Democratic Governor Janet Mills signed an executive order on Feb. 14 ending a moratorium on wind turbine permits, authorizing state agencies to resume determining whether proposed projects qualify for approval. The move comes at a time when Northeastern states are planning large amounts of wind power to meet clean energy goals. Maine has a target…...
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…
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is scheduled to receive comments on the draft environmental impact statement for Vineyard Wind LLC’s 800-megawatt offshore wind project by Feb. 22, with a final version of the environmental study set to be released in the spring, according to a Feb. 8 notice. The statement provides an analysis…
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must be paid to small independent power producers under the federal Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act, should be rescinded as it was based on out-of-date information.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 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…...
Adoption of rules establishing a funding structure for offshore wind renewable energy credits set the stage for New Jersey’s first offshore wind solicitation and established the market certainty needed for long-term investment in the industry, according to a Feb. 8 report by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, detailing the progress made towards the state’s…...
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 ISO New England Inc.’s annual forward capacity auction cleared 34.8 gigawatts of capacity at a price of $3.80 per kilowatt-month, with adequate resources to meet peak demand in 2022-2023, according to a Feb. 6 press release. The auction was the first to be held under new rules to accommodate entry of state-sponsored resources by…
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…
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…
The U.S. installed about 31 gigawatts of new generating capacity in 2018, up from 27 gigawatts in the prior year, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s energy infrastructure update, released on Feb. 5. Natural gas-fired power dominated the capacity additions, accounting for about 20 gigawatts, while wind and solar provided 6 gigawatts and 4.2 gigawatts,…
New utility-scale solar projects totalling 2.1 gigawatts have locked into agreements to connect with the Texas grid in 2019, or enough to more than double the system’s solar capacity, with even larger amounts in store for 2020, according to a Feb. 5 report by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc. While Texas is known for…
