America’s largest solar cell factory opens in Georgia

This roundup of energy news headlines comes from our Southeast Energy News newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.

SOLAR

• Qcells officially begins production of silicon solar cells at its Georgia factory, with plans to ramp up production to a 3.3 GW capacity that will more than double the country’s current solar-cell manufacturing capabilities. (Canary Media, Korea Herald)

POLITICS

• Republican North Carolina lawmakers advance sweeping energy legislation they say will reduce energy costs and protect ratepayers from data center-driven price hikes, but which block Duke Energy from retiring old, expensive coal-fired power plants until it receives a state permit for a sizable new nuclear facility. (Canary Media)

• Oklahoma’s attorney general sues to block Emirates Global Aluminum and Century Aluminum from building a $4 billion smelter that would more than double the nation’s capacity for aluminum production, essentially making the facility a campaign issue as he runs to win the Republican nomination for governor. (Canary Media)

EMISSIONS

• Dominion Energy asks Virginia regulators to approve a surcharge to cover the cost of allowances it will need to buy from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and floats the idea of repurposing money from its carbon auctions toward customer rebates instead of energy-efficiency and flood-preparedness programs. (Richmond Times-Dispatch, Cardinal News)

COAL

• Sources say the Trump administration spiked a multi-agency criminal investigation into whether coal companies owned by Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia violated the Clean Water Act through tens of thousands of alleged violations in multiple states. (ProPublica)

• The DOE orders a Florida coal plant slated to retire last year to keep running, continuing the Trump administration’s efforts to keep old fossil-fueled facilities online to prevent a dubious energy emergency. (Inside Climate News)

OIL & GAS

• Data show independent firms are ramping up oil and gas drilling in the Permian Basin, but analysts say the resulting production boost won’t bring down oil prices. (E&E News)

• Mississippi residents file a class-action lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI and a subsidiary over ​“near-constant noise, vibrations, and other nuisance-level harms” from the mobile gas turbines it uses to power its data centers in Memphis, Tennessee. (Mississippi Today)

UTILITIES

• Virginia consumer and clean energy advocates push for state officials and regulators to establish strong protections for affordability, transparency, competition, and grid modernization before approving the proposed merger of NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy. (Virginia Center for Investigative Reporting)

• The Tennessee Valley Authority board overhauls its executive compensation framework in response to a presidential directive, capping the CEO’s pay and removing utilities with significantly more revenue from its benchmarking peer comparison group. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

NUCLEAR

• Antares Nuclear successfully brings a nuclear reactor to criticality using a new type of fuel produced by BWX Technologies in Virginia. (Cardinal News)

DATA CENTERS

• Texas’ grid operator reports more than 480 proposed data centers have requested to connect to the grid by 2032, representing more than 418 GW, which is nearly five times the grid’s all-time power demand record. (Houston Chronicle)

• A Texas county board that two weeks ago passed a one-year moratorium on new data centers unanimously votes to rescind the measure after a data center developer sues it for $100 million. (Texas Tribune)

• Kentucky localities are enacting measures to at least temporarily block data centers due to significant opposition from residents and a lack of action by state officials. (Kentucky Lantern)

• Asheville, North Carolina’s city council considers a data center moratorium. (Asheville Citizen-Times)