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Automakers pivot from EVs to grid-scale batteries

By Mason Adams

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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.

STORAGE

  • Ford and Tesla are pivoting away from electric vehicles to focus on making grid-scale batteries for data centers and utilities. (New York Times)
  • Texas-based Base Power is expanding even as the Trump administration cuts clean energy programs, raising $1 billion last fall and building a factory in Texas for its distributed-battery business. (Politico)
  • Virginia lawmakers advance legislation that would allow batteries to be built as an accessory on already-approved solar farms. (Cardinal News)

FOSSIL FUELS

  • Mississippi residents near a large Chevron refinery press for the oil company or other industrial facilities to buy their homes due to air pollution, which they expect will get worse if the facility begins processing Venezuelan oil. (New York Times)
  • Federal regulators approve a license for Sentinel Midstream to build a deepwater port near Texas to allow for the export of up to 1 million barrels of crude oil per day. (Reuters)
  • A Houston-area employment forecast finds that lower oil prices, corporate consolidation, and efficiency gains will lead to thousands of job losses in the oil and gas sector this year. (Houston Chronicle)
  • A natural gas pipeline to an offshore Delfin liquefied natural gas project in Louisiana explodes, injuring one person. (KPLC, Bloomberg)
  • West Virginia officials say they’ve contained a transformer oil spill, recovering 10,000 gallons of an oil-and-water mixture before it reached water intakes downstream. (WV Metro News)

GRID

  • Siemens Energy commits $1 billion to expand, restart, and build factories in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, and Texas to make gas turbines and power grid equipment. (E&E News)
  • Virginia lawmakers advance bills to require state officials and Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power to assess the utilization and efficiency of the utilities’ transmission and distribution systems to find ways to more efficiently use the grid. (VPM)

SOLAR

  • The Trump administration’s clampdown on clean energy has slowed solar development in rural areas, even as farmers look to the sector to supplement their income. (Daily Yonder)
  • Social media company Meta agrees to buy power from a 136-MW solar farm in Texas. (Renewables Now)

WIND

  • Dominion Energy increases its cost estimate for its offshore wind farm by $300 million, largely due to the Trump administration’s tariffs and its stop-work order in December. (Virginia Business)

EMISSIONS

  • Virginia lawmakers advance a bill to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a regional carbon market that Republican former Gov. Glenn Youngkin had pushed to leave. (WRIC)

DATA CENTERS

  • Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Don Moul tells investors the utility expects data centers in its territory to double the amount of power they use by 2030. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)
  • The Tennessee Valley Authority considers adding a new rate class to charge data centers and other large users a higher rate for power. (Knoxville News Sentinel)
  • Tighter local rules and growing opposition are pushing data center developers to look outside two key counties where they’re concentrated in Northern Virginia. (Virginia Business)
  • Virginia lawmakers have already introduced nearly 30 bills related to regulating data centers this session, as new Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger pledges to make sure ​“that high energy users pay their fair share.” (Cardinal News)
  • Florida lawmakers advance legislation to protect residents from the effects of large-scale data centers while also giving the companies a new public records exemption. (Florida Politics)
  • Texas is seeing so many data centers that the state grid operator is considering whether to reevaluate some previously approved projects. (Bloomberg)
  • A Kentucky lawmaker introduces legislation intended to ensure ratepayers don’t end up footing the bill for power costs related to data centers. (WEHT)

UTILITIES

  • Nashville, Tennessee’s municipal utility responds to criticism about outages and lack of communication during Winter Storm Fern. (Nashville Banner, WKRN)
  • After widespread outages during Winter Storm Fern, Tennessee lawmakers file legislation to push utilities for better transparency and long-term reliability. (WTVF)

COMMENTARY

  • Democratic Virginia lawmakers’ moves to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative will allow the state to invest revenue into resilience and energy efficiency, benefitting not just coastal areas but the entire state, writes an editorial board. (Virginian-Pilot/Daily Press)
  • Virginia had to rely on fossil fuels to meet high power demand during Winter Storm Fern, in part because it doesn’t have the hydroelectric facilities that many communities in colder climates use to supplement renewables, writes an editor. (Cardinal News)

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