Maine efficiency incentives focus on smallest towns

EFFICIENCY: Maine launches a $4 million program to help its smallest towns make efficient improvements to public buildings, cutting energy use and bills. (Energy News Network)

OIL & GAS: Connecticut agrees to buy a $7.3 million natural gas power plant in Hartford to power heating and cooling, despite a state order to move toward clean energy. (Hartford Courant)

SOLAR:
• While Maryland, Washington, D.C., and New York have gotten the ball rolling on building community solar arrays for low-income residents, Pennsylvania still hasn’t passed legislation to authorize the practice. (Bay Journal)
• A national farmland preservation group joins forces with clean energy developers to build arrays in states with strong community solar programs, including New York. (Times Union)
• After installing a solar array and seeing major electricity cost savings, a northern Maine town’s sewer department encourages a local school to do the same. (Bangor Daily News)

UTILITIES:
• New York City’s electricity provider Con Edison sells its clean energy division to German company RWE, making the latter the second largest U.S. solar operator. (PV Magazine)
• Maine officials order Central Maine Power to remove timber mats and felled trees along a 22-mile stretch of the New England Clean Energy Connect corridor that was cut before its license was suspended. (Maine Public)
• A coastal Massachusetts town’s municipal utility seeks input on a proposed underground transmission line. (Boston Globe)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• New York City announces a plan to turn defunct newsstands into electric bicycle charging hubs where delivery workers can recharge themselves and their bikes. (Streetsblog)
• With only one fast charging station in all of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City faces a major challenge as the state plans to transition to electric vehicles. (Vice)
• Maine electric motor sellers say both commercial and recreational boaters are adopting battery power, though it’ll take a while for larger diesel-guzzling workboats to make the switch. (Maine Public)

POLICY: Massachusetts’ governor approves a fix to a legislative loophole that kept communities served by municipal light plants from receiving grants for clean energy projects. (State House News Service)

STORAGE: New York announces a new lithium-ion battery plant will be built in Chautauqua County, producing batteries for electric forklifts, trucks and buses. (WKBW)

EMISSIONS: New Jersey climate advocates say a proposed bill would consider energy produced by waste incinerators to be renewable, ignoring the pollutants and greenhouse gases they emit in the process. (Patch)

COMMENTARY: Rhode Island’s coastal resources agency faces a staffing shortage that hinders its ability to build resilience against climate change and handle wind development siting issues, an advocate writes. (Providence Journal)