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A recently signed New Hampshire law makes significant changes to the operations of the state’s Renewable Energy Fund, directing money to help towns and cities develop municipal solar projects and ending a residential solar rebate program that was generally viewed as deeply flawed.
“The previously existing program had sort of run its course,” said Joshua Elliott, director of policy and programs in the state energy department.
The Renewable Energy Fund, created in 2007, is a pool of money the state uses to support renewable and thermal energy initiatives through grants and rebates. It is funded by annual compliance payments made by electric service providers that failed to buy the legally mandated proportion of their power from renewable sources in the previous year.
The sum the fund collects can vary widely from year to year, ranging from as low as $1.3 million in 2009 to $19.1 million in 2011. More recently, revenue has hovered around $7 million.
This money is then allocated across several programs including those supporting solar hot water heating, low-and-moderate income community solar, and wood pellet boilers and furnaces for residential, commercial, and industrial customers.
The new funding for municipal solar projects represents the next step for an approach just getting underway in the state.
Installing solar power can allow a municipality to both cut carbon emissions and realize significant savings on their energy bills. These savings can be used to cut property taxes or to provide additional support or services for residents. Until recently, however, there was little state or federal support for municipal solar. At the same time, getting a municipality to agree to the upfront costs has always been challenging.
“There’s a variety of competing factors for property tax revenue,” Elliott said. “It can be hard to get a warrant article passed to invest the money to purchase a solar array for town buildings.”
The state began tackling the problem this year with the Municipal Solar Grant Program, which is using a $1.6 million federal grant, part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to help cities and towns install solar arrays on municipal property. Lower-income communities that intend to retain complete ownership of their solar system will be eligible for grants up to $200,000; municipalities that don’t meet these criteria can request grants up to $120,000.
Though the program is just getting started — the application period is open until August 1 — the opportunity has already sparked wide interest from municipal governments. Community liaisons for the nonprofit Clean Energy New Hampshire have identified roughly 50 cities and towns likely to apply for a share of the limited funding.
“There’s been a huge response,” said Sam Evans-Brown, executive director of Clean Energy New Hampshire. “That shows this is a good space to be spending the money in.”
The new legislation calls for funding to be allocated to a new municipal solar program this year, with the sum likely to be announced in late August or early September. Then, before the money can be offered to cities and towns, the state will have to design a new system. The new incentive will be inspired and informed by the program now launching, Elliott said.
“We’re certainly going to take feedback, have stakeholder sessions,” he said. “And that will help refine what this program looks like.”
The bill also terminates the state’s rebate program for residential solar and wind installations, an incentive that was widely thought to be ineffective.
The program offered rebates of up to $1,000 to a limited number of households each year. In fiscal 2023, rebates totalling about $424,000 were issued.
The program used a lottery system to determine what order rebate applications would be processed in each year; applicants closer to the end of the list might not end up receiving any rebate if the funds ran out before they made it to the top of the list. That uncertainty meant the program was doing little to spur additional solar development, Evans-Brown said.
“It’s almost by definition not getting projects done: If you can’t know for sure if you’re getting rebate, it’s not factoring it into the purchasing decision,” he said. “When we asked residential solar installers if the rebate was helpful they said no.”
The program also accepted applications from any household with a solar array installed after 2012 that has not yet received a rebate, diminishing its impact on new solar development even further.
“You’re not actually helping to develop the solar market at that point,” Elliott said.
Though the recent law eliminates this rebate, lawmakers were clear during hearings on the bill that they want to see a replacement residential incentive developed. No plans are yet in the works for such a program, and it is unclear what the timeline would be for designing a new incentive from scratch, Elliott said. Furthermore, the law does not require a new program be enacted.
Elliott, however, has every intention of making sure a replacement program comes to be, he said.
“I made a commitment in public saying, ‘Yes, we are going to do this,’” he said, “and I certainly feel beholden to that.”
UTILITIES: A growing number of Georgia companies with climate goals are frustrated that less than half of Georgia Power’s electricity is carbon-free, and although the utility plans to build more solar, it’s still adding new gas turbines and delaying closure of its coal plants. (Grist/WABE)
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COAL ASH: A town less than two miles from the University of North Carolina looks to redevelop 10 acres of land containing 46,000 tons of toxic coal ash, but lawyers and community members warn its cleanup plan still won’t adequately protect the public from health risks. (Inside Climate News)
GRID: Houston Mayor John Whitmire promises to hold CenterPoint Energy “accountable” for widespread outages during Hurricane Beryl, but the mayor and city have little power to regulate the utility. (Houston Chronicle)
OVERSIGHT: Environmental lawyers say the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a policy giving federal agencies deference to interpret laws could affect Virginia’s regulation of vehicle emissions but probably not its enforcement of clean water rules. (Virginia Mercury)
POLITICS:
CLIMATE: The U.S. EPA awards Western states more than $1.27 billion for projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, utilities, buildings and industry. (Associated Press, Colorado Newsline)
ALSO: A study finds the urban heat island effect increases Tucson, Arizona’s temperature by nearly eight degrees over that of the surrounding, undeveloped desert. (Arizona Daily Star)
UTILITIES: Hawaiian Electric and other defendants reportedly agree to pay $4 billion to settle lawsuits over last year’s deadly Maui wildfires, but disagreements over distribution of the funds is delaying a final deal. (Honolulu Star-Advertiser)
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GEOTHERMAL: The U.S. Army looks to heat an Alaska base with geothermal energy. (Task & Purpose)
HYDROGEN: Navajo Nation advocates push back against a proposed 200-mile hydrogen pipeline that would cross tribal land, saying existing regulations are inadequate to ensure safety or mitigate impacts. (Arizona Republic)
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GRID: Unusually severe winds topple utility poles in eastern Idaho, leaving nearly 8,000 customers without power. (East Idaho News)
UTILITIES: As Duke Energy prepares to face North Carolina regulators and defend its plan to invest in 9 GW of natural gas plants and delay meeting an emissions reduction mandate, it makes small concessions in a proposed settlement and wins support from the state’s ratepayer advocate. (Energy News Network)
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COAL ASH: Environmental groups press the U.S. EPA to take control of Georgia’s coal ash program from state regulators because they’ve allowed utilities to keep unlined coal ash ponds where the waste is in contact with groundwater. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia Recorder)
SOLAR: Texas saw a spike in the number of homes adding small-scale solar facilities even before Hurricane Beryl, which caused widespread outages that could encourage more state residents to add solar installations. (Inside Climate News)
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OVERSIGHT: Louisiana and Mississippi commissions sue federal regulators over an order that sets requirements for long-term electric grid planning, one of the first challenges to a federal agency since the U.S. Supreme Court opened up ambiguous agency decisions to legal challenges. (E&E News)
EMISSIONS: The U.S. EPA will evaluate air quality at two national parks in Texas as part of a settlement in a lawsuit by environmentalists. (Marfa Public Radio)
STORAGE: An energy company closes on financing for three standalone utility-scale battery energy storage projects in Texas that will be built near solar farms. (Utility Dive)
POLITICS: An official from Kentucky’s attorney general disputes the science behind climate change in testimony to state lawmakers, arguing against U.S. EPA rules that require coal- and new natural gas-burning power plants to capture 90% of carbon emissions. (Kentucky Lantern)
COMMENTARY: West Virginia should embrace wind, solar and electric vehicle industries to add clean energy-related jobs and attract new residents, writes a conservationist. (State Journal)
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: A natural gas-fired backup power plant for a New Jersey wastewater facility will move forward in a mostly BIPOC Newark community already burdened by pollution, but with strict controls on pollution and a requirement for a solar and storage system. (Associated Press)
ALSO: While a state official says the restrictions will “improve baseline conditions,” advocates remain skeptical and contrast the decision with the recent rejection of a NJ Transit gas plant opposed by primarily White residents. (NJ Spotlight)
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NUCLEAR: Massachusetts regulators deny a request from the company decommissioning the Pilgrim nuclear plant to dump treated wastewater into Cape Cod Bay. (WBUR)
NATURAL GAS: While acknowledging it’s likely a “freak incident,” officials in a Vermont town are rattled after a truck hauling natural gas catches fire, roughly a year after a similar incident in the same location. (WCAX)
BIOENERGY: As New York dairy farmers increasingly adopt biodigesters to turn farm waste into energy, environmental advocates warn the technology could have unintended consequences. (WSKG)
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POLITICS: Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for what supporters want to see from a Trump presidency, calls for dismantling U.S. EPA regulations, cutting program funding, and otherwise undoing much of the Biden administration’s climate and clean energy progress. (E&E News, Grist)
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ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE:
GRID: Louisiana and Mississippi commissions sue federal regulators over an order that sets requirements for long-term electric grid planning, one of the first challenges since the U.S. Supreme Court opened up ambiguous agency decisions to lawsuits. (E&E News)
UTILITIES: As Duke Energy prepares to face North Carolina regulators and defend its plan to invest in 9 GW of natural gas plants and delay meeting an emissions reduction mandate, it makes small concessions in a proposed settlement and wins support from the state’s ratepayer advocate. (Energy News Network)
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TRANSITION: In 2023, more than 90% of pipeline and refinery companies said in an industry survey that they had clean energy transition goals; today, that number has fallen to around three quarters. (The Hill)
ELECTRIFICATION: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposal to ban gas hookups in new homes and buildings is dead after a majority of city council members rejected the idea amid stiff union opposition. (Sun-Times)
LITHIUM: Mining lithium needed for batteries and clean energy components can use and potentially contaminate significant water supplies, a newly published study finds. (Inside Climate News)
SOLAR: Developers bring the 690 MW Gemini Solar + Energy Storage project online in southern Nevada, making it one of the nation’s largest operational facilities of its kind. (Power)
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CLEAN ENERGY: Colorado economic development officials approve up to $1.84 million in tax incentives for a clean energy manufacturer considering establishing a facility in the state. (CPR)
STORAGE:
GRID: Distributed energy provider Sunrun says its virtual power plant composed of some 16,000 residential solar-plus-storage systems sent up to 51 MW to the California grid during a July heat wave. (news release)
MICROGRIDS: Colorado awards utilities more than $2.1 million to construct solar and battery storage powered microgrids. (Microgrid Knowledge)
OIL & GAS: The federal Bureau of Land Management proposes strengthening oil and gas drilling regulations on public land in Colorado to mitigate impacts to wildlife habitat. (news release)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: California electric vehicle sales for the second quarter of 2024 drop 1.2% from the previous year, raising questions about whether the state can meet its goal of banning new gasoline-fueled car sales by 2035. (Los Angeles Times)
MINING: Advocates push back against a company’s plan to breed an endangered wildflower in a lab to offset its proposed Nevada lithium mine’s impacts to the plant, saying the firm is “greenwashing extinction.” (Associated Press)
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CARBON CAPTURE: Montana residents push back on an ExxonMobil subsidiary’s proposal to store 150 million tons of captured carbon in federal lands in the eastern part of the state, saying it would “change our way of life here forever.” (Inside Climate News)
The small southeastern Minnesota city of La Crescent receives just a handful of permit applications each year to install solar panels on homes.
Despite the small volume, it’s still important to city sustainability coordinator Jason Ludwigson that it’s a smooth process for homeowners and installers.
That’s why the city of 5,000 recently became one of the first in the state to start using a software program designed to streamline local solar permitting.
Solar Automated Permitting Plus, or SolarAPP+, was developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in collaboration with the solar industry, code organizations, local governments, and the building safety community. Since its release in 2018, SolarAPP+ has been used by more than 160 cities and counties to automate much of the permitting process for smaller solar installations.
In La Crescent, an application that might have taken a few days for a city employee to review can now be approved online in minutes for projects that meet criteria. That “will save (time) for both the contractor and the city,” Ludwigson said. “It makes it faster for our building and zoning department.”
Minnesota lawmakers want to encourage more communities to join La Crescent in adopting the software. This year, the Legislature budgeted $2 million for the Commerce Department to deliver programs and training to local agencies, contractors, inspectors and others involved in solar permitting.
The state’s solar industry association supports use of the software, in part for its potential to standardize a process that can right now vary significantly from city to city. Making it easier to permit installations could save companies time, potentially lowering costs and helping to expand rooftop solar in the state, which will need many megawatts more clean energy to reach its climate goals.
Getting permits for solar projects in Minnesota can take days or weeks and cost as much as $1,000. Typically, solar installers in the state apply electronically or in person for separate building, local electrical and utility interconnection permits. After receiving approvals for all three applications — and any other that are required — they start building projects that, once completed, are reviewed onsite by building and electrical inspectors.
Installers using the software receive automated approvals if they accurately complete forms for their building and electrical permits and, if required, fire and structural permits. Any errors are flagged and sent back to the installer for corrections. The app integrates with existing permitting software programs used by government agencies, according to NREL.
California cities have been the biggest adopters so far, but the app is beginning to catch on in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. By the end of 2023, the NREL reported that the free software had been used nationally on 32,800 projects, saving 33,000 hours of permitting staff time. Installers pay a $25 administrative fee and the community’s permitting fee.
State Rep. Patty Acomb, who chairs the Climate and Energy Finance and Policy committee, said she and other lawmakers want to provide state grants so cities can learn how to use the software and eventually create a consistent permitting process across the state. “The intention is to make (permitting) easy and predictable,” she said.
Lissa Pawlisch, director of the Energy Development Section at the state Department of Commerce, said the department is developing a program to reach out to communities interested in SolarAPP+ and assist them in incorporating it into existing permitting software. She also believes the app could play a role in helping move installations through the new federally funded Solar for All program that will serve low income households.
Great Plains Institute’s Brian Ross said that Solar for All requires a consistent approach to permitting, and that one way to achieve that is with the SolarApp+ software. The app would give a “jurisdictional consistency” to applications from low income solar customers and “to make sure there are not barriers in the way.”
Despite its promise the app will not work in every situation. It only incorporates local versions of electrical permits and not the state permit, which many communities use. “If the local government relies on the state permitting process (for instance, Minneapolis), then I don’t think there is any advantage to using SolarAPP because the state electric permitting process is already effectively an ‘automatic issue,'” he said.
Donna Pickard of TruNorth Solar has spent decades filing solar permits with dozens of municipalities. She said installers need building, electrical and interconnection permits and approvals before projects begin, often taking over a month.
Pickard wonders if SolarAPP+ will interest Minnesota communities because many already have established permitting systems to manage solar projects. However, having dealt with many different permitting structures, Pickard said she “likes the idea of standardization because it would make things easier.”
Another challenge is that the software can’t evaluate permits for projects on flat or metal roofs in the Midwest. Jeff Cook, solar analysis subprogram manager at the NREL Strategic Energy Analysis Center in Colorado, said the software covers about 80% of eligible solar installations but the number declines in the Midwest due to “high snow load and metal roof penetration.”
Pawlisch said outreach and grants for SolarApp+ would likely start next year. The start date is also unclear for Solar for All as she continues to meet with federal and state officials to work out the details.
The bulk of steelmaking around the world still relies on coal-based blast furnaces.
The bulk of steelmaking around the world still relies on coal-based blast furnaces.
As a result, the steel and iron industry is responsible for 7% of greenhouse gas emissions and 11% of carbon dioxide emissions globally, according to the consultancy firm Global Efficiency Intelligence.
This is more than the total emissions from all the world’s cars and vans.
With steel critical to the building out of decarbonised energy infrastructure, production is expected to continue to rise over the coming years, meaning the potential for decarbonisation is “enormous”, according to not-for-profit data organisation Global Energy Monitor (GEM).
GEM’s annual “Pedal to the Metal” report reveals that 93% of new steelmaking capacity announced thus far in 2024 promises to use lower emission electric arc furnaces (EAFs).
It also shows that 49% of the world’s steelmaking capacity under development now uses EAFs, up from just 43% in 2023 and 33% in 2022.
Of this, nearly all of the capacity announced since the beginning of 2024 operates using EAFs, the non-governmental organisation’s Global Steel Plant Tracker (GSPT) shows.
The tracker covers 2,207m tonnes per year (mtpa) of operating steelmaking capacity and an additional 774mtpa of steelmaking capacity under development globally, across 1,163 individual plants in 89 different countries, analysis of which is captured in its annual report.
However, while the report suggests a positive progression towards lower emission technologies in the sector, the increase in the announced projects is not yet leading to a construction of EAF overtaking coal-based production methods.
Coal-based blast furnace-basic oxygen furnaces (BF-BOFs) – where blast furnaces are used to produce iron from ore and oxygen converters then turn this, with some additional elements, into steel – continue to dominate the projects under construction, meaning “pressure must be maintained all the way through to project completion if real progress is to be seen”, the report finds.
Incoming steelmaking capacity is more heavily EAF-based than ever before, according to GEM’s new report.
There is currently 774mtpa of steelmaking capacity under development, of which 223mtpa is in the advanced development stage.
Based on data from April 2024, the GSPT shows that nearly half of the capacity under development (337mtpa) is EAFs.
Just 36% of steelmaking capacity announced in 2020 with a known production route used EAFs, while in 2023 that number had increased to 92% according to GEM. This grows to 93% of capacity when looking at steelmaking capacity under development announced in 2024.
This “indicates a significant shift toward electric arc furnace steelmaking in the years to come”, the report notes.
Meanwhile, of the 212mtpa of steelmaking capacity slated for retirement, 88% if BOF-based.
However, a net increase in BOF-based capacity is expected over the coming years. If all planned developments and retirements take effect, an additional 171mptpa of BOFs is expected to be added to the global fleet, along with 310mtpa of EAF and 80mtpa of unknown technologies.
Despite this growth in BOFs, the surge of EAF means the steel sector is getting increasingly close to meeting the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) suggested 2030 target.
In its net-zero by 2050 roadmap, the IEA suggests that the share of steel produced by EAF should grow from 24% in 2020, to 37% by 2030 and then 52% by 2050.
Considering all planned capacity and retirements, GEM now estimates that the global steel fleet is expected to reach 36% EAF by 2030, noting: “This is still not sufficient to meet the IEA [net-zero] climate target, but with heightened momentum the goal is increasingly attainable.”
While EAF-steelmaking is being announced at “record rate”, GEM finds that less than 14% of this potential capacity has moved into construction.
Of those that have moved into construction, around 46% are still BOF-based. As such, “while we may be within reach of net-zero targets based on proposed electric arc furnace capacity, actually achieving these goals requires follow-through”, the report notes.
Caitlin Swalec, program director for heavy industry at GEM, said in a statement:
“The progress is promising for a green steel transition. Never before has this much lower-emissions steelmaking been in the pipeline. At the same time, the buildout of coal-based capacity is concerning. What the industry needs now is to make these clean development plans a reality, while backing away from coal-based developments.”
As well as the buildout of new coal-based capacity being out of alignment with a net-zero future, it poses a threat of carbon lock-in and stranded assets, GEM notes.
Blast furnaces are becoming riskier investments given the limited options to mitigate emissions from both the furnaces themselves and the upstream emissions from the metallurgical coal mining, it adds.
Estimating an investment of $1-1.5bn per mtpa capacity at an integrated BF-BOF site, GEM found that the future stranded-asset risk could be as high as $554bn in 2023, falling to $400bn in 2024 due to the continued fall in BOF capacity under development.
Astrid Grigsby-Schulte, project manager for steel at GEM tells Carbon Brief:
“As we grow closer to key decarbonisation milestones, coal-based developments get further out of alignment with the direction the industry is moving and present a greater risk of stranded assets to steelmakers. Coal-based, emissions-intensive blast furnaces represent significant investments that often require decades to recoup. This makes them extremely risky for developers, particularly in countries with stated net zero commitments.”
The limited options for mitigating the climate impact of BOF-steelmaking was also highlighted within a recent report from the thinktank Sandbag.
While carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) is often touted as a “catch all” solution, its effectiveness varies widely across applications, Sandbag’s “Steel & CCS/U” report finds.
For steel production, BF-BOFs with carbon capture are unlikely to be cost-competitive with EAFs, the report finds. Although given the slow pace of technological and market development, Sandbag anticipates capturing carbon will play a limited role in the steel industry.
India has now replaced China as the top steel developer globally, with a pipeline of 258mtpa of capacity, of which 177mtpa is BOFs, according to GEM.
China has a pipeline of 150mtpa meaning, collectively, China and India are responsible for 53% of all developments globally.
Asia operates 68% of all steelmaking capacity (1,508mtpa), the majority of which is in China (1,075mtpa), India (123mtpa) and Japan (109mtpa).
When looking specifically at emissions-intensive BOF production, Asia’s share of total operating capacity increases to 80% (1,181mtpa), of which 918mtpa is in China.
Currently, China has 157mtpa of operating EAFs (22% of the global capacity), followed by the US, Turkey, Iran and then India.
According to a new report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), China did not issue any new permits for coal-based steelmaking in the first half of 2024. This is the first time this has happened since the nation’s “dual carbon goals” were announced in September 2020.
During the first six months of 2024, Chinese provincial governments permitted 7.1mtpa of steelmaking capacity, all of which were EAFs marking a “turning point” for the country’s steel industry, CREA notes.
Xinyi Shen, researcher at CREA and the report’s lead author, tells Carbon Brief: :
“China’s EAF steelmaking has been developing rather slowly in the past few decades, mainly due to the constraint of scrap supply. However, as China’s steel demand reaches its peak and more scrap becomes available, a major opportunity arises to reduce emissions in the next 10 years. The government has accelerated plans to expand the national ETS to include the steel sector by the second half of 2024. By implementing carbon pricing on carbon-intensive products, EAF steelmaking would become more economically competitive and continue the growth.”
Despite India now overtaking China in terms of announced steelmaking capacity, China remains the biggest developer of EAF capacity overall, GEM’s report states. And while India has the most steel in development, 84% has not moved into construction.
As such, there is still an opportunity for India’s plans to change, with the percentage of BOFs to EAFs less set.
Chris Bataille, adjunct research fellow at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy and lead author at the global Net Zero Steel project tells Carbon Brief:
“India’s core demand for steel is set to increase from 125mtpa to ~450mtpa by 2050, especially to meet key building and infrastructure needs. Our modelling suggests EAFs consistently rise from ~35 to 150mtpa by 2050. So the +250mtpa BF-BOFs is just barely feasible, but only over ~25 years and with some exports of BF-BOF steel.
“The difference will be between a world where strong climate policy succeeds and fails. If it fails and coal based BF-BOFs are built, then the +258mtpa looks barely feasible. If it succeeds, India is short on the necessary gas and especially clean electricity to power this amount of steel production. While the country does build a lot of EAFs, it builds up to 250mtpa of clean iron making over time, making the short term shortfall with clean HBI iron imports.”
SOLAR: Houston home solar-battery owners were able to keep themselves powered through Hurricane Beryl and its aftermath, demonstrating the potential of distributed energy as CenterPoint Energy took days to restore power across the city. (Canary Media)
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PIPELINES: A review of cases filed with federal regulators show erosion around the now-operating Mountain Valley Pipeline, with roughly three dozen reports of sediment leaving the pipeline’s right-of-way in western Virginia. (Roanoke Times)
WIND: North Carolina sees the groundbreaking for only its second wind farm and considers the potential for more as state officials seek to cut carbon emissions. (WSOC)
OIL & GAS: Emissions from a Texas refinery complex skyrocketed by more than 150% between 2015 and 2022, demonstrating how pollution continues to spike at some facilities despite the U.S. EPA’s landmark update to oil refinery regulations nearly a decade ago. (E&E News)
NUCLEAR: A new unit at Georgia Power’s nuclear Plant Vogtle is operating once again after it was taken offline more than a week ago with a valve problem. (Macon Telegraph)
OVERSIGHT: Consumer advocate groups sue to challenge a newly passed Georgia law delaying the election of state energy regulators for one to two years, which critics say unconstitutionally prevents the election of Democrats to the all-Republican board. (Georgia Current)
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