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When it comes to transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy, rural electric cooperatives often get stuck in neutral.
These small, member-owned utilities provide power to more than 40 million Americans in rural areas and suburbs that aren’t served by investor-owned or municipal utilities, according to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Many face unique financial, cultural and political barriers that have made it hard to move beyond coal and gas.
But for the past five years, environmentalists have been quietly working with co-op leaders to change that status quo, E&E News reports. A series of meetings between the two camps has helped many find common ground in the clean energy transition, like when Colorado environmentalists and Tri-State Generation and Transmission agreed that the coal-heavy co-op should seek federal funding to move past fossil fuels.
And now, that request is a success. Tri-State is one of 16 co-ops getting a piece of $7.3 billion from the Biden administration to help them purchase clean power or build it themselves. The Inflation Reduction Act funding is expected to unlock enough clean electricity to power an estimated 5 million rural households.
Another winning bidder comes from Ohio, where Buckeye Power will deploy renewables and energy storage as coal generation shuts down.
Read all the details about how a co-op/environmentalist collaboration turned into federal funding in this Energy News Network report from the archives.
🎓 Fossil fuels hit the books: A peer-reviewed study documents how oil and gas companies have “embedded” themselves at colleges and universities through donations, sponsored scholarships, and seats on governing boards, with researchers concluding academic integrity is “at risk.” (Floodlight, The Guardian)
☀️ Supercharging U.S. solar: The anticipated launch of Hanwha Qcells’ end-to-end solar factory in Georgia is expected to supercharge the U.S. solar supply chain, which has already quadrupled in the two years since the passage of a federal climate package. (Canary Media)
🔌 Politically charged: Unionized workers at an Ohio electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant lament the partisan divide over EVs, noting that the industry has helped preserve good-paying jobs. (Inside Climate News)
🏭 LNG fight continues: Gulf Coast residents and environmental groups turn to federal courts to try to block a wave of liquified natural gas export facilities they say haven’t been adequately vetted for their potential impacts on environmental justice, greenhouse gas emissions, fisheries and more. (Floodlight)
🛢️ Oil taps the climate law: Oil and gas producers plan to take advantage of a tax credit in the landmark federal climate package to inject carbon dioxide to squeeze more oil from the ground, but critics warn about a lack of federal oversight and uncertainty about the practice’s effectiveness. (E&E News)
🏠 Passive housing, aggressive efficiency: Some affordable housing developers embrace Passive House building standards that make homes highly energy-efficient with only slightly higher upfront costs. (Energy News Network)
🌬️ Wind’s PR nightmare: Vineyard Wind’s broken turbine blade, misinformation campaigns and a lack of forthrightness from offshore wind developers is causing a “public relations nightmare” for the industry. (Rhode Island Current)
🇺🇲 Plus, some politics
Solar customers and clean energy advocates are waiting to see if New Hampshire will continue its system for compensating customers who share excess power on the grid.
State regulators at a recent hearing seemed unconvinced about the policy’s benefits, despite support from utilities, customers, and hundreds of residents who submitted public comments on a proposed extension.
“This commission is highly skeptical of anything involving energy efficiency or clean energy, and focused almost solely on cost,” said Nick Krakoff, senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation in New Hampshire.
These compensation plans, generally referred to as net metering, are widely considered one of the most effective policies for encouraging more solar adoption. Recently, however, several states have changed or considered changing their programs, as utilities object that the policies are too costly and some politicians and policymakers push for more purely market-based approaches.
New Hampshire’s net metering rules haven’t been modified since they were established in 2017. The state’s public utilities commission opened a case to consider the question of whether and how to adjust the rules in September 2022. A year into the proceedings, the state’s major electric utilities — Eversource, Liberty Utilities, and Unitil — came out in support of continuing the existing system of net metering, despite the tendency of utilities nationwide to consistently push for lower net metering rates. The move was a welcome surprise for environmental advocates.
“If you don’t have a compensation rate that’s high enough, you’re not going to have customers that are going to want to invest in solar panels or other renewable energy,” Krakoff said.
In early August, a diverse coalition including the utilities, the Conservation Law Foundation, Clean Energy New Hampshire, Granite State Hydropower Association, Standard Power of America, and Walmart reached a settlement agreement about the future of the policy.
The agreement calls for the state to keep the current net metering structure in place for two years; at the end of two years, utilities would propose time-of-use rates for net metering, so the compensation rate more closely matches the real-time value of the power being sent into the grid. Also, any projects that join the net metering program during those two years will receive the same compensation for 20 years before transitioning into whatever new system is created by then (currently the compensation ends in 2040).
An influx of public comments has also reflected wide support for the tenets of the agreement. Nearly 450 comments were submitted since the beginning of the year, more than Sam Evans-Brown, executive director of Clean Energy New Hampshire, has ever seen in a public utilities case, he said. The vast majority urge the commission to maintain the current net metering system.
Peterborough resident Brian Stiefel was among those who filed comments. He and his wife installed 37 solar panels on their home in 2021, at a cost of $51,000. Though the solar doesn’t fully cover their electric bills, it provides $2,000 to $3,000 in savings per year, in large part due to net metering.
“A big part of the decision to do this was the fact that the state would approve us for net metering,” Stiefel said in an interview. “If that’s going to change it could have a significant financial impact on everybody who has panels and is set up with net metering.”
However, clean energy advocates say they have seen some signs in recent months that the commission might not be paying much attention to the benefits the system creates, while seeking out evidence that net metering creates a cost burden for consumers who aren’t part of the program.
“The concern is that the chair is looking for a cost shift and is going to do whatever it takes to find one,” Evans-Brown said.
Last spring, the commissioner requested a series of records in the case, several focused on gathering information about other states’ net metering programs — information that did not seem relevant to the decisions needed in New Hampshire, Evans-Brown said. The commission also requested, in a different docket, information about stranded cost recovery, which it then placed into the record on the net metering case as well, a move energy advocates interpreted as an attempt to focus on costs to the exclusion of benefits.
Then, in hearings on August 20 and 22, the commissioners asked questions that seemed focused on finding costs being passed on to consumers, even though there is simply no such evidence on the record, Krakoff said.
Advocates’ concerns are magnified by the commission’s history: In 2021, the commission drastically reduced funding for the state’s energy efficiency rebate and incentives. Though the utilities, consumer advocates, and environmental groups had come to an agreement to raise funding for the programs, the commission claimed that the program would burden consumers and that the state should focus on promoting market-based energy efficiency services.
Current commission chair Daniel Goldner was one of the commissioners who signed the energy efficiency decision. During his confirmation hearing earlier that year, Goldner expressed skepticism about climate science, and advocates raised concerns about his lack of experience in the energy field.
“They expressed strong skepticism of energy efficiency and actually gutted the program,” Krakoff said, comparing that case to the present-day net metering proceedings. “It’s very concerning.”
Now advocates, homeowners, and other stakeholders can only wait to see what the commission decides and when they decide it. An order could come by the end of the year, said Evans-Brown, or the commissioners could decide to push the matter well into the new year — there are no deadlines set on the process.
Should the commission in some way reject the settlement, there is still hope the legislature would take action to protect net metering. As part of the proceeding, state Sens. Kevin Avard, Howard Pearl, and David Watters submitted a letter explaining their belief that reducing net metering compensation would be against the goals of the legislature.
“It is the intent of the legislature to preserve a viable net metering program in the state of New Hampshire, and we will take action to do so if necessary,” they wrote.
Resolving the question through legislative action, however, would leave the matter open and undecided for even longer, making it harder to encourage solar development in the state, advocates noted.
“We were expecting this to be a challenging docket when this was first announced,” Evans-Brown said. “It’s frustrating, but not surprising.”
UTILITIES: The Biden administration awards rural electric cooperatives $9.7 billion in grants and loans to expedite the clean energy transition, with about $1.1 billion going to three Colorado coops. (Big Pivots)
ALSO: Arizona regulators approve a proposed high-voltage overhead power line through midtown Tucson following pushback from residents and city officials. (Arizona Daily Star)
SOLAR: The U.S. EPA awards the Hopi Tribe in Arizona $20 million to bring solar power to about 900 off-grid homes. (KNAU)
BUILDINGS: The U.S. Energy Department awards Colorado $20 million to help implement its building performance standards aimed at cutting large structures’ carbon emissions, with the funds targeting disadvantaged communities. (Canary Media)
CLIMATE:
OIL & GAS: Colorado regulators plug and reclaim 25 oil and gas wells in the western part of the state that were abandoned when the operating company went bankrupt. (Grand Junction Sentinel)
HYDROPOWER: The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in southwestern Colorado completes construction on an irrigation-integrated hydropower system that harnesses excess pressure in water pipes. (Hydro Review)
STORAGE: A fire breaks out in a grid-scale battery energy storage installation in a San Diego suburb as county officials consider banning new facilities until stricter fire safety restrictions are in place. (KUSI, Voice of San Diego)
WIND:
COMMENTARY: An economist argues that more federal just transition efforts should be directed toward oil and gas communities to help devise holistic economic development strategies. (The Conversation)
WIND: Federal officials give US Wind’s 2 GW offshore wind project off the Maryland and Delaware coastline its final approval, although local officials have previously threatened to sue if the project got this far. (Capital News Service, Maryland Matters)
RENEWABLE ENERGY:
SOLAR: Advocates say Pennsylvania’s largest-ever solar facility, the 220 MW Great Cove project, shows how renewable energy has a place in the fracking-heavy state. (E&E News, subscription)
EQUITY:
BUILDINGS:
GRID: A PJM Interconnection executive says the grid operator could propose an accelerated interconnection approval process for shovel-ready generation projects. (Utility Dive)
BATTERIES: A Burlington, Vermont, concert series this summer took its usual diesel generators out of service and replaced them with 1.3 MWh of battery electric generators. (news release)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: In Massachusetts, Eversource customers begin seeing a relatively new electric vehicle program fee delineated on their bills that was previously tucked into the general delivery charges. (WCVB)
COMMENTARY:
CLEAN ENERGY: President Biden today will announce $7.3 billion for rural energy cooperatives to build or purchase clean electricity, enough to power as much as 20% of the nation’s rural homes. (The Hill)
OIL & GAS:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
GRID:
WIND: Global warming could shift wind patterns, creating more potential for offshore wind power generation, new research shows. (The Guardian)
UTILITIES:
SOLAR:
CLEAN ENERGY: A national report identifies thousands of planned, under construction and recently completed clean energy projects that could be eligible for labor-related Inflation Reduction Act incentives, including more than 80 in Wisconsin. (WPR)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
WIND: Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory are developing wind turbines made from recyclable plant material that would avoid the need to send them to landfills. (New York Times)
GRID: A University of Minnesota professor says grid reliability measures like underground power lines, energy storage systems and climate resilience hubs are needed amid aging grid infrastructure and more extreme weather. (MPR)
CARBON CAPTURE: Western Michigan University receives a $5 million federal grant to advance research on commercial-scale carbon capture and storage. (WOOD-TV8)
BIOGAS: Michigan clean water advocates call on state regulators to deny a permit for a biogas production plant that an owner says is needed to remain profitable. (Michigan Advance)
EFFICIENCY: Kansas City, Missouri, receives a $9 million federal Inflation Reduction Act grant to improve energy efficiency in city buildings. (KCTV)
SOLAR:
BIOFUELS: Minnesota will award more than $3.3 million to gas stations to upgrade or replace gas infrastructure to support biofuels with higher levels of ethanol. (Center Square)
COMMENTARY: A Minnesota columnist says it would be easier and cheaper for taxpayers to phase out ethanol plants and grow less corn than building billions of dollars in carbon pipelines to bury emissions underground. (Star Tribune)
WIND: A NOAA Fisheries analysis says pile-driving work on the Vineyard Wind project is unlikely to pose a threat to whales or other marine life, but does expect some sea turtles will be vulnerable to vessel strikes. (State House News Service)
ALSO:
OIL & GAS:
GRID:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
UTILITIES: A hearing examiner’s report supports a Maine utility’s effort to avoid state regulatory review of its parent company’s acquisition by Iberdrola. (Portland Press Herald)
OVERSIGHT: Consumer and environmental groups push back on the New Hampshire PUC’s plan to introduce stricter requirements for groups or individuals to intervene in regulatory proceedings. (RTO Insider, subscription)
SOLAR: A Pennsylvania school board unanimously rejects a plan for a solar array on district property that would have brought in $200,000 a year in revenue. (Lancaster Online)
WASTE TO ENERGY: Neighbors push Connecticut regulators to hold a public hearing on plans to allow a waste-to-energy plant to burn medical waste. (WFSB)
EQUITY: Philadelphia is holding a series of neighborhood-level workshops as it plans a city-specific environmental justice mapping tool. (WHYY)
CLEAN ENERGY: The Department of Energy says clean energy jobs last year grew at twice the rate of other sectors, with unionization rates higher than in the broader energy industry. (Reuters)
CLIMATE:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: The Biden administration announces $521 million in grants for electric vehicle charging, and says the number of publicly available chargers has doubled since 2021. (Utility Dive)
GRID:
OIL & GAS:
UTILITIES: Illinois ratepayers have paid an extra $1.8 billion since 2015 by choosing alternative energy suppliers over traditional utilities like ComEd and Ameren, according to a consumer advocate’s analysis. (Daily Herald)
SOLAR: Opponents of a proposed 800 MW Ohio solar project may turn to the state Supreme Court to block the project after regulators denied repeated challenges. (WCMH)
COMMENTARY:
SOLAR: The Biden administration finalizes its Western solar plan aimed at expediting development on 31 million acres of federal land in 11 states. (Reuters)
ALSO: A Utah county postpones a deal to install a solar array at a local airport to gather more information, but says it plans to move forward with the project later. (Moab Times-Independent)
PUBLIC LANDS: Federal courts prepare to consider several lawsuits seeking to diminish a president’s power to ban future mining and oil and gas drilling on some federal lands via national monument designation. (Bloomberg Law)
EFFICIENCY: The U.S. Energy Department awards Western states and cities $115.2 million to develop, implement and upgrade building performance standards and energy codes for commercial and multi-family structures. (news release, RTO Insider, subscription)
CLIMATE: Colorado awards local governments $1.9 million to support climate action plans and efficiency and sustainable energy programs. (news release)
STORAGE:
GRID:
OIL & GAS:
POLLUTION: Alaska advocates call on federal regulators to ban cruise ship exhaust scrubbers, saying the air-pollution mitigation systems contaminate ocean water. (KTOO)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
CLEAN ENERGY: The National Science Foundation awards a Hawaii university $4.2 million for clean energy research and education. (Kauai Now)
CLEAN ENERGY: Researchers estimate the clean energy transition will demand $1 trillion in federal spending by 2031, though only $66 billion — or 6% of that total — has been distributed so far via the Inflation Reduction Act. (Grist)
BATTERIES: The federal government is reportedly considering shoring up domestic projects that process critical minerals for clean energy applications as they face steep competition from cheaper Chinese materials. (Politico)
WIND:
GRID:
POLITICS: In her first formal interview as the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris promises she won’t ban fracking if elected. (Axios)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
SOLAR: Observers say a growing number of Western water managers are considering covering irrigation canals with solar panels to generate power and reduce evaporation. (Water Education)
EFFICIENCY: University of Maryland scientists are leading research into energy-efficient air conditioners. (Inside Climate News)
UTILITIES: Advocates push back on proposed California legislation aimed at reducing utility bills, saying it would gut low-income clean energy programs without significantly increasing affordability. (Canary Media)
ACTIVISM: Environmental and community activists oppose a federal loan for a project exploring whether plastic could be a viable replacement for coal as fuel for steelmaking. (Inside Climate News)
COMMENTARY: PJM’s latest capacity auction with sky-high prices should not be a cause for panic and shows that the grid operator’s market is catching up to the rest of the country in needing to manage supply changes, a former regulator writes. (Utility Dive)
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