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NUCLEAR: North Dakota officials say nuclear power may provide a long-term solution to help meet the state’s growing power demand as coal plants retire. (Prairie Public)
SOLAR:
EFFICIENCY: Wisconsin regulators will soon face decisions about how to structure $146 million in federally funded rebate programs for energy efficiency and electrification. (Capital Times)
UTILITIES:
CLEAN ENERGY: The school board in Madison, Wisconsin, sets a net-zero emissions goal by 2045, overriding a previous goal of using 100% renewable energy by 2040. (Wisconsin State Journal)
PIPELINES:
OIL & GAS: Industry groups in North Dakota claim the Biden administration’s plan to increase royalty fees and leasing rates for drilling on federal land to prevent well abandonment attempts to address a problem that doesn’t exist. (KFYR)
HYDROPOWER: University of Wisconsin researchers aim to boost the efficiency of hydropower turbines with a new method that limits problems caused by low water pressure. (Spectrum News)
COMMENTARY: An author and longtime nuclear energy reporter says a plan to restart a Michigan nuclear plant would waste billions of dollars when building out renewables would be a far better option. (Detroit Free Press)
Thanks to a new infusion of state funding, three projects benefiting traditionally under-resourced Black, Brown and Indigenous communities in the greater Chicago area have taken one important step closer to fruition.
Last week, the Illinois Climate Bank unanimously passed a resolution to authorize loan funds of up to $1.6 million for three community-based solar projects owned by Green Energy Justice Cooperative, launched in 2022 by Blacks in Green (BIG). This increases the total funding to $2.9 million for GEJC’s community solar projects, a portion of which is privately funded.
The money will be devoted to the pre-development phase of the project, including public outreach, an interconnection study, and a deposit for renewable energy credits awarded through the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), said Naomi Davis, founder and CEO of Blacks in Green.
“Our $2.9 million in predevelopment costs include payments to our electric utility, ComEd — fees to connect our solar system to their grid and a 5% down payment for our renewable energy credits — like buying a house, you have the financing and the down payment,” Davis said.
“The sweet spot of this pre-development funding is what we invest in building relationships, educating them about the power of cooperative ownership and management, and collaborating with them to build a clean energy economy right where they live,” she said. “We’ve got two years before we flip the switch and start monthly savings and clean energy comfort… and between now and then we’ll be enrolling thousands of community subscribers in conversations for organizing, training and hopefully inspiring them.”
Energy self-sufficiency is one of the eight key principles of BIG’s Sustainable Square Mile concept, which the organization aims to replicate around the country.
“We say communities should own, develop, and manage their land and energy, and with our $10 million EPA Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (TCTAC) award, BIG is offering free/open source access to our energy justice portfolio, which includes this 9 MW solar project and community geothermal and wind,” said Davis in a news release.
“With our energy affordability bill before the Illinois General Assembly, and our energy auditing workforce launching this summer, we aim to connect the dots of community-driven, community-scale energy solutions for low and moderate-income communities across America.”
In December 2023, the Illinois Power Agency recommended awarding the three solar projects, valued at $25.7 million, with $12.5 million in renewable energy credits. The three projects, located in Aurora, Naperville, and Romeoville, Illinois, would each generate 3 megawatts. Once completed, they will provide the dual benefit of lowering the disproportionate energy burden in BIPOC and low-income households, while providing a community stake in clean energy generation.
“When this project is completed over the next couple of years, it will be the largest non-governmental, non-utility, minority-community-owned solar project in Illinois. And as such, it will be the fulfillment of years of dreams and work by our Green Energy Justice Cooperative, to share middle-class jobs and wealth-building with historically deprived and distressed individuals and families throughout this area.” said Rev. Tony Pierce, GEJC board member and CEO of Sun Bright Energy, in a news release.
“In doing so, it will be the beginning of lifting these kinds of individuals and families from the bottom of our economic pyramid into the middle class,” Pierce said. “And it will therefore be the beginning of bringing some closure to the Black and White wealth gap that exists in metro Chicago; in addition to reducing the carbon footprint in our area, to reduce climate change.”
For Davis, this level of recognition and financial support reflects more than a decade of advocacy and effort to ensure energy independence for her community of West Woodlawn on Chicago’s South Side – and beyond.
“The cooperative (GEJC) that we organized and funded fits in with our overall mission because we have, as a stated pillar of our work [intend] to increase the rate at which neighbor-owned businesses are created and sustained,” Davis told the Energy News Network in December.
“We understand that the number one employer of Black folks in America is Black folks in America. And we are very committed in our understanding of the whole-system problem common to Black communities everywhere, that we are committed to being a solution.”
SOLAR: 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)
ALSO:
GAS:
RENEWABLE ENERGY:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
OFFSHORE WIND: With some residents for siting an offshore wind hub on Sears Island and others against it, officials in Searsport, Maine, are publicly neutral on the matter, which the town manager says local officials hold no sway over regardless. (WABI, Bangor Daily News)
FINANCE: A state board approves the formation of the New Jersey Green Bank to help make clean energy, zero-emission transportation and building decarbonization investments. (news release)
POLICY:
COAL: A former coal town in Washington state could serve as a model for Pennsylvania towns facing existential questions over a coal-free future. (WITF/StateImpact PA)
When you hear “geothermal,” what comes to mind?
Maybe it’s bubbling hot springs in Yellowstone, or that one volcano in Iceland that won’t stop erupting. (It still is, I checked).
Either way, it’s probably a massive field of heat and steam that you’d rather observe from afar, and not something you’d want in your backyard or the alleyway next to your apartment.
But a new generation of heat pumps are taking advantage of the Earth’s heat to both warm and cool big buildings and whole neighborhoods, no volcanoes required. Ground-source heat pumps work similarly to electric air-source heat pumps, which transfer heat in and out of a room to warm or cool it without need for fossil fuels, but find a more powerful and reliable source of heat in the Earth.
And they’re already taking off. Minnesota is piloting networked geothermal systems to keep government buildings, housing developments and schools warm through the winter and cool in the summer. A Chicago neighborhood wants to connect more than 100 homes to a networked system, squeezing boreholes in the alleys between buildings. And a Massachusetts gas utility has already unveiled networked geothermal in a Boston-area neighborhood, and is looking to repurpose existing infrastructure for future projects.
Despite their potential to slash emissions and low operating costs, for now, geothermal heat-pump systems remain too expensive for most homeowners and to install. But they’ve still got potential as a way to repurpose oil and gas drilling equipment and infrastructure, and could help pave a new, zero-emission path forward for the fossil fuel industry.
— Kathryn Krawczyk
🚗 EVs go farther: 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)
🏭 Questioning a gas buildout: Utilities across the Southeast want to build new natural gas-fired power plants to meet escalating power demand, even though advocates say clean energy and battery storage can handle the job. (Canary Media)
🔌Grid waitlist grows: About 2.6 TW of power projects — 95% of them solar, battery and wind developments — were waiting to connect to the U.S. grid at the end of last year, up 27% from the year before. (Utility Dive)
🍳 Electrification’s still simmering: 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)
💵 Cleaner for cheaper: The U.S. Interior Department finalizes a rule that will cut fees as much as 80% for solar and wind projects on federal land as it celebrates a milestone of permitting more than 25 GW of renewable projects under President Biden. (The Hill, Reuters)
📄 Getting clean energy to tribes: An Indigenous researcher says tribes need application support, better access to information, and resources to build better infrastructure, in addition to funding to adopt clean energy. (Grist)
📦 Prime charging: Amazon has installed more than 17,000 electric vehicle chargers at its warehouses over the last two years, making it the biggest U.S. private charging operator as it easily surpasses competitors’ clean vehicle goals. (Bloomberg)
🧩 Steel the deal: Experts discuss the pitfalls and potential for green hydrogen to clean up the emissions-heavy steelmaking industry. (Canary Media)
SOLAR: Critics charge that Duke Energy’s revised green tariff program in North Carolina will do little to accelerate new renewable development because it requires large customers to choose from projects among losing bids in the utility’s solar procurement process. (Energy News Network)
ALSO:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Construction has stalled on Vietnamese electric vehicle maker VinFast’s planned North Carolina factory after the company revised its plans for a smaller building footprint but hasn’t yet submitted new documents to the state. (Raleigh News & Observer, WRAL)
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Republican attorneys general from Florida and 22 other states petition the U.S. EPA to stop taking race into account when regulating pollution. (Floodlight)
GRID:
UTILITIES:
COAL: Democratic U.S. senators in Virginia and West Virginia applaud a new federal rule to more tightly regulate silica dust, which factors into black lung disease. (Bluefield Daily Telegraph)
EMISSIONS:
CLIMATE: Advocates and families of people incarcerated in Louisiana prisons say the state has failed to protect prisoners from extreme summer heat, while officials say they’ve asked for state funding to install air conditioning in two prisons. (Verite News)
NUCLEAR: Virginia lawmakers approve Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s changes to a bill that allows utilities to seek regulatory approval to charge customers for the cost of developing small modular nuclear reactors. (Cardinal News)
TRANSMISSION: A Colorado think tank finds Western states are poised to generate billions of dollars by exporting clean energy to other regions, but only if they can significantly expand the power grid. (Inside Climate News)
MINING: Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren proposes requiring mining companies to notify the tribe and post a bond prior to transporting uranium across tribal land. (Fronteras)
OIL & GAS: Colorado lawmakers advance legislation that would limit the length of trains passing through the state as a way to reduce the risk of spilling crude oil or other hazardous materials. (Colorado Sun)
CLIMATE:
TRANSITION:
SOLAR:
STORAGE: A California community choice aggregator agrees to purchase 180 MW of power from a battery energy storage system under development in the San Francisco area. (Energy Storage News)
UTILITIES:
CARBON CAPTURE: Alaska lawmakers remove minimum payment requirements from a carbon capture bill, saying the legislation is aimed at encouraging fossil fuel development, not raising revenue. (Alaska Beacon)
BIOFUELS: The operator of a Colorado power plant fueled with beetle-killed trees closes the facility, saying it is not financially viable. (Vail Daily)
POLICY: Maryland environmentalists say they have a lot to celebrate after the state’s most recent legislative session, but also several setbacks, including failed bills to stop trash incineration subsidies and permitting changes to reduce further pollution in disadvantaged communities. (Bay Journal)
ALSO: Maryland’s chief sustainability officer says a budget amendment that delays building efficiency measures would put the state years behind on its climate goals and risk federal funding. (WBAL)
WIND:
HYDROPOWER:
SOLAR:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
RENEWABLE ENERGY:
BIOGAS: An anaerobic digester company based in the Boston suburbs aims to hire up to 100 more workers in the next year as it looks toward its goal of opening 100 waste-to-gas facilities. (Boston Business Journal)
BUILDINGS: Federal energy officials grant $158 million in Inflation Reduction Act funds to New York to help homeowners pay for energy efficiency upgrades. (NCPR)
UTILITIES: Although New York’s Assembly is considering a bill to fully municipalize the Long Island Power Authority, state senators have yet to introduce such legislation. (TBR News Media)
INCINERATION: A new documentary highlights the plight and resilience of residents of a suburban Philadelphia city burdened with air pollution from a trash incineration plant. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
SOLAR: Two large solar projects that have come online in South Dakota over the past year signal a new interest in solar for a state where wind energy has dominated renewable energy sources. (South Dakota News Watch)
ALSO: The Ohio Power Siting Board will hold a second public hearing on a large solar project after roughly 800 people packed a theater and public comments ran on for hours. (Knox Pages)
CARBON CAPTURE: The CEO of a multi-state carbon pipeline project maintains that it would be crucial for ethanol producers who could market low-carbon products. (NWestIowa.com)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
GRID:
WIND: Three former Minnesota high school students have used their technical training in renewable energy to support the development of an offshore wind project in Massachusetts. (Echo Journal)
RENEWABLES: Wisconsin utilities tout voluntary, subscription-based green pricing programs as a way for customers to support renewable energy investments without onsite installations. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
UTILITIES: Consumer advocates and Indiana utility NIPSCO agree on a rate increase request that’s about 75% of what the utility sought to pay for gas infrastructure investments. (Chicago Tribune)
COMMENTARY: Some Minnesota environmental groups’ newfound opposition to a statewide low-carbon fuel standard raises questions about the future of the state’s ethanol industry, a columnist writes. (Star Tribune)
CLEAN ENERGY: New York’s governor proposes a new policy that would speed up clean energy project siting by requiring approval within a year of proposal — but some legislators say there needs to be more guardrails to protect labor and farmlands. (NY Focus)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
OFFSHORE WIND:
GRID: A new joint venture intends to develop and manage 200 MWs of microgrid projects in New York. (news release)
BUILDINGS: Maryland environmental groups “feel betrayed” over a new budget amendment they say will hurt implementation of clean building provisions of a 2022 climate solutions act. (Maryland Matters)
SOLAR:
FLOODS: Heavy rain in southwest Pennsylvania this week rose river levels in Pittsburgh to the highest point in almost 20 years, flooding parks. (Trib Live)
WORKFORCE: A Massachusetts public high school will receive millions of dollars from the state to fund a clean energy education pilot project for students. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)
CLEAN ENERGY: The vast majority of power on New England’s grid on March 30 — 82% — came from emissions-free energy resources, primarily wind and solar power, a feat considered unheard of just a decade ago. (Concord Monitor)
OFFSHORE WIND: Federal tax credits encourage wind project owners to repower their turbines and boost energy output, as is the case at the Twin Ridges Wind Farm near Pittsburgh. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
NUCLEAR: PSEG tells federal energy regulators it will file for license renewals in 2027 for two nuclear plants — a four-year extension for Salem’s units and a 20-year extension at Hope Creek. (World Nuclear News)
GRID:
SOLAR: A farm resort near Scranton, Pennsylvania, receives federal rural energy funds to install enough solar on a building’s roof to power 15 homes. (WVIA)
COAL: The Army Corps of Engineers says it should be able to open a limited-access channel by the end of the month to access Baltimore’s port, through which a notable chunk of the country’s coal exports pass. (BisNow)
UTILITIES:
BUILDINGS: As some municipalities fight Massachusetts’ transit-oriented development rezoning plan, officials debate how far to take the policy and where to draw the line. (CommonWealth Beacon)
EQUITY: New York City releases a new environmental equity report finding that almost half of city residents deal with “disproportionate” pollution burdens and symptoms of climate change. (The Guardian)
TRANSIT: Although New York City is implementing congestion pricing, it’s unlikely to happen soon in Washington, D.C., where the city’s mayor still refuses to release a 2019 city study on the matter. (Axios DC)
COMMENTARY:
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