Battery installations surge in Texas and U.S.

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STORAGE

• Battery installations surge in Texas and beyond, defying Trump’s attacks on clean energy to account for roughly a quarter of all grid installations this year and threaten plans for new gas, diesel, and coal plants. (E&E News)

• Georgia Power issues a request for proposals as it seeks to procure 500 MW of grid-charging battery storage power. (news release)

SOLAR

• Solar company Blue Ridge Power, a subsidiary of Pine Gate Renewables, announces it will lay off 517 workers in North Carolina and end its business due to the Republican rollback of clean energy subsidies. (Business North Carolina)

• A new Texas law streamlines the permitting process for residential solar projects to enable them to be permitted and installed within a week, streamlining a previous ​“patchwork of regulations” that often resulted in multi-month delays. (Houston Chronicle)

• Candy company Mars signs a series of contracts with Enel North America to generate 1.8 TWh annually to help decarbonize its supply chain. (Utility Dive)

FOSSIL FUELS

• A new report finds west Texas, which is home to the Permian Basin and produces about 40% of the United States’ crude oil, lacks adequate infrastructure to convert oil and gas into electricity that can power the growing data center sector. (Texas Tribune)

• The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health provides free black lung screenings at an event in West Virginia. (WBOY)

GRID

• Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin calls for regional grid operator PJM to re-open its process for nominating board members to give its member states more say in how it operates, as it faces rising power demand from data centers, questionable demand forecasts, and a multi-year backlog of new generation projects. (Reuters, Richmond Times-Dispatch)

• Dozens of data centers are popping up in rural central Texas, raising concerns among residents about water, power, and their quality of life. (Houston Chronicle)

• Nashville, Tennessee residents oppose a 12 MW data center that they say threatens a largely Black neighborhood. (WKRN)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• Volvo looks to rejuvenate an underutilized South Carolina factory that makes an all-electric SUV by adding more popular models, including a gas-powered SUV and a hybrid vehicle. (South Carolina Daily Gazette)

• Chattanooga, Tennessee, city council members withdraw a proposed resolution to stand in solidarity with the United Auto Workers in its negotiations with Volkswagen. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

NUCLEAR

• Jacksonville, Florida’s municipal utility’s deal to buy power from nuclear Plant Vogtle escalated with the plant’s way-over-budget expansion, disrupting its credit rating and resulting in a pending rate hike. (Florida Politics, WJXT)

HYDROELECTRIC

• Tennessee Valley Authority officials say the utility’s dams prevented $186 million of flood damage in Chattanooga, Tennessee, after Hurricane Helene. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

EMISSIONS

• Republican attorneys general in Kentucky and West Virginia lead a group of 24 others to press the Trump administration to rescind the U.S. EPA’s 2009 ​“endangerment” finding that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare, which provided the legal underpinning for federal regulations. (Kentucky Lantern)

• Texas regulators approve a $13,125 penalty for Chevron Phillips due to the unauthorized release of 597 pounds of volatile organic compounds from a Port Arthur facility in 2022. (Houston Chronicle)

CLIMATE

• Tangier Island, one of the last inhabited islands of Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay, has lost two-thirds of its landmass to erosion and sea rise since 1850 and could be completely underwater in the next 50 years. (NPR)

• Congressional gridlock over a short-term spending bill could lead to a lapse in the National Flood Insurance Program and leave thousands of Texans vulnerable during hurricane season. (Houston Chronicle)

COMMENTARY

• Solar and storage-equipped households provide a safety net for homeowners, relieve strain on the power grid, and let Floridians prepare for inevitable power outages during hurricanes, writes a professor. (Tampa Bay Times)

• A Virginia county’s proposal to attract tech companies and data centers by making zoning changes that would allow a small modular nuclear reactor has drawn hundreds of opponents and is testing whether the public will accept such projects, writes an editor. (Cardinal News)

NEW FROM CANARY 

• Revolution Wind’s stop-work order has been lifted. What happens next? — Clare Fieseler

• Glassmaking needs lots of heat. Can electric furnaces provide it? — Maria Gallucci

• States get a blueprint to speed up heat-pump adoption — Alison F. Takemura

• Plug-in solar bills are in the works in New Hampshire and Vermont — Sarah Shemkus

• New California law could expand energy trading across the West — Jeff St. John