PG&E California microgrid program pays off

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

GRID

• Observers say Pacific Gas & Electric’s effort to mitigate fire danger by replacing some power lines in remote areas of northern California with solar-plus-storage microgrids is paying off for customers, forests, and the utility. (Canary Media)

• San Diego Gas & Electric plans to build, own and operate a high-voltage transmission line in southern California. (T&D World)

• Colorado Springs Utilities says construction is halfway complete on its new $130 million substation designed to accommodate increasing demand. (Gazette)

HYDROGEN

• Portland General Electric and Mitsubishi Power cancel a proposed hydrogen production, storage, and generation complex in Oregon, further imperiling the nascent Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub. (Washington State Standard)

UTILITIES

• A Montana court blocks Gov. Greg Gianforte from suspending state Public Service Commission President Brad Molnar, saying the complaint accusing Molnar of ​“unprofessional conduct” was invalid. (Daily Montanan)

• PacifiCorp says a flurry of lawsuits against the utility over its role in sparking the 2020 Labor Day fires in southern Oregon threaten to ​“impose a crushing financial burden” on the firm. (Bloomberg)

FOSSIL FUELS

• New Mexico lawmakers worry falling commodity prices and the Trump administration’s federal royalty rate cuts will diminish oil & gas revenues and jeopardize funding for education, health care, and other services. (E&E News)

• The U.S. EPA finds a Chevron refinery in Salt Lake City has been violating federal air and water quality regulations for the last three years, but Utah regulators say the facility is in compliance. (ABC4)

• A small Texas firm gears up to drill exploratory oil wells in a largely undeveloped part of Alaska’s North Slope after Shell left the area. (Northern Journal)

• Industry officials expect a 440 million ton federal coal tract in Wyoming to attract far lower bids than past auctions and generate less money for state coffers. (WyoFile)

• Montana regulators deny Lincoln County’s petition seeking to weaken Lake Koocanusa’s standard for selenium, a pollutant emanating from Canadian coal mines. (Daily Montanan)

CLEAN ENERGY

• A California nonprofit leads a program to install solar, batteries, and EV chargers at a network of Bay Area Black churches and establish the facilities as resilience hubs. (Inside Climate News)

• ContourGlobal and Platte River Power Project bring online the 185-MW Black Hollow Sun solar project in Colorado, the largest such facility in the northern part of the state. (Fort Collins Coloradoan, Power)

• The Turlock Irrigation District brings online its solar-over-canal project in California’s Central Valley. (KMPH)

TRANSPORTATION

• Experts say California’s high-speed rail project has faltered due to inadequate funding, routing it through valuable agricultural land, creating a new agency to lead it, and regulatory complexity. (Grist)

NUCLEAR

• A Wyoming economic development board rescinds its application for a grant that would have funded infrastructure improvements for a proposed nuclear microreactor manufacturing facility. (Oil City News)

TRANSITION

• Colorado regulators agree to review elements of Xcel Energy’s plan to mitigate the impact of its planned Comanche coal plant closure after Pueblo County asks the Trump administration to force the utility to continue operating the facility. (Colorado Sun)

• An Arizona entrepreneur looks to convert a former coal-hauling railroad on the Navajo Nation into a zero-emissions electric sight-seeing tourist train. (news release)

COMMENTARY

• A former U.S. Energy Department official says an Idaho county’s proposal to effectively ban utility-scale solar is an ​“extreme approach” that will increase utility rates and increase the state’s reliance on dirty fossil fuels. (Idaho Capital Sun)

NEW FROM CANARY 

• Fervo, Sage Geosystems tap energy giants to scale next-gen geothermal — Maria Gallucci