Good morning. Around the country, Republican lawmakers are taking a new look at community solar programs. As Alison F. Takemura reports in today’s top story, Georgia lawmakers strongly considered a community solar bill before the legislative session ended — perhaps not all that surprising given clean energy’s growing foothold in the state.
Elsewhere, South Carolina’s state-owned utility approves a new rate for large data centers, and Texas grid officials are more than doubling the capacity of power lines to the oil-and-gas-rich Permian Basin.
TODAY'S TOP NEWS
SOLAR
Georgia Republicans sponsored a bill to develop community solar that ultimately failed during the legislative session, but still serves as an example of growing conservative support for renewables. (Canary Media)
Vietnamese manufacturer Boviet Solar opens a $294 million solar panel factory in North Carolina. (Electrek, news release)
Solar development sets three peak records and propels renewables to surpass coal-fired generation in the PJM market. (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
Texas lawmakers look to crack down on fraud and deceptive sales practices in the state’s rooftop solar industry. (CBS News)
The University of Louisiana at Lafayette dedicates a campus building as a federal solar research lab. (KATC)
UTILITIES
South Carolina state-owned utility Santee Cooper approves a temporary “experimental” rate that’s intended to ensure energy-intensive data centers pay for the power they use instead of passing it along to other utility customers. (South Carolina Daily Gazette)
GRID
Texas regulators approve the state grid operator’s $33 billion plan to build a new 765,000-volt transmission backbone to the Permian Basin that will carry more than twice the power of current lines. (Houston Chronicle)
Dominion Energy asks Virginia regulators to approve $121 million for substations and seven miles of power lines for a planned hyperscale data center. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
A Louisiana grid operator blames generators and transmission lines being taken offline for maintenance for a weekend power outage that affected about 30,000 customers. (KTBS)
FOSSIL FUELS
A Florida judge says the state should reject a permit to drill for oil near the Apalachicola River because the Florida Department of Environmental Protection didn’t adequately consider the proximity of the well to nearby streams, wetlands and ponds. (Florida Phoenix, News Service of Florida)
ConocoPhillips employees brace for layoffs as the company considers restructuring after a merger with Marathon Oil, which announced last year it would cut more than 500 people as part of the deal. (Houston Chronicle)
WIND
South Korean company LS Greenlink breaks ground on a $700 million undersea cable manufacturing factory in Virginia. (WHRO)
RENEWABLES
Texas lawmakers consider bills to impose new requirements on renewables that critics worry would hamper wind and solar and decrease grid reliability. (Utility Dive)
HYDROGEN
A company announces a new hydrogen production and refueling station for heavy trucks in Georgia. (news release)
NUCLEAR
Federal officials reissue a tender for $900 million in federal funding to support small nuclear reactor development, with a Tennessee group among those likely to submit a proposal for funding. (Reuters)
CARBON CAPTURE
Exxon Mobil reaches a deal to capture, move, and store up to 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually from a Calpine power plant near Houston. (Politico)
COMMENTARY
South Carolina’s consideration of reviving construction of a nuclear power plant could stick ratepayers with likely ballooning costs while creating radioactive waste when there’s still no long-term repository in the U.S., writes a former state regulator. (South Carolina Daily Gazette)
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