The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Oct. 2 ordered another halt to construction activity on all portions of the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline. The court ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers had instituted inadequate requirements for how the pipeline should cross streams in West Virginia, just a few weeks…
Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, released Virginia’s new energy plan which provides a strategic vision for the commonwealth’s energy policy over the next 10 years. The plan is the implementation strategy of the Grid Transformation and Security Act (Senate Bill 966), signed into law earlier this year. Among other things, the legislation includes 3,000 megawatts…
PJM Interconnection LLC on Oct. 2 unveiled a proposal addressing a June 29 directive from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to revamp the capacity market rules to address price distortion as the participation of sources receiving out-of-market state revenues continues to grow. The plan proposes an expanded minimum offer price rule or MOPR that would…
U.S. net natural gas exports averaged 0.87 billion cubic feet per day during the first six months of this year, more than double the amount during all of 2017, which marked the first time the U.S. became a net exporter in almost 60 years, according to an Oct. 1 report from the U.S. Energy Information…
The U.S. Energy Department announced the funding to support research partnerships that will facilitate next-generation technologies to advance cybersecurity and resilience of the electric grid and oil and natural gas infrastructure, according to an Oct. 1 press release. The projects will take innovative approaches such as redesigning existing architecture that makes the grid vulnerable to…
The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on Sept. 28 updated the 2016 well control rule, one of the spate of safety regulations implemented in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill that spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over nearly three months. The agency said…
The Michigan Public Service Commission on Sept. 28 approved settlements that will return a total of about $7.6 million under the second round of federal tax cut adjustments to electric customers of Alpena Power Co. and Upper Michigan Energy Resources Corp., and gas customers of Michigan Gas Utility Corp., Northern States Power, SEMCO Energy Gas…
U.S. President Donald Trump signed legislation on Sept. 28 that requires mergers or consolidations of public utilities with a value above $10 million to be first approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. For transactions valued below that threshold but above $1 million, the law requires the utilities seeking merger to notify the commission within…
U.S. President Donald Trump signed legislation that will eliminate financial and technological barriers to nuclear innovation, according to a Sept. 28 press release from the U.S. Energy Department. The department said the legislation builds on the success of its Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear or GAIN initiative, which seeks to enable the industrial community…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Sept. 27 upheld New York’s zero emission credit program adopted in August 2016 to support the state’s financially struggling nuclear plants. The ruling rejects complaints that the program depresses energy and capacity prices in the wholesale power auction overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.…
The California Air Resources Board extended its low-carbon fuel standard, mandating a 20 percent cut in the carbon intensity of transportation fuels by 2030, compared with the current requirement of 10 percent by 2020, according to the agency’s Sept. 27 press release. The requirement, “the most stringent in the nation,” aligns with the state’s 2030…
