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CARBON CAPTURE: A proposed multi-state carbon pipeline would capture emissions from ethanol plants’ corn fermentation process, but wouldn’t address about 7 million annual metric tons emitted by industrial machinery at the plants. (South Dakota Searchlight)
GRID:
NUCLEAR:
PIPELINES:
CLIMATE: A new study finds very little research on the ways that funding from oil and gas companies influences climate research, and whether it may be creating bias or conflicts of interest. (Inside Climate News)
UTILITIES:
SOLAR:
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:
UTILITIES: California advocates criticize lawmakers for failing to pass bills aimed at containing rising utility rates while continuing to fund grid upgrades and wildfire-hazard mitigation efforts. (Canary Media)
ALSO: Six candidates for Arizona’s utility regulatory commission are split down party lines on policy stances, with Democrats favoring clean energy and Republicans looking to keep fossil fuels in the mix. (Arizona Daily Star)
SOLAR:
OIL & GAS: Observers say a northern California city leveraging a ballot initiative to extract a $550 million payout from Chevron over damages from its oil refinery could provide a model for other communities. (Politico)
ELECTRIFICATION: California legislation awaiting the governor’s signature would allow natural gas utilities to pilot up to 30 neighborhood-scale building electrification and decarbonization projects. (Utility Dive)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Colorado allocates $1.3 million to fund an additional round of electric bicycle purchase rebates, saying residents have redeemed more than 6,700 of the incentives so far. (news release)
CARBON CAPTURE: The U.S. Energy Department awards a Wyoming research center $5 million to launch the first phase of a pilot project aimed at capturing carbon from a 450 MW coal plant. (Power)
CLEAN ENERGY: The U.S. Energy Department awards New Mexico $2 million to install heat pumps, solar panels and other efficiency upgrades on 85 homes in disadvantaged communities. (news release)
GRID:
NUCLEAR: Idaho National Laboratory brings online a hot cell facility for researching and testing materials used in nuclear reactors. (East Idaho News)
CLIMATE:
MINING: A company begins construction at a contested battery metals mine in southern Arizona after state regulators approve its air quality permit. (Arizona Republic)
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:
It’s been nearly 20 years since states and cities started adopting climate goals, setting themselves on a path toward reducing emissions and rolling out clean energy. Whether they’re actually on track to meet those goals is up for debate.
Advocates across the country have sued municipalities they say are failing on their climate commitments, like those in San Diego who alleged the city’s climate plan lacked funding and a clear timeline, and a group in Vermont that said the state wasn’t complying with its 2020 emissions law.
But in Maine, climate advocates are getting specific with their complaints, the Energy News Network reports. A pending youth-led lawsuit targets the state’s environmental protection agencies, and says they haven’t adopted strong enough regulations to propel the state’s electric vehicle rollout.
The suit centers on Maine’s 2019 climate law. In it, the state said it would focus on cutting emissions from its “most significant sources” — and transportation tops that list. But even though the state has incentivized electric vehicle adoption, it’s still far from meeting its EV goals. So advocates say the state should implement California’s strongest-in-the-nation EV standards, which go even further than federal rules.
Environmental law professor Jennifer Rushlow told ENN that narrow lawsuits like this one tend to be more successful than broad suits that “get kind of lost to politics.” — and can inspire change in public opinion, too.
Read more about Maine’s unique climate lawsuit at the Energy News Network.
💰 More federal spending is coming… Researchers estimate the clean energy transition by 2031 will demand $1 trillion in federal spending — about 15 times what has been distributed so far via the Inflation Reduction Act. (Grist)
🏭 But is it all smart? The U.S. has spent more public money on carbon capture and gas-produced hydrogen than any country, a new report finds, even though the technologies remain unproven as cost-effective climate solutions. (The Guardian)
♻️ A new spin for wind: National Renewable Energy Laboratory researchers say they’ve developed a wind turbine blade made from plant materials that can be recycled into new shapes or blades. (New York Times)
👷 Clean jobs report: The Department of Energy says clean energy jobs last year grew at twice the rate of other sectors and saw unionization rates higher than in the broader energy industry. (Reuters)
Dig deeper: The Bureau of Labor Statistics says wind energy is the country’s fastest growing field and projects 60% job growth over the next 10 years. (Axios)
🚘 More power for charging: 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)
☀️ Solar’s bright future: A columnist details how increasingly cheap and widely available solar power will make once-far-fetched applications and technologies possible. (New York Times)
🇺🇲 Plus, some politics
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As low-income households face the dual burden of weather extremes and high energy costs, energy efficiency is an increasingly important strategy for both climate mitigation and lower utility bills.
Passive House standards — which create a building envelope so tight that central heating and cooling systems may not be needed at all — promise to dramatically slash energy costs, and are starting to appear in “stretch codes” for buildings, including in Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington and New York.
And while some builders are balking at the initial up-front cost, other developers are embracing passive house metrics as a solution for affordable multifamily housing.
“We’re trying to make zero energy, high performing buildings that are healthy and low energy mainstream everywhere,” said Katrin Klingenberg, co-founder and executive director of Passive House Institute-U.S., or Phius.
Klingenberg says the additional work needed to meet an aggressive efficiency standard, is, in the long run, not that expensive. Constructing a building to passive standards is initially only about 3%-5% more expensive than building a conventional single family home, or 0%-3% more for multifamily construction, according to Phius.
“This is not rocket science… We’re just beefing up the envelope. We’re doing all the good building science, we’re doing all the healthy stuff. We’re downsizing the [heating and cooling] system, and now we need someone to optimize that process,” Klingenberg said.
A Phius-certified building does not employ a conventional central heating and cooling system. Instead, it depends on an air-tight building envelope, highly efficient ventilation and strategically positioned, high-performance windows to exploit solar gain during both winter and summer and maximize indoor comfort.
The tight envelope for Phius buildings regulates indoor air temperature, which can be a literal lifesaver when power outages occur during extreme heat waves or cold snaps, said Doug Farr, founder and principal of architecture firm Farr Associates.
Farr pointed to the example of the Academy for Global Citizenship in Chicago, which was built to Phius standards.
“There was a really cold snap in January. Somehow the power went out [and the building] was without electricity for two or three days. And the internal temperature in the building dropped two degrees over three days.”
Farr said that example shows a clear benefit to high efficiency that justifies the cost.
“You talk about the ultimate resilience where you’re not going to die in a power outage either in the summer or the winter. You know, that’s pretty valuable.”
There is also a business case to be made for implementing Phius and other sustainability metrics into residential construction, such as lowered bills that can appeal to market-rate buyers and renters, and reduced long-term maintenance costs for building owners.
AJ Patton, founder and CEO of 548 Enterprise in Chicago, says in response to questions about how to convince developers to consider factors beyond the bottom line, simply, “they shouldn’t.”
Instead, he touts lower operating costs for energy-efficiency metrics rather than climate mitigation when he pitches his projects to his colleagues.
“I can’t sell people on climate change anymore,” he said. “If you don’t believe by now, the good Lord will catch you when He catch you.
“But if I can sell you on lowering your operating expenses, if I can sell you on the marketability, on the fact that your tenants will have 30%, 40% lower individual expenses, that’s a marketing angle from a developer owner, that’s what I push on my contemporaries,” Patton said. “And then that’s when they say, ‘if you’re telling the truth, and if your construction costs are not more significant than mine, then I’m sold.’”
Phius principles can require specialized materials and building practices, Klingenberg said. But practitioners are working toward finding ways to manage costs by sourcing domestically available materials rather than relying on imports.
“The more experienced an architect [or developer] gets, they understand that they can replace these specialized components with more generic materials and you can get the same effect,” Klingenberg said.
Patton is presently incorporating Phius principles as the lead developer for 3831 W Chicago Avenue, a mixed use development located on Chicago’s West Side. The project, billed as the largest passive house design project in the city to date, will cover an entire city block, incorporating approximately 60 mixed-income residential units and 9,000 sq ft of commercial and community space.
Another project, Sendero Verde, located in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City, is the largest certified passive-house building in the United States with 709 units. Completed in April, Sendero Verde is designed to provide cool conditions in the summer and warmth during the winter — a vast improvement for the low-income and formerly unhoused individuals and families who live there.
Even without large upfront building cost premiums and with the increased impact of economies of scale, improved technology and materials, many developers still feel constrained to cut costs, Farr said.
“There’s entire segments of the development spectrum in housing, even in multifamily housing in Chicago, where if you’re a developer of rental housing time and again … they feel like they have no choice but to keep things as the construction as cheap as possible because their competitors all do. And then, some architecture firms only work with those ‘powerless’ developers and they get code-compliant buildings.”
But subsidies, such as federal low income housing credits, IRS tax breaks and resources from the Department of Energy also provide a means for developers to square the circle, especially for projects aimed toward very low-income residents.
Nonetheless, making the numbers work often requires taking a long-term view of development, according to Brian Nowak, principal at Sweetgrass Design Studio in Minnesota. Nowak was the designer for Hillcrest Village, an affordable housing development in Northfield that does not utilize Phius building metrics, but does incorporate net-zero energy usage standards.
“It’s an investment over time, to build resilient, energy-efficient housing,” he told the Energy News Network in June 2023.
“That should be everyone’s goal. And if we don’t, for example, it affects our school system. It affects the employers at Northfield having people that are readily available to come in and fill the jobs that are needed.
“That’s a significant long-term benefit of a project like this. And that is not just your monthly rents on the building; it’s the cost of the utilities as well. When those utilities include your electricity and your heating and cooling that’s a really big deal.”
Developers like Patton are determined to incorporate sustainability metrics into affordable housing and commercial developments both because it’s good business and because it’s the right thing to do.
“I’m not going to solve every issue. I’m going to focus on clean air, clean water, and lowering people’s utility bills. That’s my focus. I’m not going to design the greatest architectural building. I’m not even interested in hiring those type of architects.
“I had a lived experience of having my heat cut off in the middle of winter. I don’t want that to ever happen to anybody I know ever again,” Patton said. “So if I can lower somebody’s cost of living, that’s my sole focus. And there’s been a boatload of buy-in from that, because those are historically [not] things [present] in the communities I invest in.”
CARBON CAPTURE: Documents show ExxonMobil lobbied aggressively for federal carbon capture subsidies — which stand to reap billions of dollars for the company — despite internal doubts about whether the technology will make a meaningful impact on emissions. (The Guardian)
ALSO: A California company cancels plans to build one of the world’s largest direct-air carbon capture facilities in Wyoming, citing intense competition from data centers for clean energy to power the facility. (Cowboy State Daily)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
OIL & GAS: The Biden administration grants its first gas export permit following a court ruling that blocked its efforts to delay the process. (The Hill)
POLITICS: An energy market expert refutes former President Trump’s claim that he could cut energy prices in half during his first year in office. (NBC News)
BATTERIES: A battery plant in a Pittsburgh suburb that has taken advantage of or is eligible for billions in public funds has created poor working conditions and has fired union-supporting workers, according to some employees. (Pennsylvania Capital-Star)
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: 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)
SOLAR:
POLLUTION: A federal court rejects a new EPA rule tightening emissions standards for industrial boilers, saying the agency went too far in classifying facilities built before the rule was proposed as “new” pollution sources. (Reuters)
COMMENTARY: A climate advocate explains why his organization is opposing a bipartisan energy permitting bill, saying the legislation’s provisions advancing fossil fuels make the price “simply too high.” (Union of Concerned Scientists)
A year and a half since Massachusetts introduced an optional new building code aimed at lowering fossil fuel use, climate activists are heartened by how quickly cities and towns are adopting the new guidelines.
The new code, known as the specialized stretch code, became law in 2023. Since then, 45 municipalities representing about 30% of the state’s population have voted to adopt its guidelines. The code is already active in 33 of these communities and scheduled to take effect over the next year in another 12.
“That is just an astounding statistic to me,” said climate advocate Lisa Cunningham, one of the founders of decarbonization nonprofit ZeroCarbonMA. “The rollout has been, quite frankly, amazing.”
Massachusetts has long been a leader in using opt-in building codes to push for decarbonization of the built environment. In 2009, the state introduced the country’s first stretch code, an alternative version of the building code that includes more stringent energy efficiency requirements. Municipalities must vote to adopt the stretch code, and the vast majority have done so: As of June, just 8.5% of residents lived in the 50 towns and cities without a stretch code.
The specialized stretch code takes this approach a step farther. The goal is to create a code that will help achieve target emissions reductions from 2025 to 2050, when the state aims to be carbon-neutral. In 2021, the legislature called on the state to create an additional opt-in code that would get close to requiring net-zero carbon emissions from new construction.
“We want to work towards decarbonizing those buildings, right from the start, as we look to a future in 2050 while we are net-zero in greenhouse gas emissions,” said Elizabeth Mahony, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources.
At the same time, electrified, energy-efficient homes will mean lower energy costs for residents over time, more comfortable and healthier indoor air, and more stable indoor temperatures when power outages occur, she said.
The construction industry, meanwhile, has concerns about the measure’s impact on upfront costs.
The resulting code doesn’t require buildings to achieve net-zero emissions right away, but attempts to ensure any new construction will be ready to go carbon-neutral before 2050.
There are a few pathways for compliance. A newly built home can use fossil fuels for space heating, water heating, cooking, or drying or be built fully electrified. If the new home uses any fossil fuels, however, it must be built to a higher energy efficiency standard, be wired to ready the house for future electrification, and include solar panels onsite where feasible. In all cases, homes must be wired for at least one electric vehicle charging station.
Larger, multifamily buildings must be built to Passive House standards, a certification that requires the dramatic reduction of energy use as compared to similar buildings of the same size and type. Single-family homes can also choose to pursue Passive House certification.
Decarbonization advocates are pleased with the rollout so far. The state’s major cities, including Boston, Worcester, and Cambridge, were all quick to adopt the code. In most municipalities the vote to adopt the specialized code has been near-unanimous, said Cunningham.
And more communities are considering the specialized code.
“We’re talking to a lot of communities that are contemplating it for their town meetings this fall,” Mahony said. “We know there is a growing sense out there of wanting to do this.”
The key to convincing cities and towns that the code is a good idea is for municipal governments to understand and frame the code as a consumer protection measure, rather than an added burden, Cunningham said. The requirements of the specialized code along with state and federal incentives can save on construction costs upfront, and will ensure buildings cost less to operate during their lifetime, offering significant benefits to residents, she said.
“At the point of construction this is an incremental expense – it’s barely even a blip,” she said. “Then it directly reduces your future electricity bills.”
Many in the construction industry, however, disagree with Cunningham’s take. Emerson Clauss III, a director with the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Massachusetts, has found the equipment needed to reach the high standards in the code is more expensive than its authors counted on, and supply chain issues are causing even higher prices.
“It’s had quite a rough start to it,” Clauss said. “It’s adding considerable cost to new housing.”
He also worries that the high cost of electricity now — Massachusetts electricity prices are the third highest in the country — spells near-term financial trouble for homeowners that feel forced to go all-electric.
“The idea that it’s going to cost less 20 years from now — what does that do for people who need to get into a house now?” he asked.
Furthermore, the creation of a new optional code, he said, adds another variable for builders already jumping between the basic code and the previous stretch code, as well as learning the new rules in ten communities banning fossil fuels as part of a state pilot program. Even municipal building directors aren’t able to keep up, Clauss said, recalling a confused call with a suburban building inspector who needed 20 minutes to confirm it was OK to install a natural gas line in a new home.
In Cambridge, one of the first cities to adopt the specialized code, Assistant Commissioner of Inspectional Services Jacob Lazzara noted there was some confusion at the outset, but time and proactive communication from the city helped ease the transition. The city has held trainings, created materials to hand out to builders and design professionals, and fine-tuned internal communications to make sure the staff is all well informed.
“There was a little bit of shock for everyone at first, but I think we’re in a good place right now,” Lazzara said.
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