Midwest states join blue wave

This roundup of energy news headlines comes from our Midwest Energy News newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.

CARBON CAPTURE

• DTE Energy’s long-term plan calls for investing billions of dollars in two new gas plants that would be equipped with carbon capture and storage, a nascent technology that hasn’t been deployed at utility-scale but the company says would allow the plants to comply with a state emissions law. (Canary Media)

CLEAN ENERGY

• Tuesday’s election results showed a broad rejection of Republican policies and could set the stage for more clean energy support in Congress and pushback on AI data centers. (Inside Climate News) 
• Michigan Democrats win back a trifecta in state government after two years of divided government; they previously used 2022’s trifecta to pass a 100% clean energy target by 2040. (Crain’s Detroit)

UTILITIES

• More than 80% of Michigan voters approved a statewide ballot initiative to prohibit monopoly utilities and companies with large government contracts from contributing to political candidates; opponents swiftly filed a lawsuit to rein in the measure. (Bridge)
• Voters in Ann Arbor, Michigan, narrowly reject a proposal to create a public utility to potentially replace DTE Energy as the city’s power provider. (MLive)

DATA CENTERS

• Sherrod Brown’s successful bid to flip one of Ohio’s U.S. Senate seats by defeating Republican Sen. Jon Husted tapped into voter opposition to data centers and Husted’s ties to the FirstEnergy bribery scandal. (Ohio Capital Journal)
• Voters in four townships in a southern Illinois county overwhelmingly supported nonbinding resolutions opposing future data center development there. (St. Louis Public Radio)
• Leaders at a business roundtable say data centers will lead to a wave of new union construction jobs and power plant development in Northwest Indiana as tech companies lock in nearly $20 billion in investments already,. (Chicago Tribune)

PIPELINES

• A North Dakota judge denies Greenpeace’s request for a new trial in a case brought by the Dakota Access pipeline developer over protests against the project, and the group will now instead appeal a $345 million judgement against it. (North Dakota Monitor)

STORAGE

• Exelon plans to spend up to $7 billion building up to 3.5 GW of grid storage capacity to meet demand in PJM’s territory, where new generation has been slow to develop. (Utility Dive)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• A former General Motors executive’s startup plans to acquire a power-export technology company to develop electric medium-duty trucks for utility and public-sector fleets that could deploy power on site. (Crain’s Detroit)

SOLAR

• A carbon fee that voters in Athens, Ohio, approved in 2018 raises about $100,000 annually that has helped fund solar and other clean energy projects around the city. (Yale Climate Connections)

EFFICIENCY

• The state of Ohio awards more than $7.5 million in grants to 11 organizations across the state for energy efficiency projects. (Mahoning Matters)

HYDROELECTRIC

• Consumers Energy extends a deadline for Michigan regulators to decide whether to allow the utility to sell 13 hydroelectric dams to a private equity buyer. (FOX 17)