Major solar manufacturer eyes Southeast for new factory

SOLAR: The largest solar manufacturer in the U.S. says it will build a new factory in the Southeast because of recently passed incentives in the climate spending package. (CNBC)

ALSO:
• Duke Energy completes the last of ten 74.9 MW solar projects in Florida, achieving its goal to provide 700 MW of solar power to customers there. (news release)
• The Tennessee Valley Authority allows the 153 municipalities and power cooperatives in its territory to generate up to 5% of their power from other suppliers in hopes of encouraging more utility-scale solar projects. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Hyundai stands to lose big from new rules that halt subsidies for electric vehicles made outside North America, even as it moves to build a factory in Georgia. (Reuters)
• California’s plan to prohibit sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2030 helped spur Toyota’s plans to build an electric vehicle battery plant in North Carolina. (Winston-Salem Journal)
• The global shift to electric vehicles could ramp up lithium mining in North Carolina, spurring a debate over whether clean technology is truly clean for everyone. (Grist)

WIND: Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt dismisses new federal green energy incentives as unnecessary, even though his wind energy-rich state stands to benefit. (Financial Times)

GRID:
• A judge rules that Texas can’t prohibit Florida-based NextEra from building a transmission project linking to an external grid, potentially boosting MISO and Southwest Power Pool. (S&P Global)
• Entergy begins work on a $100 million transmission project in southwestern Louisiana. (news release)
• Dominion Energy proposes a new 500 kV transmission line to accommodate growing demand from northern Virginia data centers. (LoudounNow)

STORAGE: An energy startup announces it will locate a factory to build cobalt-free electric batteries in northern West Virginia. (Associated Press)

CLIMATE:
• Experts blame the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi, on decades of under-investment and deferred maintenance, as well as climate change’s worsening effects. (Washington Post)
• Alabama receives $8.56 million in federal funds to repair roads and bridges damaged by Hurricane Sally in 2020 and tornadoes that hit a year later. (Montgomery Advertiser)

POLITICS: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin moves forward with plans to withdraw Virginia from a regional carbon market, while activists work to stop him. (WDBJ, WMRA)

OIL & GAS:
• Dominion Energy sells a West Virginia-based gas company to Hearthstone Utilities, which says it will add 100 jobs. (Morgantown News)
• A Tulane University professor predicts Louisiana will benefit from offshore wind and continued production of natural gas even as oil declines because of a shift from gasoline-powered to electric vehicles. (Greater Baton Rouge Business Report)

CARBON CAPTURE: An oil company and its subsidiary announce they’ll begin engineering and building a direct air capture plant in Texas to reduce emissions from their operations in the Permian Basin. (news release)

CRYPTOCURRENCY: Residents of a small North Carolina town complain about round-the-clock noise produced by a cryptocurrency data center. (Washington Post)

UTILITIES: The Tennessee Valley Authority’s board elects to keep base electric rates level and will also extend about $230 million of pandemic rate relief next year. (Chattanoogan, Chattanooga Times Free Press)

COMMENTARY: A Tennessee Valley Authority official complains a newspaper conflated the flow of electricity between neighboring electric utilities with sales, leading to ​“incorrect” and ​“irresponsible” conclusions that TVA had purchased power from MISO last summer. (Commercial Appeal)