How a funeral director helped launch wind energy in Missouri

This roundup of energy news headlines comes from our Midwest Energy News newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox each morning.

WIND

• A Missouri funeral director in the mid-2000s spearheaded wind energy development in his home county, where the industry now provides more than half of the county’s property tax revenue and produces more energy than is used. (New York Times)

• Iowa remains a U.S. powerhouse in wind energy production in a state that’s reliably Republican, raising questions about whether conservatives would push back against President Trump’s anti-wind views. (Vox)

ADVOCACY

• U.S. environmental groups are preparing to defend against potential Trump administration efforts to strip their nonprofit status as they work to fight the climate crisis. (Inside Climate News)

COAL

• A western Michigan county considers taking legal action against Consumers Energy to prevent the early retirement of a large coal plant that’s set to come offline at the end of May. (WOOD-TV8)

NUCLEAR

• A group of Wisconsin Democrats and Republicans seek to use state funding for nuclear energy research and give it the same clean energy status as wind and solar, hoping the fuel source can play a bigger role as demand increases. (Capital Times)

RENEWABLES

• Ann Arbor, Michigan, now offsets more than 70% of the power for city operations with renewable energy and is installing a growing number of behind-the-meter solar projects. (MLive)

PIPELINES

• Michigan pipeline advocates hope state officials step in with more scrutiny of a proposal to build an underground tunnel for Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signaled plans to fast-track the process. (Michigan Public)

GRID

• Clean energy groups urge federal regulators to reject MISO’s proposal that would allow power plant owners to use a different grid interconnection point when building a generating facility that replaces a retiring plant, arguing that it discriminates against other projects in the queue. (Utility Dive)

UTILITIES

• A northern Michigan utility seeks an exemption from a state law requiring utilities to issue customer bill credits for prolonged outages, following a historic ice storm that executives called an ​“act of God.” (MLive)

• Ameren’s latest rate increase request pending with Missouri regulators to help upgrade aging infrastructure comes as a new law allows utilities to recover costs for capital projects before they’re completed. (FOX 2)

SOLAR

• A Wisconsin window manufacturer installs a nearly 1 MW rooftop solar project that’s expected to offset nearly one-third of the plant’s power needs. (Solar Power World)

• DTE Energy is set to complete an 80 MW solar project in central Michigan that’s part of the utility’s broader renewable energy buildout. (MLive)

COMMENTARY

• Congress needs to protect tax incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act that make it easier for schools to make clean energy and clean air upgrades and create safer environments for students and teachers, Michigan education advocates say. (Bridge)