those questions.”

The program pays customers with solar who opt to install battery storage systems for the ability to use that stored electricity to help balance flows on the electric grid.

For customers, the benefits come in the form of lower electric bills and backup power in case of an outage. For Rocky Mountain Power, which has 1.2 million customers in Utah, Wyoming and Idaho, the program allows the company to harness the collective power stored in those distributed batteries to shave electric demand when it spikes rather than calling for more generation from a traditional power plant, among other uses.

“We’re using every battery every day to reduce demand on the grid,” Grant said.

The concept is known as a virtual power plant, and grid operators, utilities, state regulators and lawmakers across the country are increasingly exploring the possibilities. They are seen as a cost-effective way to aid an electric grid that in many parts of the country is increasingly embattled by power plant retirements as well as difficulties building new, cleaner generation and the transmission lines they need — all at a time when huge projected electric demand increases loom.

“We’re now in this load-growth era,” said Robin Dutta, acting executive director at the Chesapeake Solar and Storage Association, a solar and storage industry group focused on Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. “When you’re mitigating peak demand growth at the source, that’s perhaps the most cost effective way to modernize the grid.”

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‘Faster, better, cheaper’  

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Nearly 800,000 American homes installed a new solar or solar and energy storage system in 2023, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association. That growth set a record, with about 6.8 gigawatts installed, a 12% increase from 2022. Electric vehicles, another potential grid resource as a store of energy, also broke a sales record last year, despite consumer uptake being slower than some expected.

“These are devices that people are buying anyway because they’re faster, better, cheaper and virtual power plants allows everybody to leverage these devices while putting some money back in the pockets of people that bought the thing in the first place,”said Brian Turner, a director at Advanced Energy United, a clean energy trade group

The U.S. Department of Energy found in a report last year that large-scale deployment of virtual power plants “could help address demand increases and rising peaks at lower cost than conventional resources, reducing the energy costs for Americans — one in six of whom are already behind on electricity bills.”

They’re not a new concept, the DOE noted, adding that most existing virtual power plants are so-called demand response programs. In Virginia, for example, the commonwealth for years has run a program that enrolls hundreds of public facilities (airports, universities, K-12 schools, municipal buildings, water treatment plants and others) that agree to reduce or shift their electric demand to relieve strain on the grid. The DOE report says deploying 80 to 160 gigawatts of virtual power plants by 2030 could save about $10 billion in annual grid costs and would “direct grid spending back to electricity consumers.” At that scale, virtual power plants could meet between 10 and 20% of peak electric demand. The Rocky Mountain Institute, a research nonprofit focused on sustainability, called virtual power plants “a valuable and largely overlooked resource for advancing key grid objectives,” including reliability, affordability, decarbonization and electrification, among others.  

However, many states are starting to take notice of the potential:

• Maryland’s legislature just passed a bill that, among other provisions, requires utilities to create a pilot program to compensate owners of distributed energy resources like solar and battery storage for services they provide to the grid. “Ratepayers and consumers who invest in clean energy systems should see financial benefits when they provide meaningful grid services,” said Del. David Fraser-Hidalgo, a Democrat from Montgomery County who carried the House version of the bill. “Our DRIVE Act does just that; pairing battery storage with renewable generation will help Maryland achieve its clean energy goals, reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and mitigate the negative impacts of climate change.”
• Michigan, afflicted by expensive electric prices and high outage rates, has pending legislation, part of a package of pro-solar bills, that would create a virtual power plant program.
• In North Carolina, the state’s Utilities Commission has approved a Duke Energy pilot, called the PowerPair program, that it had directed the company to propose that will give customers incentives to install solar and storage. One group of customers will turn over control of the batteries to the utility and the other will participate in a test of “time-of-use rates,” which aim to shift customers’ usage to periods of lower demand, like running a dishwasher overnight, Utility Dive reported.
• In the summer of 2022, the New England Independent System Operator, which manages the electric grid for Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, became the first such organization to use a virtual power plant, Politico’s E&E News reported. Sunrun, one of the nation’s largest solar installers, said it linked an estimated 5,000 small solar and battery systems to share 1.8 gigawatt hours of energy. In the summer of 2022, during a heat wave that sent temperatures soaring across New England states, residential and other non-utility solar installations reduced demand on the system by about 4,000 megawatts.
• The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission announced in February that it was seeking comment on proposed rules related to use of distributed energy resources and virtual power plants. “Distributed resources provide the possibility for those who were traditionally consumers to play an active role in ensuring electric reliability and resiliency for themselves and their neighbors, and often in a less expensive way than traditional large generation that requires delivery infrastructure,” the commission’s chair and vice chair said in a joint statement.
• Arizona Public Service, the largest electric utility in the state, counts 75,000 smart residential thermostats in its Cool Reward program, which provided nearly 110 megawatts of capacity during the summer of 2022.
• A Colorado utility regulator is pushing for Xcel Energy to get a 50 megawatt virtual power plant up and running by the end of 2024, Utility Dive reported. The company, the state’s largest utility, already has a program called Renewable Battery Connect that allows it to discharge participating customers’ batteries during peak periods in exchange for financial incentives.
• In November, Puget Sound Energy, Washington’s largest utility, and AutoGrid, a California software company that provides distributed energy management systems, announced that they were expanding their partnership to develop a virtual power plant. “PSE’s VPP will reduce costs and help maintain reliable energy supply to its more than 1 million residential and business customers. Additionally, the VPP solution allows participating customers to receive monetary incentives for sharing assets with the grid and/or curtailing usage, something that’s financially beneficial for the community as well as helping the utility efficiently manage increasing electricity demand,” the companies said in a news release.

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Why it matters

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Experts who study and run the nation’s electric grid are worried about the pace of the energy transition. Old coal and gas plant retirements are accelerating, driven by economics, state clean energy policies and utilities’ own decarbonization goals. At the same time, massive backlogs in the queues to connect new power resources — overwhelmingly wind, solar and battery projects — in the regional transmission organizations that run the grid in much of the country mean big delays in replacing that retiring power generation. And after roughly a decade of flat electric demand, load growth is projected by many experts to explode as a result of transportation, industrial and home heating electrification, as well as a surge in data center development, among other factors. Throw in the fact that the construction of new transmission lines, essential to get excess power to where it might be urgently needed, has also stagnated and a problematic picture emerges.

“Most utilities in the country are planning on pretty significant load growth,” said Turner from Advanced Energy United. ”They could plan to build a new peaker plant or they could plan to ‘build’ VPPs.”

That’s where utility incentives come into play.

Generally speaking, Turner said, utilities that operate transmission and distribution systems are more friendly to the idea. Companies that also own their own generation,  – and make a sizable chunk of their income from guaranteed profits on building new plants – , might not like the idea of a program that erodes the business case for a pricey new facility.

“That’s why we have utility commissions,” Turner said. “They exist to say to the utility that virtual power plants are a cheaper option for the ratepayer and therefore you should implement it.”

However, even companies that might have resisted the idea are facing such dire electric-demand growth scenarios that virtual power plants may be attractive ways to get more flexibility out of the grid more quickly than building new generation.

“This is a way to get the capacity online faster and oftentimes cheaper,” Turner said. “Meeting that load growth is a real challenge in a lot of places.”

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ELECTRIFICATION: A new Department of Energy program aims to help manufacturers develop next-generation heat pumps that can replace large buildings’ rooftop heating and cooling systems and save U.S. businesses as much as $5 billion annually. (Utility Dive)

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ALSO: Clean energy advocates and professional cooks continue to work to electrify restaurant kitchens and homes in Berkeley, California, even after a court shot down the city’s natural gas-hookup ban. (Guardian)

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES:

• While the average electric vehicle today gets the equivalent of 106 miles per gallon, new technology could double that number to more than 200 in the coming decades, a report suggests. (Washington Post)
• An appeals court upholds the U.S. EPA’s decision to allow California to set its own electric vehicle sales mandates and tailpipe emissions limits. (Reuters)

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OIL & GAS:

• Federal officials approve the construction of a deepwater oil export facility off the Texas Gulf Coast that will be the largest oil export terminal in the U.S. (Houston Chronicle)
• Democratic senators join climate advocates at a protest decrying utilities that spend ratepayer money on fossil fuel lobbying. (Guardian)
• House Democrats call out Republicans for conditioning Ukraine aid on an increase in natural gas exports. (The Hill)

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EMISSIONS:

• The U.S. EPA issues a new rule requiring more than 200 chemical plants to reduce toxic emissions that are likely to cause cancer, winning praise from environmental justice advocates in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” (Associated Press, WWNO)
• San Jose, New York, and San Francisco top a ranking of cities whose transit systems have the biggest impact on reducing transportation emissions. (Axios)

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GRID:

• The U.S. Department of Energy awards about $5 million each to three organizations to tackle key research and development barriers to long duration energy storage. (Utility Dive)
• Development of advanced transmission lines remains stalled over cost concerns even as top U.S. officials and new reports make a case for their potential to carry up to four times more power than conventional lines. (E&E News, subscription)
• Texas solar and battery installations are growing so much that federal energy officials say there’s less need for natural gas generation during the day. (U.S. Energy Information Administration, PV Magazine)
• Vermont utility Green Mountain Power used its residential customers’ battery storage systems to offset the drop in solar power during Monday’s total eclipse. (WCAX)

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NUCLEAR: Experts are divided on whether Georgia Power’s costly, long-delayed expansion of its nuclear Plant Vogtle heralds a new era for nuclear power development or will discourage future investment in the power source. (Grist)

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SOLAR: New York officials confirm Tesla’s Buffalo solar panel factory uses panels made by a competitor on its roof, not its own product. (Investigative Post)

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CLIMATE:

• Bloomberg Philanthropies awards $50,000 each to 100 cities worldwide to launch youth-led climate programs. (Grist)
• Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa says her positions on conservation, reducing emissions and being a clean energy-leading country drove her interest in chairing the Conservative Climate Caucus. (Daily Iowan)

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GRID: The New England grid operator’s newest transmission study finds the region has to spend up to $26 billion over the next 26 years to bulk up its transmission network — a large sum but roughly comparable to spending in recent decades. (CommonWealth Beacon)

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ALSO: Two Connecticut municipalities sue to stop a state-approved transmission line expansion, calling the plan an “aesthetic eyesore and an unjust blight.” (Only In Bridgeport)

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SOLAR:

• New England’s grid operator estimates solar production dropped 4 GW during Monday’s total eclipse. (Concord Monitor/Granite Geek)
• A Connecticut solar developer describes how a focus on operations and maintenance during the construction phase has helped keep one of the state’s larger solar arrays on track to hit its milestones. (Solar Power World)
• In Pennsylvania’s Lebanon County, an egg farm and an auto repair shop receive U.S. Department of Agriculture grants to install solar panels on their properties. (Leb Town)

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COAL: Federal energy analysts believe April coal exports will be slashed by about a third because of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse and subsequent Port of Baltimore closure. (The Hill)

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BUILDINGS:

• Washington, D.C.’s city council advances a plan to electrify 30,000 low-income homes by 2040, but the mayor proposes to direct the funds elsewhere amid a broader budget problem. (RTO Insider, subscription)
• A Pennsylvania agency kicks off a residential loan program to help homeowners access affordable financing for energy efficiency projects. (news release)
• The Delaware Energy Efficiency Advisory Council hears updates from a utility and a consultancy on the progress being made toward bringing a gas efficiency program to life and updating building codes. (DPM)

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NUCLEAR:

• A new report from the U.S Government Accountability Office says federal nuclear regulators should be more mindful of climate change’s impact on nuclear plants, including New Hampshire’s Seabrook station. (SeaCoast Online)
• A federal report suggests potential transportation routes for removing 125 casks of nuclear waste being stored at the Indian Point station in New York, including a barge trip down the Hudson River. (LoHud)

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STORAGE: Pennsylvania’s utility commission issues new battery storage guidelines for utilities that allow them to use non-wires distribution reliability projects and possibly own them on a case-by-case basis. (Utility Dive)

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UTILITIES:

• Two New England senators join activists calling on the country’s largest gas sector association to stop using ratepayer’s bills to pay for climate disinformation campaigns. (E&E News, The Guardian)
• Maryland utility customers will briefly see higher bills as the state fixes how utilities recover costs for its energy efficiency program, which until now has caused customers to pay ballooning interest. (Fox 45)

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CLEAN ENERGY: A town in Massachusetts’ Berkshires region is undertaking weatherization measures, installing electric vehicle chargers and installing solar arrays to achieve net-zero by 2050. (Berkshire Eagle)

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TRANSIT: Rhode Island’s public transit agency says piloting no fares on its most popular bus route increased ridership by nearly 100,000 riders but cost it $2.7 million, calling the cost unsustainable. (Rhode Island Current)

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EQUITY:

• Acadia National Park receives a $950,000 federal grant to blend western science and Wabanaki indigenous knowledge and develop climate mitigation projectss. (Portland Press Herald)
• A New York City public housing complex hasn’t had gas for cooking since January, when post-hurricane reconstruction efforts damaged the line, requiring residents to rely on take-out for months. (City Limits)
• A New York City workforce development program hopes to connect Black and Brown communities with climate education and jobs to reduce income inequality. (NextCity)

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GRID: California’s grid operator proposes $6.1 billion in transmission projects aimed at increasing reliability and providing access to solar, geothermal and wind resources in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and offshore. (Utility Dive)

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ALSO:

• The Southwest Power Pool formally proposes a day-ahead power market for Western utilities, setting up a competition with the California grid operator’s rival plan. (Utility Dive)
• Federal investigators offer a $25,000 reward for information regarding a 2023 attack on an electrical substation in southern California. (Press-Telegram)

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UTILITIES: Arizona advocates campaign for positions on a Salt River Project’s board with hopes of prodding the Phoenix-area utility to adopt more clean energy generation. (Capital & Main)

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SOLAR:

• The Biden administration awards California agricultural producers $6 million to install solar systems to power their operations. (news release)
• Colorado launches a grant program aimed at helping local and tribal governments implement automated solar permitting software. (news release)

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CLEAN ENERGY: Idaho lawmakers pass a resolution supporting clean energy technologies such as green hydrogen production and advanced nuclear reactors. (KMVT)

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NUCLEAR: Bill Gates-backed TerraPower applies for a federal permit to construct a proposed 345 MW sodium-cooled nuclear reactor in a Wyoming coal town. (World Nuclear News)

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HYDROPOWER: An Arizona utility moves forward with a proposed 1,000 to 2,000 MW pumped hydropower energy storage project outside Phoenix, but predicts construction wouldn’t begin until 2027. (KJZZ)

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Colorado launches the nation’s first statewide electric bicycle tax credit giving residents a $450 discount at the point of sale. (CBS News)

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OIL & GAS:

• The Biden administration plans to issue a highly-anticipated decision this summer on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a lawsuit seeking to overturn Trump-era leases there winds through the courts. (Alaska Beacon)
• New Mexico’s petroleum industry claims new federal rules aimed at reducing methane emissions could hamper drilling even as the Permian Basin continues to set oil-production records. (Carlsbad Current-Argus, subscription)

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CLIMATE:

• Washington state researchers experiment with brightening marine clouds to deflect the sun’s rays and temporarily cool the earth in an effort to mitigate the effects of climate change. (New York Times)
• Phoenix passes and ordinance aimed at protecting outdoor workers from climate change-exacerbated extreme heat. (EcoWatch)
• A study finds California emits more sulfuryl fluoride, a toxic pesticide and potent greenhouse gas, than the rest of the lower 48 states combined. (Inside Climate News)

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POWER PLANTS: As economic growth drives new electricity demand, utilities such as Georgia Power look to natural gas as a quick fix, but customers and clean energy advocates say the strategy lacks ambition and ignores the giant pool of federal money currently available for cleaner alternatives. (Grist/WABE)

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ALSO: A new report urges state regulators to be skeptical about “a panicked rush” to build new gas plants and says utilities could mitigate near-term load growth with a myriad of tech and policy solutions. (Latitude Media)

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GRID: Software and smart meters are unlocking new potential for price-based demand response — using variable rates to change customer behavior — with Georgia Power and Entergy Louisiana among the utilities exploring the concept as a way to manage loads. (Utility Dive)

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: The shift to electric vehicles in North Carolina is happening faster than state officials anticipated, with electric vehicle registrations surpassing a state goal two years ahead of schedule with more than 80,000 on the road. (WRAL)  

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SOLAR: The developer of a Virginia solar project informs county officials that it is withdrawing its application for a special use permit. (Farmville Herald)

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COAL:

• The Baltimore bridge collapse has cut off access to a port that ships about a quarter of West Virginia’s total coal exports. (MetroNews)
• A federal official announces $23 million in infrastructure law funding to help reclaim abandoned coal mines in Virginia. (WVTF)
• The director of an Appalachian nonprofit talks about its work planting native trees to regrow forests on former coal mine sites. (Daily Yonder)

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CLIMATE: Indoor farming offers producers steady growing conditions amid increasingly unpredictable weather, but their energy consumption represents a potential threat that could worsen climate change. (Washington Post)

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COMMENTARY: Duke Energy’s proposed carbon plan in North Carolina ignores a 2030 emissions target, doubles down on fossil fuels, and leans too heavily on expensive, unproven technology, an advocacy group writes. (SELC)

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The Maine House rejected a bill Wednesday that would direct regulators to explore performance-based ratemaking for Central Maine Power and Versant, which last year beat back a referendum to replace the companies with a consumer-owned model.

The House voted 75-67 against LD 2172, sponsored by Rep. Gerry Runte (D-York). Republicans largely opposed the legislation but a handful of Democrats also voted against it. The proposal then moved to the Senate on Thursday, where it was tabled, meaning it will be taken up at a later date.

Runte’s bill would require the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to examine performance-based metrics that could be implemented for utilities and conduct that examination every three years thereafter. Generally speaking, performance-based ratemaking (PBR) creates specific benchmarks for utilities to meet. The utilities could then get rewarded if they meet the targets or be penalized if they don’t.

The performance of Maine’s primary investor-owned utilities, CMP and Versant, has been a frequent topic of discussion in recent years. The companies’ relative unpopularity with Mainers, frustration with their quality of service and concerns about their for-profit business model spurred the referendum last fall to replace CMP and Versant with a nonprofit, consumer-owned utility. However, Mainers voted down the measure amid a deluge of spending against the proposal.  

During Wednesday’s debate in the House, Rep. Sophia Warren, a Democrat from Scarborough, argued there isn’t sufficient evidence that LD 2172 would benefit ratepayers and improve the utility system.

“We cannot with any guarantee know the outcome of this legislation, and I believe that is a potentially quite harmful consequence we must take seriously,” said Warren, adding that she would support a targeted study on PBR policies in Maine.

Warren — a critic of CMP and Versant who supported the referendum to replace the companies — also pushed back against proponents who have argued that the bill will hasten Maine’s clean energy transition. She said nothing in the legislation ties a utility’s performance to making the grid more sustainable.

Republican Rep. Steven Foster of Dexter also expressed opposition to the bill. Among other issues, Foster argued that some parts of the proposal are duplicative of a 2022 bill that requires the PUC to adopt rules for CMP and Versant. Specifically, the PUC was tasked under that law with creating quantitative metrics around service quality along with coming up with a report card to evaluate utilities.  

Runte said LD 2172 is meant to build on that previous measure. And he added that if the state wants CMP and Versant to perform better, it needs to create rules that incentivize the companies to further Maine’s grid-related policy goals — which he argued is currently lacking.

“LD 2172 attempts to solve this problem by directing the PUC to begin a process to define how we want our utilities to perform in the 21st century, as well as consider modern models of utility regulation that better align a utility’s performance with these new goals,” he said.

Under Runte’s proposal, the PUC would have to establish goals and evaluate options for creating metrics to determine how well utilities meet certain criteria. In creating those goals, PUC would have to keep in mind the following: benefit to ratepayers, promotion of cost efficiency and affordability, increased planning for extreme weather and climate hazards, a comprehensive response to outages, and support of renewable resource and greenhouse gas reduction goals. The goals would also have to be consistent with the state’s climate action plan.  

Runte said the process for coming up with goals for utilities to meet and metrics to evaluate them is kept deliberately flexible in the bill, giving appropriate latitude to the PUC to determine what will work best for Maine and to adjust policies as needed.

The bill would further require that the commission get input from various stakeholders, mandate that the PUC provide a summary of its performance-based ratemaking actions, task the organization with coming up with recommendations for forming a regulatory policy group within the commission, and require the PUC to implement emerging reforms if such changes better align with state goals.  

Runte pointed out that 17 states have approved similar reforms, although Warren noted that just two states have moved to extensively implement PBR policies, and she argued the experience of one of those states — Connecticut — has not been positive.

But Rep. Valli Geiger (D-Rockland) said that although Mainers voted down the November referendum to replace CMP and Versant, that doesn’t mean they are happy with the service provided by the companies. She said implementing PBR would provide the state the tools to bring the utilities into alignment with important goals, particularly when it comes to the clean energy transition.

Both CMP and Versant have been tepid about the bill. During a committee hearing earlier this year, a representative from Versant said the company is willing to take initial steps toward performance-based ratemaking but called for the goals established by the PUC to be brought back to lawmakers for review. And CMP argued the time isn’t right for Runte’s bill because lawmakers should first see how recent regulations, like the 2022 bill, work out.

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GRID: A Texas municipal utility builds four large solar farms and a natural gas-fired power plant as it aims to keep pace with power demand from data centers and electrification. (El Paso Times)

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ALSO:

• Georgia Power asks state regulators to allow it to build three new natural gas-fired turbines, develop 1,000 MW of battery storage, add a 200 MW solar farm, and buy power from out of state to meet growing energy demand, but critics warn the additions could cost ratepayers. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• South Carolina utilities warn that an escalation in data center construction is straining the grid. (Post and Courier)

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SOLAR:

• Texas added 6.5 GW of solar in 2023, surpassing California now twice in the last three years as the leading state for new solar installations. (Dallas Morning News)
• A Virginia county board discusses what to do if the state moves to override local ordinances to restrict and regulate solar development after such a bill failed this year. (Lynchburg News & Advance)
• An Arkansas auto service center announces it will install solar panels, making it one of the first businesses in the area to go solar. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES:

• A Georgia county preps a 202-acre industrial site to attract a factory as Hyundai Motor Group and SK On build a massive electric vehicle battery plant several miles away. (Rome News-Tribune)
• The United Auto Workers tries for the third time to unionize Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but so far sees diminishing returns. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)
• A study finds North Carolina among the top states for growing electric vehicle infrastructure, but ranks Greensboro and Winston-Salem among the least friendly for EV drivers. (WTVD, Winston-Salem Journal)
• Georgia officials hope electric vehicle maker Rivian resumes construction of its factory, but say taxpayers are on the hook for nearly $300 million in infrastructure improvements if not. (WXIA)

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OIL & GAS:

• Environmentalists call for a sharper response from Alabama officials after a truck crash spilled more than 2,000 gallons of oil and gas. (Inside Climate News)
• Police make nine arrests during a week of direct action against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, including two seniors who locked themselves to a car and an activist who spent nearly 36 hours inside a length of pipe. (Inside Climate News)

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COAL: An Alabama family sues for damages after a coal mine explodes because of what a lawyer blames on a buildup of methane gas. (Inside Climate News)

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CLEAN ENERGY: A report finds Georgia ranks second in the U.S. for clean energy development with $23.12 billion in investment. (Augusta Chronicle)

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POLITICS: Virginia lawmakers use a budget amendment to try to force the state to rejoin a regional carbon market, but it will likely be vetoed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. (Inside Climate News)

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CLIMATE:

• A nine-mile island in New Orleans is slowly being swept away by rising seas, and its erosion could severely affect more heavily populated parts of the city that it helps to protect from storm surge. (NOLA.com)
• A Texas power company faces numerous lawsuits after investigators say its decayed power pole sparked this month’s historic wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma. (Grist)

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COMMENTARY:

• The abrupt departure of a South Carolina regulator protesting legislation to speed development of a natural gas-fired power plant should serve as a warning about the utility-friendly legislation’s rollback of consumer protections, writes an editorial board. (Post and Courier)
• Florida should not rely on natural gas in the clean energy transition because the emissions that come from its production, transportation and distribution still accelerate climate change, writes a climate advocate. (Florida Times-Union)

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GRID: National Grid announces a $4 billion plan to upgrade its upstate New York power grid, with new substations and rebuilt power lines among its 6-year plan. (Utility Dive)

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ALSO: Several hundred thousand New England residents lost power during severe storms over the weekend, and more than 100,000 remained in the dark Monday morning. (NBC Boston, WMTW)

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OFFSHORE WIND:

• After Salem, Massachusetts, closed a decades-old coal plant, residents fought for — and won — climate resiliency funds and job assurances from the offshore wind assembly terminal slated to replace it. (Boston Globe)
• Linking Atlantic wind farms via offshore transmission lines could cost billions of dollars, but provide net cost benefits and boost grid reliability, a U.S. Energy Department study finds. (Utility Dive)
• Some New Jersey residents speak out against the state’s latest offshore wind solicitation at a state utility board hearing. (Asbury Park Press)

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UTILITIES:

• Massachusetts utility regulators are grappling with structural problems driving up power rates, as a state agency warns that costly power is a barrier to clean energy adoption. (CommonWealth Beacon)
• A Maryland advocacy group finds the state’s utilities spent $2 million on lobbying in 2023 and calls for further disclosures of utilities’ political activities. (Baltimore Sun)

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POLICY:

• A Maine legislative committee advances a bill that would put state lawmakers in charge of electric vehicle regulations after a citizen-appointed environmental board rejected proposed Clean Cars rules. (Kennebec Journal)
• New York lawmakers move quickly to include measures to phase out new natural gas hookups in the state’s budget. (New York Times)
• Vermont’s House advances a bill requiring utilities to purchase 100% clean electricity by 2035; the Senate will vote on the bill this week. (Seven Days, Vermont Public)

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SOLAR: Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania’s housing authority seeks county funding to help build a solar farm that could power a low-income senior apartment complex and other county facilities. (TribLive)

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CLEAN ENERGY: The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center awards $2.5 million for projects across the state, including a solar panel recycling project and a biogas production system. (Worcester Business Journal)

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HYDROGEN:

• A Connecticut hydrogen fuel cell factory announces layoffs. (New Haven Register)
• Delaware institutions secure a piece of newly awarded federal clean hydrogen funding, stirring opposition and concern from some community members and environmental advocates. (Delaware Business Times; Delaware News Journal, subscription)

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Rhode Island considers replacing its gas tax with a mileage-based user fee to combat an expected drop in revenue as electric vehicles replace combustion cars. (EcoRI)

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CLIMATE: Maryland’s chief resilience officer says climate issues pose the biggest challenge to the state’s stability, with rising floods, worsening storms and growing heat among his biggest concerns. (Inside Climate News)

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COMMENTARY:

• An editorial board calls New Jersey’s decision to phase out electric vehicle subsidies and establish an EV registration “baffling” considering the state’s EV mandate, and suggest the state promote plug-in hybrid vehicles. (Star-Ledger)
• Maryland needs to implement better protections for utility ratepayers and require wider economic benefit disclosures from utilities, the state’s former consumer advocate writes. (Maryland Matters)

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