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HYDROPOWER: Environmentalists and legislators from Pennsylvania’s York and Lancaster counties come together to oppose the $2.3 billion Cuffs Run hydroelectric project, citing economic, ecological and cultural concerns. (York Dispatch, WITF)
POLICY:
FINANCE:
SOLAR:
EMISSIONS: Residents of Pennsylvania’s Mon Valley wait to see how much of a difference the latest legal settlement with the highly air-polluting Clairton Coke Works will make in their lives. (Public Source)
OFFSHORE WIND:
TRANSIT:
FLOODING:
CLIMATE: Some oil companies line up to defend Washington’s new carbon cap-and-invest program against a ballot measure to repeal it, saying fixing the program’s flaws would be more effective than killing it. (Grist)
ALSO: Oregon advocates challenge the Portland regional government’s transportation plan, saying it won’t live up to the state’s climate mandates and fails to reduce driving. (Oregonian)
OIL & GAS:
GRID: A report finds Northwest utilities relied on power imports from neighboring balancing areas to meet surging demand during a January cold snap, showing the region’s grid is at a reliability “tipping point.” (RTO Insider, subscription)
CLEAN ENERGY: New Mexico lawmakers advance a legislative package that includes tax credits for solar, clean cars, geothermal energy and heat pumps. (NM Political Report)
UTILITIES: An Alaska utility warns lawmakers that importing natural gas to offset a looming shortfall may not be feasible until 2030, far later than previously expected. (KDLL)
HYDROGEN: A California transit agency says it “took a little risk” by investing in 57 hydrogen buses before the fuel produced from clean energy sources becomes widely available. (Mercury News)
TRANSPORTATION: Arizona Republican lawmakers look to permanently kill a proposed commuter rail line between Phoenix and Tucson, saying the funds should be used to expand freeways instead. (Arizona Daily Star)
PUBLIC LANDS: Arizona Republican lawmakers sue the Biden administration over last year’s designation of a national monument near the Grand Canyon that withdrew the land from new uranium mining claims. (Arizona Daily Star)
COMMENTARY:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A Virginia lawmaker introduces a budget amendment to use $200,000 to establish a working group to identify sources of long-term state funding for the shift to electric school buses after federal funding runs out. (Energy News Network)
ALSO:
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: The startling disparity between the booming oil and gas industry in Port Arthur, Texas, and the grinding poverty of its mostly Black and brown residents raises hard questions about environmental justice. (Inside Climate News)
SOLAR:
WIND:
PIPELINES: A surge of muddy runoff that appears to be from a Mountain Valley Pipeline construction site into a normally clear spring leads 29 community and statewide organizations to call on Virginia regulators to issue a stop work order. (Roanoke Times, Augusta Free Press)
POLITICS: U.S. House Democrats meet in Virginia to discuss how to sell wins from their historic climate law in the upcoming 2024 election when many of the projects have yet to materialize on the ground. (Politico)
CLIMATE: A Georgia advocacy group organizes teams from congregations and faith organizations across the state to add energy efficiency upgrades and advocate for clean energy, environmental justice and climate action. (WABE)
COMMENTARY:
CLEAN ENERGY: The federal government is looking for carbon-free electricity to power defense and other government facilities in what could be one of the administration’s biggest clean energy procurements. (Axios)
ALSO: The World Resources Institute says the 2024 presidential election will perhaps be the biggest driver of the U.S. clean energy sector’s near-term future. (Utility Dive)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
OIL & GAS: California regulators propose to stop issuing new permits for hydraulic fracturing and other oil and gas well stimulation treatments in a move that would eventually phase out fracking statewide. (Courthouse News)
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE:
CARBON CAPTURE: Efforts to pay farmers for sequestering carbon in their soil are hampered by questions over just how much carbon dirt can store. (Grist)
OVERSIGHT: President Biden officially makes Willie Phillips the chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, while FERC member Allison Clements says she won’t return when her current term expires. (The Hill, Politico)
TRANSPORTATION:
NUCLEAR: Federal money could boost efforts by Michigan and other states to restart or keep aging nuclear power plants operating as a source of carbon-free electricity. (Stateline)
GRID: Western utilities consider competing options for establishing a regional transmission organization. (E&E News)
SOLAR:
COMMENTARY: The Biden administration’s pause on new LNG export approvals won’t stop a massive buildout already in progress, an energy professor writes. (The Conversation)
OIL & GAS: California regulators propose halting issuance of new permits for hydraulic fracturing and other oil and gas well stimulation treatments, citing widespread public concern over the impacts. (Courthouse News)
ALSO:
STORAGE: Federal regulators advance a proposed 1,200 MW pumped hydropower storage project in Washington state, raising concerns among tribal nations and environmentalists. (OPB)
SOLAR:
CLEAN ENERGY:
BIOFUELS: Nevada advocates push back on a proposal to harvest pinyon and juniper trees to produce methanol, saying the long-term damage to forest ecosystems outweighs any short-term carbon emission reductions. (Los Angeles Times)
HYDROPOWER: California’s grid operator says a series of recent storms should boost this summer’s output from the state’s hydroelectric facilities. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
GRID:
UTILITIES: Wyoming lawmakers are set to consider several bills aimed at keeping utility rates affordable, but critics say the proposed legislation may only sow confusion. (Wyoming Public Radio)
POLITICS: Utah lawmakers advance a proposal to overhaul the state’s energy policy and prioritize fossil fuel generation over clean energy. (Deseret News)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Colorado awards a town and nonprofit $185,000 to purchase 50 electric bicycles for low-income residents. (Steamboat Pilot)
COAL: A freight train derails in northern California, spilling an undetermined amount of coal into the Feather River. (CBS Sacramento)
Virginia is on a roll transitioning to electric school buses. And that momentum could remain uninterrupted if legislators activate a precedent-setting but dormant initiative to tap into state dollars.
Freshman Del. Holly Seibold has submitted a budget amendment this legislative session asking Virginia to catch up with other states by allocating $200,000 to jumpstart the Clean Vehicle Grant Fund. It has been left penniless since Seibold’s predecessor set it up three years ago specifically to help school districts rid their fleets of polluting, noisy diesel-powered buses.
The amendment calls for moving the money — half in 2025 and half in 2026 — from the general fund to the Department of Environmental Quality. DEQ staffers would use the $200,000—nowhere near enough to buy even one e-bus—to set up a working group tasked with establishing sources of long-term state funding for the transition.
A yes or no decision by the House Appropriations Committee could be made within the next month.
Seibold, the Democrat who represents Fairfax County, was responding to a plea — and an eleventh-hour phone call — from advocate Bobby Monacella, who played a pivotal role ushering in an e-bus evolution in Northern Virginia.
“Ideally, I just want Virginia to have a consistent stream of money so school districts that want to continue to electrify their fleets after this round of federal money runs out, can do so,” said Monacella, a Mothers Out Front campaigner in Fairfax County.
Thus far, Virginia’s approach to greening its diesel bus fleets has been piecemeal. School districts have plugged into federal dollars, public-private ventures, utility programs and even bought buses directly.
For instance, 67 buses are on the road or on order in Virginia thanks to grants the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded nationwide since 2022. That $5 billion for school bus electrification, folded into the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is expected to run out in 2026.
“When that federal money goes away, we have to figure out a way to pick it up at the state level so we can transition all the buses,” Monacella said about her hopes for a seamless switch. “That means convening a stakeholders work group to hash out the details of the program. So, this budget amendment is perfect timing.”
In the federal government’s eyes, Virginia is viewed as an electric school bus pioneer because of legislation sponsored in 2021 by then-Del. Mark Keam, a Fairfax County Democrat.
His original measure was stripped of its original funding source, a tax on dyed diesel fuel, used in farm machinery and other non-highway vehicles. The substitute version, passed into law, directed the state DEQ to hash out details for the grant fund via a workgroup. Neither the working group nor the financing mechanism ever materialized.
Keam, who resigned in 2022, had advanced the bill because his daughter suffered from asthma and he wanted all children to have a healthier, pollution-free ride to school.
Despite the lack of a dedicated state funding source, Virginia ranked fourth nationwide in the number of electric school buses either on the road or on order, according to data compiled by the nonprofit World Resources Institute through December.
Since 2021, several other states — including top three finishers California, Maryland and New York — have enacted either robust incentive, mandates, or both to encourage school districts to switch to electric buses.
Climate change and students’ health and safety motivated Monacella, then a volunteer activist, and other members of a joint environmental task force to spur Fairfax County into adopting a mandate in 2019 that all 1,625 buses in its fleet be electric by 2035.
Mothers Out Front carried the enthusiasm of that local victory to the General Assembly two years later to be a driving force for House Bill 2118, Keam’s bipartisan, ambitious undertaking to create a specific grant funding model for bus electrification over 10 years.
This session, Monacella decided that three years is long enough for the law to languish, unfunded.
“It’s a tribute to former Delegate Keam that Delegate Seibold has picked up the flag and carried it,” she said. “What he did was precedent-setting.”
Tish Tablan, who leads the Electrify Our Schools program at the Charlottesville-based Generation 180, is as motivated as Monacella about dedicating dollars to fleet conversions.
“State funding is necessary to support school districts in upgrading to electric buses,” said Tablan, senior program director at the nonprofit. “It’s time for Virginia to invest in protecting our children and communities from the harmful effects of diesel air pollution.”
Monacella and Seibold had discussed funding for electric school buses months ago, but nothing specific had emerged from those conversations.
A budget amendment likely wouldn’t have surfaced if Monacella hadn’t participated in an online question and answer session with legislators on Jan. 12 organized by the Virginia Grassroots Coalition.
“Being aware of the deadline for budget amendments should’ve been my first priority,” said Monacella, who only recently had become a full-time advocate. “I thought I had missed it.”
When another delegate attending the online forum told her the deadline was 5 p.m. that day, Monacella signed off and sprang into action with Seibold’s staff.
“It was kind of a crunch but we got it in there,” she said about the scramble. “I totally admit I dropped the ball. It was kind of everyone to help me recover.”
Electric school buses are roughly three times as expensive as traditional diesel ones. A basic price tag on a 77-passenger electric bus in Virginia is $368,500, compared to $120,099 for a diesel model, according to Whitney Kopanko, the electric vehicle program manager at Sonny Merryman. The Prince William-based bus dealer controls 60% of the overall school bus market in Virginia.
Through January, Fairfax County had 73 buses on the road or on the way to the district. That’s close to one-fourth of Virginia’s electric bus total of 302 — out of 16,000-plus buses in service statewide.
“I don’t know about the ins and outs of a potential funding stream,” Monacella said about the eye-popping investment needed to replace thousands more buses. “I do know we have a long way to go and the federal money isn’t going to cover that.”
She’s willing to devote the legwork to the cause in the name of curbing carbon emissions.
As evidence, Monacella “repented” for her budget amendment oversight by traipsing to the offices of House Appropriations Committee members in Richmond earlier this month to drop off flyers she designed to educate staffers about restoring Virginia’s status as a leader on school bus electrification. Seibold, who doesn’t serve on that committee, also will be nudging her fellow legislators.
“I wanted to bring it to their attention so when they sit down and sort through all of these amendments they might remember this one,” Monacella said. “I figured, why not?”
SOLAR: Minnesota community solar developers are retooling their business plans as the state’s program undergoes some of the biggest changes since its launch over a decade ago. (Energy News Network)
ALSO:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
RENEWABLES: The University of Wisconsin-Madison announces a new campus-wide sustainability plan that includes achieving 100% renewable electricity by 2030. (Wisconsin State Journal)
PIPELINES:
NUCLEAR: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s budget proposal seeks another $150 million to help reopen the shuttered Palisades nuclear power plant, but critics say the money would be better spent on energy efficiency, renewable energy, or public transit. (Bridge Michigan)
MINING: Minnesota Democrats introduce a bill to restrict certain mining practices in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area watershed that the industry says will limit access to essential materials for clean energy. (Minnesota Reformer)
COAL: DTE Energy schedules demolition dates for its Trenton, Michigan, coal power plant, with the first phase set for March 1. (ClickOnDetroit)
POLLUTION: Minnesota officials begin the process of implementing the state’s new “cumulative impacts” law for regulating pollution in environmental justice areas, but questions remain about its definitions. (MinnPost)
CLIMATE:
BIOFUELS: The Ohio House passes a bill to create a temporary 5 cents per gallon tax credit for sales of E15 and higher ethanol blends. (Crawford County Now)
COMMENTARY:
Minnesota community solar developers are adjusting their business plans as the state’s program undergoes some of the biggest changes since its launch over a decade ago.
One of the oldest and largest in the country, Minnesota’s community solar program has spurred development of more than 800 megawatts worth of solar capacity since launching in 2013. Customers subscribe to shares of projects and receive monthly credits on their utility bills, typically lowering overall energy costs.
The concept has been hailed as a way to spread the benefits of solar to customers who lack rooftop space, sun exposure, or the financial means to install solar panels on their own. In practice, the biggest beneficiaries have been commercial customers, which subscribe to 82% of the program’s capacity, according to data tracked by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
State lawmakers passed legislation last session aimed at increasing the share of power going to residential subscribers, especially low- and moderate-income customers, as well as attempting to address long-simmering complaints by solar companies about the program’s administration by utility Xcel Energy.
“I think there were thoughts that it could be handled in a more unbiased way outside of the utility,” said Rep. Patty Acomb, a Democrat whose district covers a suburban area west of Minneapolis.
The Minnesota Department of Commerce will now manage the program and has formally begun accepting applications. However, Xcel Energy will continue to handle interconnection applications, which have been a source of friction between the utility and developers.
Community solar developers will be allowed to build larger projects with fewer geographic restrictions, up to 5 megawatts anywhere in Xcel’s service territory. Previously, projects were limited to 1 megawatt, and developers could only sign up subscribers who lived in the same or an adjacent county as the project’s location.
The biggest changes come with the mix of subscribers developers must recruit for projects. At least 30% of a project’s subscribers must be low- or moderate-income residential customers. Another 25% must be allotted for schools, government agencies or other public interest organizations. Each project must have at least 25 participants.
“We were trying to address equity and economics and making sure that the benefits are going to a more underrepresented group,” Acomb said.
With the new application process and subscriber requirements, as well as ongoing congestion in Xcel’s interconnection queue, developers expect a slow first year under the new rules but generally support the program’s new direction.
Brendan Dillon, president of Minneapolis-based solar developer Nokomis Energy, said the new program “much better reflects what community solar should be, which is a tool that allows people who, for whatever reasons — whether it’s financial, or they don’t own their home or condo or they don’t have roof space — to be able to access clean energy and apply its financial benefits.”
Nokomis Energy plans to work through existing community groups and those associated with local governments to reach the designated income-qualified subscriber pool. Dillon said solar developers will do more community outreach and engagement to reach potential low-and-moderate subscribers.
Rob Appelhof, CEO and president of Cedar Creek Energy, said he works with another company to market subscriptions, and they already have a strong representation of low and moderate-income participants, so recruiting “should not be a problem.”
Developers said removing the geographic restrictions will help them build more projects and allow more farmers to benefit from leasing land to solar companies.
“It opens up more opportunities for urban residents to subscribe to community solar,” said Eric Pasi, CEO of Enterprise Energy.
US Solar Corporation President Reed Richerson said that “there are plenty of farmer landowners who want to host community solar on a portion of their land, and they’ve been unable to because they live in areas where, despite there being achievable permitting and achievable interconnection, there was a constraint with accessing subscribers.”
The dual application process splits the interconnection approval, Xcel’s responsibility, with the project approval from Commerce.
“In these early days, it is becoming a bit stickier than I think we might have imagined, mainly because I think Xcel isn’t necessarily on the same page as the Department of Commerce or the way the law is written,” Richerson said.
Richerson said he does not expect projects under the new rules to win approvals from Xcel and Commerce “until, at earliest, March,” he said. “And then, upon the award, you can go build your projects. But with timelines of these things, having anything online by the end of the year will be challenging.”
Unlike before, the program will now have annual caps, starting at 100 MW from 2024 to 2026, 80 MW through 2030 and 60 MW from 2031 on. That will create new pressure and uncertainty for developers, who could spend thousands of dollars to secure a site and an interconnection agreement only to have Commerce turn the project down.
“I guess the biggest uncertainty is getting your projects approved when there’s only a limited amount of them,” Appelhof said.
Cooperative Energy Futures has served low-income subscribers through community and rooftop solar for years. Policy and Regulatory Director Pouya Najmaie said developers will leverage income-qualified participation necessary for the state program to take advantage of incentives in the federal Inflation Reduction Act.
With enough low-income subscribers, a developer can add as much as 20% to 30% tax credit available for community solar, reducing the cost of a project by half, he said. “We’re doubling down more on low-income (customers) because of the IRA,” Najmaie said.
Cooperative Energy Futures will not seek to build larger, remote projects but instead focus on smaller ones built nearer to subscribers’ homes.
“We’re going to be concentrating a lot on the city and looking for warehouses and large building rooftops for hosting,” he said. “The capacity is much better there, and you’re closer to load, so it’s generally more efficient.”
Xcel Energy is still studying the cost impact of the legislation and “won’t know more until we understand what the customer makeup of the new gardens will be, because the legislation creates several different bill credit rates based on customer groups,” said spokesperson Theo Keith.
The utility supports the focus on residential, income-qualified and public interest subscribers because it will “expand options for income-qualified customers to participate directly in the clean energy transition,” he said.
Xcel has also asked regulators for more time to solve a persistent and confusing issue for community solar. Customers currently receive two bills, one from the community solar developer and another from Xcel that includes credit for the electricity their subscription produces. The legislation requires Xcel to develop a combined bill for those customers.
POLICY: A Vermont legislative committee advances a bill to increase the state’s utility renewable energy standard to 100% by 2030. (VT Digger)
ALSO:
GRID:
BUILDINGS:
OFFSHORE WIND:
SOLAR:
CLIMATE: Maine snowmobiling clubs detail how shorter, warmer winters are derailing their enjoyment of their pastime. (Bethel Citizen)
HYDROGEN: Environmental advocates warn that weakening proposed rules on federal hydrogen tax credits could divert existing clean energy generation to hydrogen production and prolong fossil-fuel-fired generators. (Energy News Network)
ALSO: The pending federal tax credits, along with nearby wind energy generation, could support hydrogen production in Wisconsin, a clean energy researcher says. (WBAY)
POWER PLANTS: We Energies wants to build a $1.2 billion natural gas peaker plant on the site of a retiring Lake Michigan coal plant. (Journal Sentinel)
PIPELINES:
WASTE-TO-ENERGY: Environmental groups propose an expedited timeline to close a Minneapolis trash incinerator by the end of next year, though local officials remain concerned about the trash being sent to landfills. (Star Tribune)
COAL: The U.S. EPA has detected groundwater contamination from metals and other inorganic compounds at roughly 150 coal ash disposal sites. (Inside Climate News)
SOLAR:
AIR POLLUTION: All of Minnesota, including the Twin Cities metro area, already complies with the EPA’s new, tighter soot pollution thresholds. (Minnesota Reformer)
GRID:
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