Lawmakers in California quickly approved legislation providing investor-owned utilities with $21 billion to help them pay for wildfire damages linked to their transmission equipment. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill on July 12. The bill gives companies two options. One is a $10.5 billion state-backed line of credit to pay for wildfire damages that…
North Carolina lawmakers approved a measure on July 8 allowing charging stations to resell kilowatt-hours purchased from an electric utility to the public, in a bid to encourage private investment in charging infrastructure. The bill determines that operators of these stations are not public utilities. Under the legislation, charging stations must be immobile and entities…
Vineyard Wind LLC on July 12 announced it will seek an order from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to overrule the Edgartown Conservation Commission’s denial of a permit to install offshore transmission cables. The decision came after the U.S. Interior Department informed that it was not yet prepared to issue a final environmental review,…
Minnesota Power, a unit of ALLETE Inc., proposed a rate adjustment to recover the costs related to on-going transmission projects, which include the 500-kilovolt Great Northern Transmission Line that will deliver 383 megawatts of hydropower from Manitoba Hydro beginning in 2020, according to a July 9 filing with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. The company…
U.S. utility-scale battery capacity is expected to nearly triple by the end of 2023 if planned additions of about 1,623 megawatts come online as scheduled, according to a July 10 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Grid-scale battery capacity more than quadrupled to almost 900 megawatts in March 2019 from 214 megawatts at the…
The New York Department of Public Service on July 1 released a unit-by-unit study of replacing or repowering peaking units, which are fossil‐fuel generators that typically operate during high demand periods. The analysis identified at least 275 megawatts, representing about 6 percent of the state’s peaking fleet, as potential candidates for substitution with 6-hour batteries…
The California state Assembly approved a measure requiring the Public Utilities Commission to earmark 10 percent of the 2020 funds from the Self Generation Incentive Program to install battery storage and distributed energy systems, in order to back up critical infrastructure in areas facing high wildfire risks. The allocation would amount to $16.6 million funded…
New Hampshire lawmakers have approved legislation that allows municipalities and counties to aggregate retail electric customers who do not opt out of a program. Currently, community choice is allowed only for residents who consent to being included in a program. The bill allows municipalities to operate energy efficiency and clean energy districts adopted with the…
The Virginia State Corporation Commission accepted Dominion Energy Inc.’s revised integrated resource plan, finding that it meets the minimum legal and regulatory requirements, according to a June 27 order. The agency warned that the plan may understate the costs facing customers, noting that it does not include the multi-billion dollar expenses of the statutorily mandated…
The California Public Utilities Commission launched a probe against Southern California Gas Company to determine the fines and penalties to be imposed for the failures and systemic issues that led to the four-month gas leak from the disastrous blowout at the Aliso Canyon storage facility in October 2015, according to a June 27 news release.…
The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority initiated a proceeding to examine the value of distributed energy resources, according to a July 3 notice. The move stems from legislation enacted in June directing the agencies to launch a joint study and report their findings to the joint standing…
The Public Service Company of New Mexico, a unit of PNM Resources Inc., asked the Public Regulation Commission to approve its plan to retire 497 megawatts of the San Juan Generating Station coal-fired plant in 2022 after the current coal supply and operating agreements expire, according to a July 1 filing. The company evaluated four…