The Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission will hold in-person hearings to receive comments on proposed rules and regulations for the environmental review, permitting, and siting of major renewable energy and transmission projects under the Renewable Action through Project Interconnection and Deployment, RAPID, Act passed last year. Among other things, the RAPID Act authorizes the office, in consultation with the Department of Public Service and subject to approval by the Public Service Commission, to establish rules and regulations to implement the new siting permit program for major electric transmission facilities established by the act. Additional in-person and virtual hearings will be conducted in March. 24-M-0433

The Ohio Public Utilities Commission is due to receive initial briefs on Ohio Power Company’s new tariffs related to data centers and mobile data centers. The Data Center Power tariff applies to new data center customers with a monthly maximum demand of 25 megawatts or more at a single location, while the Mobile Data Center tariff applies to new mobile data center customers such as cryptocurrency miners, with monthly maximum demand of one megawatt or greater. Both proposals include a long-term capacity commitment to help ensure the capacity expansion is needed at the level requested and to help justify the time and cost associated with building high-voltage transmission to serve these unique customers. Reply briefs are due by April 9. READ MORE

The North Dakota Public Service Commission will hold a public hearing to discuss Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s request for a siting permit to construct a 345-kilovolt transmission line in Mercer, McLean, Ward, Mountrail, and Williams Counties. The project, selected by Southwest Power Pool as part of the 2021 Interregional Transmission Planning process, is estimated to cost $317 million and span approximately 162 miles. The project aims to mitigate reliability constraints and increase load serving capability around the north side of Lake Sakakawea. Another hearing will be held on March 6.

The California Air Resources Board and Québec’s Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks will release the results of their 42nd joint quarterly carbon auction, which offered allowances for current and future years. The current auction offered 2025 vintage allowances totaling about 51.5 million, and the advance auction offered 2028 future vintage allowances totaling about 6.8 million. The previous auction held in November sold all of the nearly 52.6 million current allowances at a price of $31.91 per allowance and 7.2 million future allowances at $30.16 per allowance. California’s cap-and trade program places an economy-wide cap on major emitting sources.

The California Energy Commission seeks comments on proposed data collection and analysis for its 2025 Integrated Energy Policy Report, or IEPR. The commission is required to regularly assess all aspects of energy demand and supply in order to develop energy policies that conserve resources, protect the environment, and ensure energy reliability, among others. Load-serving entities are required to submit 10-year demand forecasts and resource plans that will provide a foundation for the analyses and recommendations in the IEPR, including resource assessment and analysis of progress towards energy efficiency and renewable energy goals. 25-IEPR-03

The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission will hold a meeting to discuss Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Company’s response to Winter Storm Blair and the resulting outages that occured during January. The company will provide an after-action summary on the storm’s impact, affected customers, response efforts, common outage causes, and lessons learned during the restoration process.