California solar advocates complain utilities lag in grid connections

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SOLAR

• California solar advocates file a formal complaint against PG&E and Southern California Edison for missing state-mandated deadlines to connect solar panels to the power grid as much as 73% of the time. (Cal Matters)

• The Trump administration announces the cancellation of the massive, 6.2 GW Esmeralda 7 solar project in Nevada due to its federal permitting pause. (Heatmap)

• Idaho regulators approve Idaho Power’s plan to cut the export credit rates it pays to rooftop solar users by nearly a third. (BoiseDev)

NUCLEAR

• Holtec halts plans to build a site to temporarily store commercial nuclear waste in New Mexico, citing state officials’ opposition. (Axios)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• California regulators approve EV charger reliability and data-sharing rules, the first statewide requirements of their kind. (E&E News)

• Colorado announces it’s received federal approval to continue spending a $56.5 million grant plus $12 million in new money to install high-speed EV chargers. (Colorado Public Radio)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Republican U.S. senators vote to roll back a land management plan and expand mining, drilling, and development in Alaska, Montana, and North Dakota as part of Trump’s push to expand energy production on public lands. (Associated Press, E&E News)

• Congressional Republicans move to use the little-used Congressional Review Act to override the Bureau of Land Management’s Biden-era environmental impact statement and encourage more coal leasing in Wyoming. (WyoFile)

• Sable Offshore Corp. seeks the Trump administration’s approval to use tanker ships to bypass California regulators’ delay in approving its plan to reopen pipelines and allow it to access crude oil off the coast of Santa Barbara. (Bloomberg)

• Oregon regulators award an air quality permit that will allow Zenith Energy to continue to ship and store fuel in Portland, Oregon’s industrial district. (Oregon Public Broadcasting)

CLEAN ENERGY

• During a panel discussion at a climate summit, Colorado utility and rural co-op officials largely express support for continuing pursuit of renewables and clean energy goals despite the Trump administration’s rollback of tax credits and addition of permitting barriers. (Aspen Public Radio)

• The U.S. Energy Department’s termination of 321 grants totaling $7.5 billion for clean energy projects includes 34 in Colorado and three totaling $20 million in Boulder County. (Boulder Reporting Lab)

GEOTHERMAL

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs legislation to expand state regulators’ streamlined certification program to accelerate project approvals for geothermal energy, while vetoing another bill to speed up approvals of exploratory wells. (Utility Dive)

BIOFUELS

• Renewable gas and biofuels company Aemetis Inc. announces a $30 million energy efficiency upgrade to reduce carbon emissions from its ethanol plant in California. (news release)

• Utility Global partners with Maas Energy Works to develop a commercial project in California to use dairy digester biogas to produce hydrogen fuel. (news release)

MINERALS

• The Trump administration has moved to take partial ownership of three critical minerals companies with operations or plans in Nevada, California, and Alaska and it seeks to secure supply chains to prevent restrictions from China. (E&E News)

• Federal regulators approve Wyoming-based DISA Technologies’ license to remediate uranium mine waste into usable fuel and other minerals. (news release)

GRID

• Los Angeles has become another national destination for data centers, but localities there seem to welcome the trend without apparent opposition from residents and businesses. (Inside Climate News)

EMISSIONS

• California researchers demonstrate a new tool allowing them to visualize and better track the source of particulate emissions. (CBS News)

CLIMATE

• A California developer opens a ​“conservation community” between Sacramento and San Francisco with extra protection against flooding and wildfires. (CBS News)

COMMENTARY

• Idaho is taking steps to promote and attract nuclear energy development, writes an analyst for the Mountain States Policy Center. (Idaho Capital Sun)

NEW FROM CANARY 

• Chart: In a first, world gets more power from renewables than coal — Dan McCarthy

• Base Power hauls $1B for mass deployment of huge home batteries — Julian Spector

• Is Trump about to squash America’s carbon-removal moonshot? — Maria Gallucci

• America’s biggest offshore wind farm will be online in six months — Clare Fieseler

• How data centers can move fast without breaking things — Jeff St. John