Georgia Power Company seeks to reduce fuel rates by about 16 percent, driven primarily by projected decreases in natural gas prices, according to a March 9 filing with the Georgia Public Service Commission. The change would lower monthly residential bills by 4 percent or $5 for a customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month, beginning June…...
The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission on March 4 approved Indianapolis Power & Light Company’s seven-year grid modernization plan, which proposes an investment of $1.2 billion to replace or upgrade the company’s aging transmission and distribution system assets. The plan will provide new technology, equipment, and systems including a self-healing grid that allows the company to…...
Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems on March 10 announced a contract with Utah’s Intermountain Power Agency for the first advanced class gas turbines designed to facilitate the transition of a power plant in central Utah from coal, to natural gas and ultimately to renewable hydrogen fuel. The transition will begin in 2025, with a fuel mix…...
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on March 6 issued its final environmental review for the Alaska LNG project, a $40-$45 billion, 800-mile pipeline and liquefied natural gas export facility expected to be the largest in the U.S. The project is being developed by Alaska Gasline Development Corp. in partnership with BP and ExxonMobil. The commission…...
A growing number of cities across the U.S. are moving toward electrifying their building sectors and banning natural gas use. The Northern California city of Berkeley passed the first such ban, initiating a wave of similar ordinances as a means to reduce carbon emissions. The movement prompted Arizona to enact the first state law preventing local bans on natural gas, and several other states to introduce bills with similar language.
The final version of Virginia’s Clean Economy Act cleared the state’s House of Delegates and Senate on March 7, and now awaits Democratic Governor Ralph Northam’s signature. The legislation codifies the 2050 clean energy goal that Governor Northam laid out in an executive order issued last September. The bill calls for more wind and solar…...
Democratic Governor Phil Murphy on Feb. 28 announced the state’s offshore wind procurement schedule, which calls for the next 1.2-gigawatt solicitation to be opened by September, with an award made by the second quarter of 2021. The plan calls for four more rounds in 2022, 2024, 2026 and 2028 to achieve the state’s 7.5-gigawatt offshore…
U.S. natural gas consumption rose by 3 percent last year, reaching a record of 85 billion cubic feet per day, according to a March 3 report from the Energy Information Administration. The agency attributed the increase to new gas-fired electric capacity and lower natural gas prices. In 2019, the electric power sector accounted for 36…...
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc. expects more than 82,400 megawatts of resource capacity to be available to meet the projected peak demand of 76,696 megawatts for the upcoming summer season from June through September, according to a March 5 announcement. The preliminary summer assessment anticipates record electric use this summer, with grid operations…
Democratic Governor Michelle Grisham signed a suite of bills on March 3 including legislation that reinstates the solar tax incentive that expired in 2016, helping the state move toward its goal achieving 50 percent renewable energy 2030. A second bill provides that transmission line projects qualify for industrial revenue bonds available through cities and municipalities,…...
The Michigan Public Service Commission authorized rate increases totaling $417.5 million in five electric and natural gas rate cases last year, $245.5 million less than what the utilities requested, according to the agency’s annual report issued on March 2. The increases were driven largely by investments needed to replace aging infrastructure to improve safety and…
The Florida Power & Light Company received approval to launch the nation’s largest community solar program called SolarTogether, according to a March 3 news release. Under the program, the utility will install 1,490 megawatts of solar at 20 new facilities across its service territory by mid-2021. The initiative is projected to yield long-term savings of…
