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OIL & GAS: Oregon regulators reject climate plans from all three of the state’s natural gas utilities, saying they are overly optimistic about the prospects for “renewable” gas and hydrogen. (Oregon Capital Chronicle)
ALSO: New Mexico regulators reject a utility’s plan for a liquified natural gas storage facility, saying the benefits don’t justify the cost. (Source NM)
CARBON CAPTURE: A California company has raised $80 million for a proposed direct-air carbon capture facility in Wyoming. (Canary Media)
WIND:
SOLAR: A cannabis company proposes a 102 MW solar project to help power its research facility in rural New Mexico. (Renewables Now)
ENERGY STORAGE:
CLIMATE:
OVERSIGHT:
UTILITIES: Hawaii lawmakers debate a bill that would allow the state’s largest utility to securitize a bond to help pay for wildfire costs. (KITV)
EFFICIENCY: A landmark federal courthouse in Salt Lake City is undergoing extensive energy efficiency upgrades, with an aim of eventually reaching net-zero status. (Salt Lake Tribune)
TRANSPORTATION: Utah data shows both electric and hybrid vehicles are becoming more popular, but those sales are dwarfed by a surge in pickups and SUVs. (Salt Lake Tribune, subscription)
COMMENTARY:
OFFSHORE WIND: Ørsted and Eversource begin sending power from their 132 MW South Fork wind project to the New York grid, the country’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm to open. (Associated Press, Bloomberg)
ALSO: Federal regulators approve an interconnection agreement for the 810 MW Empire Wind offshore project between New York’s grid operator and utility Con Edison. (news release)
CLEAN ENERGY: Maryland legislators advance legislation to stop local jurisdictions from banning or limiting certain renewable energy resources, including incineration facilities, but some municipalities say it supersedes their zoning authority. (Frederick News-Post)
FOSSIL FUELS: A development group finishes dismantling a former oil refinery in south Philadelphia, once the East Coast’s largest such facility, and begins construction on an industrial space and life sciences lab. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
CLIMATE:
SOLAR:
UTILITIES:
CLEAN VEHICLES:
OIL & GAS: The data center building boom and resurgence in manufacturing have spiked power demand in the Southeast, prompting utilities to propose building dozens of new natural gas-fired power plants. (New York Times)
ALSO:
EFFICIENCY: A Virginia company offers a free online calculator to help homeowners navigate federal tax credits and point-of-sale rebates for efficient appliances. (Energy News Network)
EMISSIONS:
CLIMATE:
OVERSIGHT:
BIOMASS:
COAL: The Southeast is home to five of the 14 coal plants that closed in the U.S. last year, but power generators are still largely looking to natural gas to replace that capacity. (Inside Climate News)
COMMENTARY:
SOLAR: Ohio regulators are scheduled to consider plans next week for a $1 billion, 800 MW solar project with 300 MW of storage on thousands of acres partially owned by Bill Gates. (Columbus Dispatch)
ALSO:
RENEWABLES: Nebraska clean energy supporters cry foul over a bill that would require wind and solar projects to receive approval from a siting board appointed by the governor. (Nebraska News Connection)
PIPELINES:
OIL & GAS: North Dakota’s oil and gas production has fully recovered from double-digit declines during a cold weather snap in January. (S&P Global)
BIOMASS: Environmental groups are concerned that the federal Inflation Reduction Act could create tax incentives for wood-to-energy biomass projects and potentially worsen climate emissions. (Inside Climate News)
CARBON CAPTURE: Western Michigan University lands a $2.25 million federal grant to advance research to capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. (WOOD-TV8)
OVERSIGHT: Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers appoints a regional grid expert and a former engineer to a vacancy on the state’s Public Service Commission. (Journal Sentinel)
EFFICIENCY: An Ohio college receives $250,000 in state energy efficiency funding to install new heating and cooling systems in residence halls and cut utility costs in half. (News Journal)
In his quest for a net-zero emissions house, Tim Leroux has already achieved gold status. But he’s not content to rest on those energy-efficiency laurels.
The Albemarle County homeowner is itching to reach platinum. And he believes a heat pump upgrade will eventually punch that ticket.
For guidance, the healthcare risk manager will turn to a free online calculator recently unveiled by Charlottesville-based Pearl Certification to help homeowners nationwide navigate the maze of tax credits and point-of-sale rebates for cleaner appliances covered by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
Pearl built its niche reputation awarding green seals of approval to customers such as Leroux seeking higher-performing homes.
Leroux, who says he is “evangelical about energy efficiency,” is bullish on the company’s offerings, which range from certifying contractors to training real estate agents.
It ties into Pearl’s dual mission of decarbonizing the nation’s housing stock and maximizing the return homeowners receive on their energy-efficient upgrades. The whole idea is to encourage people to take stock of the hidden — and thus often ignored — infrastructure that keeps their home ticking.
“It can be flat-out confusing for the uninitiated,” he said, adding that eligibility requirements and potential savings offered by the IRA adds another layer of complexity. “It’s hard to sell a solution for a problem people think they don’t have.”
Residential energy use accounts for about 20% of this country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
That figure prompted Cynthia Adams to launch Pearl Certification in 2015. Adams, who grew up in Northern Virginia’s Prince William County, was no rookie to energy efficiency.
Adams entered the technical field in the late 1990s while leading a sustainable design/build company and then a green building consulting firm. In 2008, she had a hand in originating a climate action plan for the Charlottesville region.
Within two years, she had helped write the grant that funded what became the Local Energy Alliance Program (LEAP), where she began serving as executive director in 2010. The nonprofit provides energy efficiency and solar solutions for homes and businesses in the Charlottesville region and Northern Virginia.
Adams co-founded Pearl because she yearned to move the needle on residential energy efficiency as painlessly as possible. Her goal is for homeowners to earn points and advance their green ranking while plotting a strategic plan toward living in a healthier house with a lower carbon footprint, reduced utility bills and a higher appraisal value.
“We’re very much a human organization, not a bunch of techies,” said Adams, now based in Durango, Colo. “And that personal touch is how we get a national movement going.
“That, and never tell a woman she can’t do something. It’s a surefire way to get her to do it.”
Jennifer Amann, a senior fellow with the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s buildings program, watched Pearl come into existence during her lengthy career in the industry.
“Cynthia and her co-founder, Robin LeBaron, were asking how they could create a steady demand for high quality, efficient services to improve buildings, address climate change and make homes healthier,” said Amann, based in Washington, D.C.
For the most part, energy efficiency updates at the residential level tend to lurch along unevenly, dependent on the vagaries of the U.S. Congress and how much money the federal government attached to assorted rebates and credits.
That “super, super challenging” up-and-down pattern led the two entrepreneurs to form a network of local, reliable contractors with high-level expertise revolving around appliances, insulation, drainage, heating and ventilating, and every other aspect of energy efficiency, Amann said. Pearl vets and accredits each contractor.
Contractors pay fees to belong to the network, which is how Pearl earns its money.
“That is not at all an unusual model,” Amann said. “It’s valuable for contractors to invest because they know they can get better leads and relationships, and return business. Customers benefit because they have access to somebody who can help them through a confusing process and not be stuck with just a guy and a truck.”
Home performance is a complex market, she said. Most homeowners don’t upgrade all at once and part of Pearl’s appeal is that homeowners can easily track their progress toward peak efficiency.
Homeowners can contact their own contractors, use any number of free IRA calculators now available and do their own homework with their state energy office to cash in on credits and rebates, Amann noted.
“But there’s peace of mind in working with somebody who can walk through all the steps with you,” she said. “I mean, energy efficiency is my world and I don’t want to do all of that myself.”
IRA-related tax credits of up to 30% on the cost of electric vehicles, home energy audits, electric appliances, solar panels and other projects became available nationwide last year.
However, rebate programs remain stuck in the bureaucratic process because state energy offices are tasked with crafting and operating their own initiatives.
A few states might roll out programs later this year, but Virginia won’t be among them. Bettina Bergöö, associate director of energy efficiency and financing at the Virginia Energy Department, confirmed that the state’s rebate program likely won’t debut until the first few months of 2025, at the earliest.
When available, the IRA-funded rebate programs will be split into two components. One, the home efficiency rebate, is based on measurable energy savings achieved so it does not specify any required retrofits or technologies.
The other, the home electrification and appliance rebate, is technology specific. Upgrades that qualify include heat pumps for space heating and cooling, heat pump water heaters, heat pump clothes dryers, electric stoves, cooktops, ranges or ovens, electric wiring, and insulation, air sealing and ventilation.
Virginia has been allocated a total of $189 million to fund the rebates, according to Virginia Energy. That total is split about evenly between the two rebate programs.
The federal government has set eligibility parameters for the rebates, which states are allowed to expand or contract as they see fit. For instance, states could choose to set income limits to steer the benefits toward poorer households.
“These decisions are to be made by each state based on their respective needs and program objectives,” Bergöö said, adding that such a review is still underway in Virginia.
Pearl will be updating its calculator as Virginia and other states release their rebate parameters.
In the meantime, Leroux and other efficiency aficionados can tap into Green Door, an application Pearl invented in 2020 that offers customized, step-by-step plans toward reducing reliance on fossil fuels to power their homes.
It links users with Pearl’s contractors and allows them to earn points verifying the efficiency ranking of their home. An “asset” rating means a home has at least one high-performing feature. From there, enrollees can graduate to silver, gold and platinum levels.
“I liken it to airline or hotel loyalty points,” Leroux said about Green Door. “It tells you exactly where you’re at and what you need to do to reach the next level. I’m working toward platinum because I think it’s super cool.”
To vault from silver to gold over the last several years, he earned Pearl points for modernizing his lighting and switching to a tankless water heater and a more efficient refrigerator. He achieved “gold with solar” status last year after installing a 9.72-kilowatt rooftop array.
“A lot of this stuff is a little hard to get excited about because it isn’t as sexy” as his 27 solar panels, he said, adding that he gets an adrenaline boost when he plugs his data into the application and “I see the needle go way up.”
As intuitive as the online application is, Leroux recommends property owners reach out to a nonprofit weatherization organization or a contractor for an energy audit.
“After that, you can use Green Door to build out a plan,” Leroux said. “It lays out the incentives, connects you with contractors and shows you how you can get the biggest bang for your buck.”
Leroux, a retired U.S. Army officer, bought his Charlottesville area house in 2020, realized what a bargain he had escaped with when, post-purchase, he found paperwork confirming it was Pearl-certified with a silver rating.
“It wasn’t marketed that way,” Leroux said. “When I called a friend in real estate, he told me I should have paid $20,000 more than I did because of that certification.”
That friend was Greg Slater, a Charlottesville broker and Realtor. The two knew each other through LEAP. During Adams’ tenure there, Leroux had served as director of operations and Slater was on the nonprofit’s board of directors.
Slater, in business for 27 years, schooled himself early on about the intricacies of energy efficiency improvements and how they can add value to a home’s sale price.
Now, as a member of the Pearl network, he pays for a certification report on each house he markets so he can pitch the benefits of energy efficiency to potential buyers. The reports that accompany home listings cover details of the building shell, heating and cooling, baseload electricity use and management of future upgrades.
“You don’t have to become a building-science expert, but you have to figure out a way to get comfortable with this information,” said Slater, who earned green credentials a decade ago from training via the National Association of Realtors. “The average realtor is intimidated and afraid to have that conversation.”
Buyers are savvy about sizing up curb appeal and the value of visible assets such as type of countertops and number of bedrooms and bathrooms, he emphasized.
“But they won’t pay for the features they’re not aware of,” he continued, “and that includes heat pumps, tankless water heaters, air sealing, solar and other upgrades they likely won’t notice or care about unless somebody takes the time to educate them.”
Pearl certification can add about 5% to the sale price of a Charlottesville-area house, Slater said. He pointed to a study completed in 2021 by an independent appraiser.
That premium is enticing to Leroux, though he has no immediate plans to put his home, built in 2012, on the market.
“For me, the real proof is when I go to sell this house,” he said.
Barring an emergency breakdown of his current heat pump, Leroux will track what type of replacement might be possible next year when Virginia publicizes its IRA-related rebate specifics. He suspects his income might be too high for him to qualify.
If that’s the case, he will pursue a different route to update his mechanical system, and seek out other nips and tucks to fine tune his home.
“This house already produces more energy than it uses,” he said. “Once you’ve tackled everything on the Green Door roadmap, you start running out of updates. But I’m a believer in living a net-zero life.”
EMISSIONS: U.S. oil and gas producers may be releasing three times more methane than official estimates, though scientists note most emissions come from a small fraction of facilities, potentially making the problem easier to solve. (Associated Press)
ALSO:
GRID:
CLIMATE:
OIL & GAS:
EFFICIENCY:
CLEAN ENERGY: The Department of Energy estimates a rapid adoption of renewable energy could save Alaskans more than $1 billion on utility bills by 2040. (Anchorage Daily News)
TRANSPORTATION: Members of California’s Air Resources Board say staff members are disregarding their concerns about the state’s emphasis on biofuels to reduce transportation emissions and are withholding key information. (Canary Media)
COMMENTARY: An electric vehicle rideshare company representative calls for federal incentives that encourage EV charging stations in cities and that cover both upfront costs and maintenance. (Utility Dive)
OIL & GAS: A new study finds methane emissions from major oil fields are vastly underestimated, with more than 9% of produced natural gas escaping to the atmosphere in parts of New Mexico. (Associated Press)
ALSO:
CLEAN ENERGY: The Department of Energy estimates a rapid adoption of renewable energy could save Alaskans more than $1 billion on utility bills by 2040. (Anchorage Daily News)
CLIMATE:
TRANSPORTATION:
ELECTRIFICATION: Portland’s city council unanimously approves a ban on gasoline-powered leaf blowers that will be introduced gradually. (Oregonian)
SOLAR: Concerns about wildfires are driving opposition to a utility-scale solar farm in New Mexico. (Searchlight New Mexico)
NUCLEAR:
UTILITIES: Amid an effort to municipalize San Diego’s utilities, the city’s current investor-owned utility releases a report estimating the value of the city’s grid at $11 billion, but offers few specifics as to how it arrived at that figure. (KPBS)
POLICY: Pennsylvania’s governor reveals a climate action plan that would see the state operate a carbon pricing program and make utilities buy half of their power from mostly carbon-free resources by 2035. (Associated Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
FOSSIL FUELS:
OFFSHORE WIND: Barnstable, Massachusetts, officials says it’s “inexcusable” that they don’t have a seat on the state’s clean energy siting and infrastructure panel despite its offshore wind projects. (Cape Cod Times)
FINANCE: Climate activists say Maine’s public workers retirement system isn’t doing enough to divest from fossil fuel investments despite a state law mandating divestitment by 2026. (Portland Press Herald)
SOLAR:
GEOTHERMAL:
WORKFORCE: A new report from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center finds the state’s clean energy workforce has grown to 48,176 jobs, an 80% increase over 2010. (news release)
EMISSIONS: North Carolina’s new climate plan says that increasing support for low-income housing weatherization, upgrading energy efficiency in government buildings, and other measures to trim energy usage could get the state 60% of the way to its 2030 emissions reduction target. (Energy News Network)
ALSO:
OVERSIGHT: A South Carolina energy regulator resigns in protest of legislation to facilitate a natural gas-fired power plant that critics warn limits public engagement and offers a blank check to the power industry. (The State, Post and Courier)
BIOMASS: Wood pellet producer Enviva files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and plans to restructure after reaching agreements with creditors to significantly reduce its debt. (Wilmington StarNews, Associated Press)
CLEAN ENERGY:
SOLAR: Rural health centers in Tennessee consider applying for a federal grant to install solar microgrids to maintain critical services during power outages. (WPLN)
OIL & GAS:
GRID: An Arkansas electric cooperative receives nearly $50 million in federal funding to install hundreds of miles of power lines and fiber-optic lines. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
CLIMATE: A lawyer representing one of the landowners suing a Texas utility over a downed power line says damages from the enormous wildfires that resulted could exceed $1 billion. (KXAN)
UTILITIES: AES Indiana announces plans to convert its remaining coal units to run on natural gas and add up to 1,300 MW of renewables by 2027, becoming the state’s first investor-owned utility to stop burning coal. (Indiana Capital Chronicle)
ELECTRIFICATION: A GOP-backed bill in Minnesota to prevent municipalities from banning gas stoves gets a hearing in a Democratic-led committee, though its chances of advancing are unlikely. (Star Tribune)
POLITICS: A bipartisan bill would require more extensive federal national security reviews of certain real estate purchases by foreign countries of concern in response to a debate over a proposed Michigan battery manufacturing plant. (E&E News, subscription)
GRID:
PIPELINES:
OIL & GAS: A new study finds U.S. oil and gas producers may be emitting three times more methane than EPA estimates. (E&E News, subscription)
SOLAR: A northern Michigan utility signs a 20-year, $14.3 million contract to purchase power from a 140 MW solar project near Ann Arbor. (Record-Eagle)
CLIMATE: Iowa and South Dakota are among just five states that declined to participate in a federal program that will provide $4.6 billion to cities, states, and tribes to implement local climate plans. (CBS News)
BIOENERGY: An Iowa city explores partnering with a California firm to generate electricity from methane captured at a local landfill and sell the power back to the grid. (KYOU)
COMMENTARY: An electric vehicle rideshare company representative calls for federal incentives that encourage EV charging stations in cities and that cover both upfront costs and maintenance. (Utility Dive)
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