Energy Department offers $300M to streamline transmission siting

GRID: The Department of Energy is offering $300 million in grants for states, tribal nations and local governments to streamline siting and permitting processes for transmission lines. (Utility Dive)

ALSO:
• The U.S. Energy Department awards Hawaiian Electric $95 million in the wake of the deadly Maui blaze to harden the power grid against wildfires and extreme weather. (Reuters)
• Texas begins a ​“virtual power plant” program with clusters of Tesla Powerwall customers in Houston and Dallas. (Canary Media)

WIND:
• Ørsted says supply chain issues and other delays to its New Jersey offshore wind project will cost the company more than $2 billion, but it does not plan to exit its contract. (New York Times)
• An Iowa utility reports that more than half of its electricity delivered to customers last year came from wind energy. (Cedar Rapids Gazette)

LITHIUM: A study finds an extinct volcano in northern Nevada and southern Oregon may contain the world’s largest lithium deposit in a form that is relatively environmentally friendly to extract. (Popular Science)

SOLAR: A utility serving customers in southwestern Michigan reaches its cap for a distributed generation program, limiting future residential solar customers to ​“unfair” compensation rates that critics say will halt projects. (Energy News Network)

COAL: A California company restarts a West Virginia coal-fired power plant that had been scheduled for deactivation, with plans to invest $800 million to retrofit the facility to use hydrogen. (Associated Press)

NUCLEAR: Georgia Power announces a deal to charge residential customers $7.56 billion more to pay for construction costs of the over-budget Plant Vogtle expansion. (Associated Press)

CLIMATE:
• As insurance companies exit states increasingly prone to climate-fueled disasters, the banking industry braces for the impact. (The Hill)
• An analysis finds corporate profits would plummet by trillions of dollars if companies were held liable for their impacts on climate change. (Grist)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• General Motors says all of its electric vehicle batteries will be bidirectional by 2026, meaning they can be used as an energy storage resource for the grid. (Environment + Energy Leader)
• Nissan is recycling used Nissan Leaf batteries into portable power stations, but is not yet selling the product outside Japan. (Associated Press)
• Duke Energy partners with Ford, General Motors and BMW to roll out a flat fee residential charging subscription pilot program in North Carolina beginning in November. (Utility Dive)

COMMENTARY:
• A law professor says if a climate lawsuit is filed in Pennsylvania, it ​“would go substantially beyond anything the Montana case accomplished.” (PennLive)
• The emergence of long-duration storage systems will fill in recurring gaps in wind and solar power generation and transform power production in places like Texas, writes an energy columnist. (Triple Pundit)