Duke cancels offshore wind farm

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.

OFFSHORE WIND

• The Trump administration says it will pay Duke Energy $129 million to abandon its offshore wind project off North Carolina, which the utility says it will reinvest in gas and nuclear power projects. (New York Times)

HYDROGEN

• Air Products cancels its plans to build a $4.5 billion hydrogen project in Ascension County, Louisiana, which aimed to produce hydrogen using natural gas and capture the resulting emissions. (Baton Rouge Business Report)

POLITICS

• Virginia’s General Assembly adopts Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s (D) budget bill amendments and advances the legislation, which includes a statewide energy consumption tax on data centers. (Cardinal News)

SOLAR

• Misinformation about solar farms’ impacts on health, safety, and property values that spread throughout Louisiana’s Iberia Parish led local leaders to establish a moratorium and then setback rules for large-scale solar projects — the latter of which effectively killed a large-scale solar project. (The Lens)

• A North Carolina House committee advances legislation that would end a property tax break for new large-scale solar projects, a move opponents say would discourage the construction of much-needed power generation. (WRAL)

UTILITIES

• State lawmakers in Florida and Virginia say they’ll do what they can to scrutinize the proposed merger between Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy, warning the utilities together would form a huge, hard-to-regulate entity. (E&E News)

• Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) urges FERC to reject a merger between Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy, citing NextEra’s alleged anticompetitive actions in the Northeast. (Utility Dive)

• Consumer advocates and renewable energy groups call on the Kentucky Public Service Commission to investigate rising energy costs and consider demand-side management, performance-based ratemaking, and other strategies to tackle them. (Kentucky Lantern)

HEAT WAVE

• Ahead of high temperatures hitting the eastern U.S. this week, grid operator PJM gets federal approval to make data centers and other large loads use backup generators and require power plants to operate even if they exceed pollution limits. (Maryland Matters)

STORAGE

• San Antonio municipal utility CPS Energy is seeking proposals to build two battery storage projects totalling 20 MW, with aims to use one for a microgrid. (San Antonio Express-News)

CARBON CAPTURE

• BKV Corporation announces two carbon capture and sequestration projects have begun operations in Texas. (news release)