Virginia lawmakers approved legislation on Feb. 18 that would make changes to the net metering program for customers of electric cooperatives, including increasing the cap from one percent of system peak to three percent for residential, four percent for not-for-profit and non-jurisdictional, and two percent for non-residential customers. The bill would allow electric cooperatives to…...
Portland General Electric Company and NextEra Energy Resources LLC have announced plans to build a 300-megawatt wind farm combined with 50 megawatts of solar and 30 megawatts of battery storage, making it the largest project of this kind in the nation, according to a Feb. 13 press release. The new project called the Wheatridge Renewable Energy Facility…
New York installed 744 megawatts of solar generating capacity through 2018, with an additional 883 megawatts in the pipeline under the NY Sun program, a $1 billion initiative that aims to add 3 gigawatts by 2023, according to a Feb. 14 report from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Expanding to include…...
Consumers Energy Company, in a Feb. 12 filing with the Michigan Public Service Commission, said that its avoided cost, which must be paid to small independent power producers under the federal Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act, should be rescinded as it was based on out-of-date information. The company asked the agency to approve new rates…...
The Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors on Feb. 14 approved the retirement of Paradise Unit 3 by 2020 and the Bull Run Fossil Plant by 2023, in order to better balance its generation system with changing demands. The vote reflects TVA’s commitment to replace less-efficient coal-fired plants with cleaner resources, despite President Donald Trump’s…...
South Carolina Electric & Gas Company proposed two resource plans based on the least cost options from 19 scenarios that were modeled for its 2019 integrated resource plan filed with the South Carolina Public Service Commission on Feb. 8. The plans, which detail resource needs from 2019 through 2033, reflect a shortage in base capacity…...
Delmarva Power & Light Company on Feb. 13 asked the Delaware Public Service Commission to approve its 2019 program for the procurement of solar renewable energy credits, or SRECs, to comply with the state’s renewable energy portfolio standard, which requires the percentage of retail energy supplied by renewable resources to increase over time to 25…...
The compliance obligations under Ohio’s renewable portfolio standard have been shifting from electric distribution companies to competitive retail suppliers as consumers are exercising their choice of electric service providers, according to a Feb. 11 draft annual report by the Ohio Public Utilities Commission staff. Competitive suppliers were responsible for about 77 percent of Ohio’s overall…...
Democratic Senator Ed Markey and Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a Green New Deal resolution on Feb. 7 setting out the goals and aspirations of the ambitious plan which seeks to tackle the nation’s contribution to climate change by making it carbon free over just a decade. The resolution calls for unprecedented, World War II-style mobilization of the U.S. economy…
The Michigan Public Service Commission approved Consumers Energy Co.’s plan to build new wind generation facilities needed to meet the utility’s voluntary renewable portfolio standard of 50 percent by 2030, but delayed a decision on the company’s request to add 100 megawatts of solar citing unrealistically high cost projections, according to a Feb. 7 press release. As part of…
The United States has more than 2,500 utility-scale (larger than one megawatt) solar photovoltaic electricity generating facilities, most of which are relatively small and collectively account for just 2.5 percent of utility-scale electric generating capacity and 1.7% of annual electricity generation, based on EIA data through November 2018. North Carolina has 433 utility-scale solar photovoltaic…
Renewable energy resources accounted for about 28.1 percent of New York’s electricity generation in 2017, according to a Feb. 7 report from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, analyzing progress toward the Clean Energy Standard which requires half the state’s electricity to come from renewable energy by 2030. The 28.1 percent contribution…