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Milwaukee pursues affordable net-zero housing

By Andy Balaskovitz

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EFFICIENCY: Milwaukee officials seek local manufacturing of highly efficient wall panels for prefabricated homes to resolve challenges of building net-zero modular homes for low-income residents. (Energy News Network)

GRID:

  • A federal judge blocks a 2023 Indiana law that gives in-state utilities first rights to build new transmission projects, saying it limits competition for out-of-state companies. (Indianapolis Star)
  • Minnesota clean energy advocates worry about the grid impacts of building out hyperscale data centers, and whether new generation can be built fast enough and without fossil fuels. (MPR News)
  • PJM increases its forecasted load growth in the winter and summer through 2045, largely because of data centers, with some states likely to struggle to build enough generation to meet demand. (Utility Dive)

POWER PLANTS: We Energies hopes to build a new $300 million natural gas power plant in southeastern Wisconsin to meet rising demand from industry, including multiple data centers. (Wisconsin Public Radio)

CLIMATE: Duke Energy, which owns coal plants that are subsidized by ratepayers under a 2019 Ohio law, knew for 40 years about coal’s contributions to climate change yet tried to misinform the public, according to a utility watchdog’s new report. (Ohio Capital Journal)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:

  • A Michigan board approves a $1.4 million grant and tax breaks for a company planning an electric vehicle battery components plant on a long-vacant former GM property. (WOOD-TV8)
  • About 20 metro Chicago municipalities are selected to participate in a ComEd-backed electric vehicle readiness program that promotes collaboration on EV infrastructure policies. (Landmark)

PIPELINES: Greenpeace seeks a court’s permission to collect evidence on the source of a pro-fossil fuel mailer that criticizes Dakota Access pipeline protesters and was sent to North Dakota residents amid an ongoing lawsuit against the environmental group. (North Dakota Monitor)

CARBON CAPTURE: A North Dakota commission is scheduled to vote this week on a carbon pipeline owner’s request for three CO2 injection wells, though an attorney representing landowners is already preparing a court appeal. (North Dakota Monitor)

OVERSIGHT: Indiana Gov.-elect Mike Braun’s pick for the state’s energy and natural resources secretary is a previous MISO executive who served in the Trump administration. (Indiana Capital Chronicle)

CLEAN ENERGY: While a new voter-approved ​“sustainable energy utility” in Ann Arbor, Michigan, won’t fully replace the city’s dependence on DTE Energy, the city will likely need less power from the investor-owned utility. (Smart Cities Dive)

COAL: A Minnesota environmental group raises concerns about the allowed concentration of sulfate in a water permit up for renewal for a coal plant that spilled coal ash-laden water in a nearby stream last summer. (Star Tribune)

STORAGE: ComEd commissions a new battery energy storage project in northern Illinois as part of a new pilot program to scale up solar-plus-storage capacity. (Daily Energy Insider)

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