Smart thermostats relieve grid strain

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

• Arizona utility Salt River Project and Renew Home find that their smart-thermostat program effectively eased grid strain. (Canary Media)

CLEAN ENERGY

• Santa Fe County’s planning commission approves Linea Energy’s proposed 350-MW Globemallow solar-plus-storage project in the central part of New Mexico. (Santa Fe New Mexican)

• California’s Department of Water Resources completes its 105-MW Pastoria solar project in Kern County to help power pumping plants and other infrastructure. (KBAK)

OIL & GAS

• The Trump administration plans a June oil and gas lease sale for parcels in the 1.56 million-acre Coastal Plain in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, saying the auction is a ​“milestone in unleashing Alaska’s vast energy potential.” (E&E News, news release)

• A California judge rejects Sable Offshore’s bid to revoke an injunction prohibiting the restart of its oil pipeline system off Santa Barbara’s coast, and found the firm violated the ban by sending oil through the line beginning in March. (Santa Barbara News-Press, news release)

• Investigators find a ​“sudden fault” in a power line triggered an outage at Chevron’s Richmond, California, refinery in January that led to the release of 3,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide. (KQED)

• The federal Bureau of Land Management proposes auctioning 170 oil and gas leases totaling almost 156,000 acres in Colorado in June. (news release)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Xcel Energy reveals it expects to spend about $4.6 million to repair its Comanche 3 coal plant in Colorado, which has been offline since an outage last August. (CPR)

• The U.S. EPA seeks public input on the Navajo Transitional Energy Company’s proposed 742-MW natural gas plant in northwestern New Mexico. (news release)

HYDROPOWER

• Federal officials plan to slash water releases from Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River, which will lead to reduced hydropower output. (Los Angeles Times)

CLIMATE

• Gas utilities, labor unions, and trade associations file a legal challenge seeking to block the Oregon’s Climate Protection Program and its greenhouse gas emissions limits, saying they will ​“inflict substantial and irreparable harm” to businesses. (OPB)

• Hawaii lawmakers advance legislation that would allow the state and insurance firms to sue large fossil fuel companies for climate-related premium increases. (E&E News)

DATA CENTERS

• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission protests a proposed natural gas pipeline in New Mexico designed to serve the Project Jupiter data center complex, citing a missing historic properties review. (Santa Fe New Mexican)

• Utah policy analysts find data centers under development could more than triple the sector’s capacity in the state and dramatically increase power demand. (Deseret News)

• Proposed large-scale data centers in Seattle are expected to increase the city’s power demand by up to 370 MW, raising concerns about grid strain and infrastructure costs. (KIRO)

GEOTHERMAL

• Colorado’s Energy Office awards seven entities $12.4 million to fund geothermal energy networks and heat pump installations. (news release)

ELECTRIFICATION

• Many Los Angeles-area fire victims choose to rebuild all-electric, efficient homes even though California rolled back electrification requirements for blaze survivors. (Los Angeles Times)

NEW FROM CANARY

• Are long-promised solar perovskites finally hitting mass production? — Julian Spector

• Tiny North Carolina town takes a big step toward geothermal energy — Elizabeth Ouzts

• Battery recycling still isn’t easy. Just ask Ascend Elements. — Julian Spector