ERCOT overhauls data center interconnection

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.

DATA CENTERS

• ERCOT votes to speed the process of interconnecting data centers to the grid by evaluating batches of projects at once, and to require that data centers and cryptocurrency-mining facilities stay online during brief grid disruptions. (Houston Public Media, E&E News)

• Mississippi utility regulators decline to say whether Prado AI can move forward with plans to build a data center and accompanying power generation, a ruling utilities Entergy and Mississippi Power oppose as they say Prado’s power plant would make it a public utility subject to state oversight. (Mississippi Today)

UTILITIES

• Alabama’s utility commission races heat up as one GOP incumbent is ousted in a primary and another is sent to a runoff, and as a Democratic nominee sues to block a new law that would allegedly make the commission ​“substantially subordinate to the executive branch.” (Inside Climate News, Inside Climate News)

CLEAN ENERGY

• North Carolina Republican House lawmakers fast-track a bill that would prevent baseload power plants from shutting down until they can be replaced with nuclear power, leading one Democrat to question why renewables couldn’t be used to meet demand more quickly and cheaply. (NC Newsline)

SOLAR

• SEG Solar announces it’ll build a third U.S. factory in Texas to produce solar panels and is searching for a location to construct a solar cell factory. (Reuters)

• The Florida Department of Transportation grants D3Energy the sole right to develop floating solar power systems on state DOT-managed stormwater ponds across the state. (PV Magazine)

• Vesper Energy secures $236 million in debt financing to build a 210 MW solar project in Swisher County, Texas, right next to an existing 600 MW solar development. (Power Technology)

• Starting next year, Virginia residents will be able to install balcony solar panels, with regulations requiring owners to inform their power providers when they plug in the panels. (Washingtonian)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• Kentucky announces a fourth request for proposals under its EV Charging Program, seeking companies to build, operate, and maintain chargers across urban and rural areas. (Kentucky Today)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Plugging West Virginia’s oil and gas wells could cost an estimated $5 billion, but the state has only provided a fraction of the funding necessary to do so. (Marketplace)

• A new analysis finds the U.S. Gulf Coast has become the country’s ​“emergency fuel hub” as the Trump administration’s suspension of the Jones Act has allowed more liquid fuels to head from American refineries to American ports. (New Orleans City Business)

COAL

• A federal judge rules that the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement hasn’t done enough to ensure endangered species are protected from coal mining activities in Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. (E&E News)

NEW FROM CANARY

• 7 states sue to stop Trump’s offshore wind deal with TotalEnergies — Maria Gallucci

• In Massachusetts, parked EVs will start feeding the grid this summer — Sarah Shemkus

• DOE bars homes from using rebates to ditch fossil-fueled heating — Dan Gearino

• Indiana coal plant that Trump forced to stay open is not operating — Kari Lydersen

• California makes controversial change to cap-and-invest program — Jeff St. John

• A safer nuclear fuel is gaining steam — but cost remains a hurdle — Alexander C. Kaufman