Bucks County’s climate lawsuit should be tossed, oil majors argue

COURTS: The legal team of the oil and gas majors want a judge to throw out the lawsuit from a suburban Philadelphia county for allegedly hiding the climate risks of their business, claiming county leaders broke the state’s Sunshine Act when agreeing to pursue legal action. (KYW; E&E News, subscription)

WIND:

• In Salem, Massachusetts, construction begins on what is planned to be the state’s second-largest offshore wind terminal, being developed on a former coal plant site. (RTO Insider, subscription)
• Ørsted books a $575 million impairment loss due in part to numerous U.S. factors, ranging from halted Ocean Wind project development, a new delay in the start of Revolution Wind operations and higher interest rates. (Reuters, Providence Journal)
• Several mid-Atlantic environmental organizations cheer the results of the Delaware and Maryland offshore wind lease auction. (news release)
• A European power producer signs a virtual power purchase agreement with Avangrid for the output of the latter’s 35 MW Casselman wind facility on a former Pennsylvania surface mine. (news release)

BUILDINGS:

• Boston’s zoning board rejects the mayor’s plan to make new buildings over 20,000 square feet in size be fossil fuel-free, a surprise move in the eyes of many observers. (Boston Globe)
• Maryland public schools are set to receive $24 million in state grants to decarbonize and electrify their buildings. (news release)

FOSSIL FUELS:

• A Pennsylvania township issues a de-facto rejection to a fossil fuel site management company to rezone 59 acres of office and commercial land to allow for oil and gas development, denying a request for a public advertising of a hearing on the matter. (Fox Chapel Herald)
• A New Jersey lawmaker says she’s optimistic her bill to incentivize electric lawn equipment purchases will get support in the legislature’s environmental committee in September. (New Jersey Herald)

UTILITIES: Central Maine Power wants the state utility commission to waive review of a plan to buy the 18.4% of shares in parent company Avangrid that it doesn’t already own by Spanish-flagged Iberdrola, claiming the deal wouldn’t hurt ratepayers despite advocates’ warnings. (Portland Press Herald)

BATTERIES:

• A New York town board considers a 12-month moratorium on battery storage systems co-located with utility-scale solar projects. (Lockport Union-Sun & Journal)
• Without having completed any utility-scale projects yet, Form Energy’s cofounder says the firm’s plan to install iron-air batteries at a former paper mill in Lincoln, Maine, to deliver 85 MW of power to the grid for up to 100 hours is ​“a very natural next step in terms of scaling up and deployments.” (Canary Media)

SOLAR:

• A developer plans a 7 MW solar project on the 23-acre site of a closed municipal landfill in Clay, New York. (news release)
• A luxury apartment building in Jersey City, New Jersey, installs a 154 kW rooftop solar system that will offset 30% of the building’s power needs. (news release)

AFFORDABILITY:

• New York utility regulators authorize National Grid to incrementally raise the average bill by roughly $60 per month by the end of three years to help pay for clean energy projects.
• Baltimore Gas and Electric’s power customers are set to see average bill increases of around $250 per year, which Maryland’s utility ratepayer advocate says is due to problems with PJM Interconnection’s grid and market planning. (Baltimore Sun)