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Perry throws cold water on declaring grid emergency
Energy Secretary Rick Perry hedged today as to how the administration will act on an Ohio energy company’s mayday call for its coal and nuclear plants. FirstEnergy Solutions Corp., the competitive-generation arm of FirstEnergy Corp., filed for bankruptcy late last month. It has told the Department of Energy that the closure of these plants would amount to a grid emergency and that DOE should use its authority under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act to keep them online. [ read more … ]
Perry: Economics not ‘the issue’ for FirstEnergy emergency evaluation
Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said Monday that plant economics are not “the issue” DOE is focused on as it evaluates an emergency bailout request from generator FirstEnergy.
One of Perry’s deputies last month said DOE “would never use” an emergency order under Section 202(c) Federal Power Act to prop up uneconomic generators. Asked if he stood by that statement, Perry told Utility Dive “I don’t think economics — I don’t think that’s the issue.” [ read more … ]
Policy & Politics
Grid operator rolls out capacity market proposal
The largest grid operator in the U.S. today formally proposed two alternatives for addressing what it sees as problems caused by state policies designed to support certain types of power generation — primarily wind, solar and nuclear. PJM Interconnection LLC, the regional transmission organization that manages the grid in 13 Eastern states and the District of Columbia, submitted a filing to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. [ read more … ]
Apple says all its facilities now powered by clean energy
Apple Inc on Monday said it had achieved its goal of powering all of the company’s facilities with renewable energy, a milestone that includes all of its data centers, offices and retail stores in 43 countries. The iPhone maker also said nine suppliers had recently committed to running their operations entirely on renewable energy sources like wind and solar, bringing to 23 the total number to make such a pledge. [ read more … ]
Omaha customers will soon be able to buy shares of solar power
Omaha Public Power District customers will soon be able to support the local production and use of solar power — at a cost. OPPD as early as next year will start selling shares of solar power to customers interested in using more renewable power, including those who lack the means to buy or lease their own solar panels. [ read more … ]
Land of Lincoln chases low-income solar access
Illinois took a step last week toward shifting its portfolio to cleaner energy sources when state regulators signed off on the first long-term renewable energy procurement under the 2016 Future Energy Jobs Act. The 179-page plan approved by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) authorizes the Illinois Power Agency to buy renewable energy credits to help jump-start more than 600 megawatts of new solar energy development, with specific carve-outs for community solar projects and arrays on brownfield sites. [ read more … ]
Embattled EPA chief resigned. It was 35 years ago
It was 1983. The headlines are remarkably similar to those dominating major news outlets in recent weeks as scandals surrounding EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt have endangered his job. And they’ve sparked a sense of déjà vu for those who were close to the Reagan-era drama [ read more … ]
Biggest Problem for U.S. Offshore Wind? Ports Are Too Small
“Our real challenge is finding enough port space to fit these projects,’’ Grybowski said Monday in an interview at the BNEF Future of Energy Summit in New York. Deepwater Wind used four ports to build the five-turbine, 30-megawatt Block Island wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island, he said. [ read more … ]
FERC to weigh how distributed energy plays in power markets
Federal regulators this week will hear from more than 50 experts about how to manage the increasing amounts of distributed energy resources (DER) that are being deployed in the nation’s power markets. The two-day technical conference tomorrow and Wednesday at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission headquarters is the outgrowth of a 2016 proposed rule that could have permanent consequences in shaping how the regional electricity markets operate. [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.