The New York Public Service Commission will hold a joint public forum of the Indian Point Closure Task Force and Decommissioning Oversight Board established to provide guidance and support for communities affected by the three-unit Indian Point Energy Center ceasing operations. The task force is charged with exploring ways to mitigate local tax and workforce impacts and evaluate new economic opportunities and initiatives, as well as identifying a decommissioning timeline that is in the interest of local communities. The oversight board is required to assess ways to protect the interest of affected communities including current workforce and public safety. Indian Point, which had a capacity of 1,040 megawatts, shut down its last nuclear reactor on April 30, 2021, marking the end of 59 years of continuous power generation.

The Ohio Public Utilities Commission is due to receive reply briefs on Oak Run Solar Project LLC’s application to build an up to 800-megawatt solar project. The company proposes to construct a solar-powered electric generation facility, up to 300 megawatts of battery storage facilities, substations, and associated transmission line. The project is expected to occupy approximately 4,400 acres within a 6,050-acre project area in Madison County, Ohio.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities is due to receive applications in response to its third offshore wind solicitation, which seeks to secure offshore wind renewable energy certificates targeting at least 1,200 megawatts of capacity, up to 4,000 megawatts. The board initially set a submission deadline of June 23, but issued an extension in order to allow applicants more time to develop their applications. The first solicitation issued in September 2018 resulted in the approval of Ocean Wind LLC’s 1,100-megawatt project in June 2019. The second solicitation issued in September 2020 resulted in the approval of two projects in June 2021: Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Project 1 LLC’s 1,510-megawatt project and Ocean Wind II LLC’s 1,148-megawatt project. READ MORE

The Iowa Utilities Board will hold a meeting to discuss MidAmerican Energy’s application for adjustments of retail rates and charges applicable to natural gas services. The Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary’s requested overall increase in annual revenues for all customer classes combined is $37.9 million, or six percent of total annual revenue. The company has implemented a temporary rate increase of approximately $28.9 million, or 14.5 percent, effective June 22, 2023. The utility filed its last rate case in 2002. Additional meetings will be held on Aug. 1 and 3. RPU-2023-0001

The California Energy Commission seeks input on the use of virtual power plant, or VPP, approaches for increased demand flexibility. The commission recently held a workshop focused on community-owned VPP models including a panel session with presentations from industry representatives such as load-serving entities and their technology service providers. Accelerating demand flexibility is a key strategy to reduce emissions and meet the state’s climate and clean energy goals reliably and affordably. Virtual power plants are a portfolio of distributed energy resources such as smart thermostats, rooftop solar PV, electric vehicles, batteries, and smart water heaters that are actively controlled to provide benefits to the power system, consumers, and the environment. While these resources have the potential to provide the same reliability as conventional alternatives such as gas-fired generators, research is needed to unlock their potential. 23-ERDD-01

The California Independent System Operator Corp. will hold a working group meeting to discuss the second track of its 2023 Interconnection Process Enhancements, or IPE, initiative aimed to enhance coordination of resource procurement and interconnection, resource planning, and transmission planning to achieve state reliability and policy needs. The Track 2 discussion paper includes proposed principles for the initiative including prioritizing interconnection zones where transmission capacity exists or new transmission has been approved and limiting the amount of studies to reasonable capacity volumes that align with state resource planning. At a recent meeting, the grid operator held a discussion on interconnection queue management.