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Europeans sweep record U.S. offshore wind auction
A U.S. government auction for three wind leases off the coast of Massachusetts ended on Friday with record-setting bids totaling more than $400 million from European energy giants including Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Equinor ASA. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced the sale’s three winners – Equinor Wind US LLC, Mayflower Wind Energy LLC, and Vineyard Wind LLC, at the conclusion of the two-day sale that attracted 11 bidders and lasted 32 rounds. [ read more … ]
Martha’s Vineyard Wind-Farm Sites Spur $405 Million Bids
Three companies bid a record-shattering $405.1 million to nab U.S. rights to build offshore wind farms near Massachusetts on Friday, a testament to the surging appeal of renewable power and investors’ confidence in state demand for it. Equinor Wind US LLC, Mayflower Wind Energy LLC and Vineyard Wind LLC each pledged $135 million to secure individual leases from the U.S. government, drawn by state pledges to buy offshore wind power. Mayflower is a joint venture of EDP Renewables and Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Shell New Energies US LLC. [ read more … ]
Policy & Politics
Climate Negotiators Reach an Overtime Deal to Keep Paris Pact Alive
Diplomats from nearly 200 countries reached a deal on Saturday to keep the Paris climate agreement alive by adopting a detailed set of rules to implement the pact. The deal, struck after an all-night bargaining session, will ultimately require every country in the world to follow a uniform set of standards for measuring their planet-warming emissions and tracking their climate policies. And it calls on countries to step up their plans to cut emissions ahead of another round of talks in 2020. [ read more … ]
Gov. Jerry Brown blasts denier nations’ ‘suicide mission’
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) blasted the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other countries last night for their conduct at U.N. climate talks this week in Poland, calling their attempts to undermine climate science a “suicide mission.” In a video message, Brown, who has made climate a signature focus of his final two terms as governor, implored world governments wrapping up negotiations in Katowice, Poland, to “wake up” and take action. [ read more … ]
Tariffs cloud the forecast for solar
Solar installations slumped 20 percent in the third quarter of 2018, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) said yesterday, revealing the punishing impact of President Trump’s tariffs on imported panels. The news highlighted the crosscurrents affecting the industry. Installation costs continue to fall, and utility-scale projects no longer need a subsidy to compete with traditional forms of electricity generation. [ read more … ]
Glick blasts Chatterjee Clean Power Plan comments as not ‘appropriate,’ ‘relevant’
Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Richard Glick on Thursday criticized the chairman of his agency for filing comments critical of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan in the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory proceeding to roll back the climate regulations. Glick called Chatterjee’s comments “faulty” and “not relevant to any discussion on whether the Clean Power Plan (CPP) should be removed” because it focused criticism on the initial proposed version of the rule, not its finalized form, which included major changes to protect grid reliability. [ read more … ]
California Requires New City Buses to Be Electric by 2029
California on Friday became the first state to mandate a full shift to electric buses on public transit routes, flexing its muscle as the nation’s leading environmental regulator and bringing battery-powered, heavy-duty vehicles a step closer to the mainstream. Starting in 2029, mass transit agencies in California will only be allowed to buy buses that are fully electric under a rule adopted by the state’s powerful clean air agency. [ read more … ]
Colorado adopts rule to include storage in utility planning
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has taken a major step toward advancing the state’s use of battery storage, adopting an order on Wednesday to help integrate procurement mechanisms into utilities’ long-term planning processes The new rules require consideration of energy storage in utility planning processes, which advocates say is a “critical ingredient” to ensuring customer savings [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.