Ohio falls well short of a renewable energy target

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.

RENEWABLES

• Ohio has fallen well short of a goal set in 2008 to reach 25% renewable energy this year as critics say the state has created policies to support fossil fuel development and roadblocks to renewable energy. (WOSU)

• Western Minnesota county officials approve new renewable energy siting regulations that advocates say are too restrictive for smaller scale wind and solar projects under 25 MW. (West Central Tribune)

DATA CENTERS

• Rural eastern Michigan township officials vote to settle a lawsuit with data center developer Related Digital and landowners at the project site that accused the township of unfairly limiting what they can build on their land. (Inside Climate News)

• Wisconsin advocates want more state-level input over large data center proposals to consider electricity and water use as a growing number of large projects are eyed in the state. (Wisconsin Examiner)

• The Department of Energy proposes expanding federal oversight over how large energy users like data centers connect to the grid to speed up development and remove uncertainty from state-level permitting. (Inside Climate News)

CARBON CAPTURE

• A Democratic state senator in Michigan says the state has ideal geology to host carbon capture projects as a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers seeks to create a state-level regulatory framework and permitting process. (Center Square)

SOLAR

• A Dane County, Wisconsin, climate official says it’s unlikely that residents considering rooftop solar still have time to capture clean energy tax credits before they’re phased out under the latest federal budget. (Wisconsin Public Radio)

GRID

• The federal government rejects Michigan’s appeal for additional disaster relief following a historic ice storm earlier this year that caused prolonged power outages across the northern part of the state. (Bridge)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Ameren and Nicor customers across Illinois are likely to face natural gas bill increases next year as regulators consider proposals to pay for infrastructure upgrades but critics say the utilities are unnecessarily profiting. (Capitol News Illinois)

UTILITIES

• Detroit advocates and lawmakers host a community block party to call out the state’s largest utilities’ poor reliability and call for a ratepayer bill of rights that includes limiting utilities’ political spending. (Michigan Advance)

• Xcel Energy names a longtime company regulatory staff leader as president of the company’s operations in Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota. (West Central Tribune)

• CenterPoint Energy will apply bill credits to southwestern Indiana customers after acknowledging that the gas utility should have been more transparent in explaining skyrocketing bills this summer. (WZDM)

NEW FROM CANARY

• Why utility regulators need to do more than call​‘balls and strikes’ — Sarah Shemkus

• California can’t get out of its own way on geothermal — Alexander C. Kaufman

• In a first, a data center is using a big battery to get online faster — Julian Spector

• The complicated reality behind rising power prices — Kathryn Krawczyk