The Kansas Corporation Commission Dec. 6 approved an agreement, allowing Evergy to offer rebates for customers installing electric vehicle chargers. The settlement, negotiated between the commission staff, Citizens Utility Ratepayer Board, and Evergy, provides new rate options to facilitate the transition to electric vehicles. Evergy’s program offers rebates of up to $500 to help homeowners…...
The California Public Utilities Commission on Dec. 2 introduced new programs and modifications to existing programs to lower energy demand and increase supply during critical hours to prevent electricity breakdowns during extreme heat events such as the west-wide heat waves of 2020 and 2021. To protect the grid during extreme weather seasons, the regulator approved…...
The growing incidence of extreme weather events has triggered regulatory and legislative efforts across the U.S. to improve the reliability and resilience of the energy system. Winter Storm Uri, which caused widespread outages in the South Central U.S. in February, prompted a regulatory upheaval in Texas, which suffered the brunt of the storm, leaving more than 4.5 million people without power. California has adopted measures to ensure reliability in the event of extreme weather in the summers of 2022 and 2023. Federal regulators have approved new cold weather electric reliability standards.
Interest in offshore wind energy has reached new levels driven by supportive federal action, ambitious state procurement targets, and evolving technology. Recent developments include federal approval of the second commercial-scale project, and plans to hold up to seven new lease sales by 2025 in the East Coast, as well as the West and Gulf Coasts. Despite the progress, the industry faces opposition with recent lawsuits challenging the approval of the nation’s first major offshore project, the 800-megawatt (MW) Vineyard Wind I venture, over its potential impact to the fishing industry and endangered species.
Western U.S. states are evaluating options to join or form a regional transmission organization (RTO) as regional coordination would strengthen electric system resilience and reliability, enhance clean energy adoption, and address transmission challenges.
U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law on Nov.15, unlocking $62 billion for U.S. Energy Department initiatives, including revitalizing domestic manufacturing, expanding access to energy efficiency and clean energy, modernizing the power grid, and advancing next-generation technologies. Among the major provisions, the legislation allocates $6 billion for a Civilian…...
The U.S. Energy Department on Nov. 3 launched the Net Zero World Initiative, a partnership between countries working to implement their climate action pledges and speed up the shift to net zero, resilient, and inclusive energy systems. The agency will lead the initiative as part of the Build Back Better World initiative to facilitate customized,…...
Interest in carbon pricing mechanisms has deepened as lawmakers and regulators explore policy tools to address emissions reductions in order to reach ambitious clean energy and climate goals. Cap-and-trade is figuring more prominently as an efficient market-based means to achieve significant carbon reductions and create an incentive to invest in non-emitting technologies.
Energy storage is becoming an increasingly important part of the power mix to accommodate the exponential growth of intermittent renewables required to accomplish ambitious decarbonization targets set by U.S. states and utilities.
The growing adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is driving interest in vehicle-grid integration technologies that enable EVs to inject power from their batteries onto the grid, thereby enhancing reliability benefits across the distribution system.
A growing number of states are turning to grid modernization initiatives aimed at creating a more flexible system that can accommodate the proliferation of distributed energy resources (DER) and other solutions that meet changing customer needs and climate goals.