National Grid plc completed a $100 million transaction through its competitive non-regulated unit National Grid Ventures, acquiring Geronimo Energy LLC, a prominent wind and solar developer in North America, according to July 15 news release. The company also entered into an agreement with the Washington State Investment Board for a 51 percent stake in a…
The Public Service Co. of Oklahoma and Southwestern Electric Power Co. are seeking regulatory approval to buy three wind projects, with a combined capacity of 1,485 megawatts, that are being developed by Invenergy LLC in Oklahoma, according to a July 15 filing with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. The projects were selected through a competitive solicitation…
The Maine Public Utilities Commission on July 12 approved a 20-year contract for a Weaver Wind LLC’s 72.6 megawatt wind power project, which is expected to come online by the end of 2020. The commission determined that the contract price of 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour, which is set to increase at 2.5 percent annually,…
Battery storage has long held the promise of eventually replacing the costliest, most-polluting fossil-fuel fired generators that are used to meet surging electricity demand on the grid. That day may now be upon us as costs of batteries plummet and as state regulators from Massachusetts to Arizona weigh new incentives for the technology.
Carbon emissions from coal are expected to fall by 169 million metric tons in 2019, the largest decline since 2015, due largely to changes in the electricity mix with natural gas becoming the dominant power generation fuel, according to a July 15 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. energy-related emissions are projected to…
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…
