The Maine Department of Environmental Protection on May 11 granted a permit allowing Central Maine Power Company to build its New England Clean Energy Connect, a transmission project designed to deliver up to 1.2 gigawatts of Canadian hydropower into the Northeast. The proposed 145-mile high-voltage power line would cross western Maine to supply Massachusetts with…...
The U.S. Energy Department on May 14 released a request for proposals to buy up to one million barrels of sweet crude oil produced by domestic producers amid an unprecedented drop in demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The oil will be delivered to Strategic Petroleum Reserve sites located in Bayou Choctaw, Big Hill, and…...
The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management on May 11 approved the Gemini Solar Project, a proposed 690-megawatt facility, located about 33 miles northeast of Las Vegas. The $1 billion project, which includes 380 megawatts of battery storage, is expected to be the eighth largest in the world. The project will serve NV Energy…...
The U.S. Agriculture Department on May 5 issued a notice of funding of up to $100 million in competitive grants for projects designed to boost the sale and use of renewable fuels under the Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentive Program, or HBIIP. The initiative will offer cost-share grants of up to 50 percent of project costs,…...
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on May 8 issued a policy statement providing guidance on the agency’s response to the effects of the COVID-19 mitigation measures on oil pipelines. The commission said it will act expeditiously on requests for certain temporary waivers or extensions of time for compliance with certain regulations. The commission said it…...
U.S. coal-fired generation dropped by 16 percent last year, reaching 966,000 gigawatt-hours, the lowest since 1976, according to a May 11 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The decrease was largely driven by increased output from natural gas-fired plants and wind generation facilities. Lower power demand in 2019 also contributed to the fall in…...
U.S. President Donald Trump on May 1 issued an executive order prohibiting the acquisition or installation of bulk-power system equipment in which a foreign country has an interest if the transaction raises national security concerns. The move aims to protect the system from foreign adversaries that are increasingly creating and exploiting the vulnerabilities of the…...
The Arkansas Public Service Commission on May 5 approved a settlement agreement, allowing Southwestern Electric Power Co. to acquire up to 810 megawatts of wind energy from three projects in Oklahoma. The company will invest $1.01 billion to own 54.5 percent of a 1,485-megawatt portfolio of wind projects, which it plans to buy with Public…...
Dominion Energy Inc. on May 1 filed its 2020 integrated resource plan with the Virginia State Corporation Commission, reflecting the targets of the Clean Economy Act, which requires the company to produce its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045. Under the proposal, the company proposes to add 6.7 to 18.8 gigawatts of solar over the…...
The Midcontinent Independent System Operator Inc. anticipates summer power demand to peak at 125 gigawatts, with 152 gigawatts of available capacity to meet the need, according to an April 29 news release. The grid operator said that impacts to the outage schedule from COVID-19 have been minor and no reliability impacts are foreseen due to…...
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on April 29 proposed regulations to advance the state’s portion of the 30 percent emissions cap reduction from 2021 to 2030, under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, which established the nation’s first regional program to cap and reduce power sector emissions. Following the program update,…...
Natural gas markets have a tendency to react to regional factors while crude oil markets respond swiftly and most times drastically to world events, according to a April 29 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The correlation of daily price movements across the West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, and Brent are typically above 0.90…....
