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New life for old coal: Minelands and power plants are hot renewable development spots
PETERSBURG, Ind. — AES Indiana’s Petersburg Generating Station, which towers over the White River here in southwest Indiana, has been burning coal to generate electricity since the late 1960s. That era, though, will come to an end soon. Two of the power plant’s four coal-burning units have already retired and the last is planning to […]
Reliability v. sustainability: Inside the debate over the EPA’s proposed carbon rules
Electric reliability has been a hot topic lately — from congressional hearings to regulatory agencies and at the regional transmission organizations that run the electric grid in much of the country. The American electric grid is undergoing a major change, prodded by state and federal decarbonization policies, market forces pushing cheaper and cleaner forms of […]
A year after devastating winter storm, power plant problems ‘still likely’ in extreme weather
Nearly a year ago, a Christmas weekend storm blasted across the country, forcing utilities to cut electricity to hundreds of thousands of people in parts of the southeastern U.S. after temperatures plunged, demand spiked, large numbers of power plants failed and natural gas supply was strained. As the anniversary approaches of Winter Storm Elliott, a […]
As industry struggles, federal, state offshore wind goals could get tougher to meet
Good news or bad news first? Because there was plenty of both this week for the fledgling U.S. offshore wind industry. On Halloween, the Biden administration announced that the nation’s largest planned offshore wind development, Dominion Energy’s 2,600 megawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, received its last major federal approval. The same day, however, Danish […]
‘So many ways hydrogen can go wrong’: Hub announcements viewed with caution
The Friday announcement that seven projects had been selected to receive $7 billion in seed money to kickstart the production of clean hydrogen across the country was billed by President Joe Biden’s administration as a major step toward slashing carbon emissions, creating thousands of domestic jobs and positioning the U.S. as a clean energy leader. […]
Lack of oversight on transmission spending leads to higher electric bills, consumer advocate says
Electric customers have fallen into a “regulatory gap” that’s allowed billions of dollars of transmission construction to happen without oversight of need, prudence or cost effectiveness, according to a complaint filed with federal regulators by the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel. And though the complaint to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was made on […]
Battery storage seen as ‘backbone’ of reliable electric grid but adoption uneven across US
SEARCY, Ark. — In the decarbonized future envisioned by many states, utilities and the federal government, expect more power plants like Entergy Arkansas’ facility here, where thousands of gleaming panels and banks of batteries spread across 800 acres about 50 miles northeast of Little Rock. The Searcy Solar Energy Center, a 100-megawatt solar and storage […]
Federal, state regulators prod utilities to consider technology for grid upgrade
Of the many challenges confronting the nation’s aging, straining electric grid, the need for a lot of new transmission capacity is among the most pressing, experts and policymakers say. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Energy said the nation will need thousands of miles of new lines to better link regions to handle extreme […]
Federal regulators approve new rules to ease power connection backlogs
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday finalized long-awaited new rules intended to reform how power generation projects get connected to the electric grid, seen as a major step in smoothing the path for thousands of mostly renewable power projects currently waiting to plug in. “This rule will ensure that our country’s vast generation resources […]
Winter is coming and the U.S. grid remains vulnerable to power plant failures
From winter storms to sweltering summer heat, there’s a consensus among experts that increasing extreme weather, a shifting electric generation mix, delays in getting new power generation projects connected and the difficulties in getting new transmission lines and other infrastructure built all pose an increasing risk to the grid. At U.S. Senate committee hearings as […]
Budding U.S. offshore wind industry facing rough seas
BOSTON – Just as the U.S. is plunging into the deep end of offshore wind energy development, the nascent domestic industry is facing major supply chain problems, surging costs, permitting delays and other headwinds that could affect the aggressive installation timelines state and federal governments have targeted. Those obstacles, chiefly triggered by the pandemic, inflation […]
Statehouses debate who should build EV charging networks
Though they only make up a fraction of cars and trucks on the road now, many projections — from Wall Street firms, trade groups and automakers themselves — predict an imminent surge in electric vehicles over the next decade. S&P Global estimates that the nearly 2 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads today will grow […]