Study: Repealing NC’s climate target would cost $47.2B, 50,000 jobs

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

POLITICS

• A new study finds a Republican-sponsored bill to repeal the 2030 deadline for Duke Energy to reduce its climate pollution 70% by 2030 would cause the loss of more than 50,000 jobs per year and at least $47.2 billion in investments to build new power plants. (Canary Media)

• A dark money group with ties to Duke Energy’s industrial and commercial customers sends out mailers in support of a bill to eliminate Duke’s 2030 carbon emissions limits ahead of the legislature’s vote to override Gov. Josh Stein’s veto. (Energy & Policy Institute)

• Congress members question the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s acting administrator about why search and rescue teams weren’t immediately deployed to Texas in response to severe flooding this month. (Houston Chronicle)

RENEWABLES

• Clean energy advocates remain hopeful the combination of rooftop solar systems equipped with batteries can thrive if they’re grouped together in ​“virtual power plants” to boost the grid and lower costs, as they have in Puerto Rico. (Canary Media)

• Texas’ deregulated energy market has incentivized the shift from fossil fuels to cheaper wind, solar, and battery power, accelerating the clean energy transition even as Republican leaders risk the boom with policies favoring oil and gas. (Telegraph)

UTILITIES

• Experts say Trump’s threats to fire the Tennessee Valley Authority’s new CEO, replace much of its board, and potentially privatize the federal utility have destabilized a power provider already under fire for its expansion of fossil fuels and lack of transparency. (WPLN)

• A Republican Congress member from Kentucky defends a long-running federal assistance program that provides utility support to low-income residents despite President Trump’s plans to cancel its funding. (WUKY)

NUCLEAR

• The U.S. Energy Department selects a Kentucky site as one of four locations to test small modular nuclear reactors and other power generation for data center development. (Northern Kentucky Tribune, WKMS)

GRID

• Tennessee electric cooperatives move to resurrect a nonprofit ​“co-op of co-ops” and propose construction of a gas-fired peaking plant near Ford’s BlueOval City electric vehicle and battery manufacturing campus. (Tennessee Lookout)

• Amazon withdraws its application for a data center in a Virginia county over community opposition, but three more projects are moving forward without going through the conditional use permitting process that allows public input. (Virginia Mercury)

• Residents of a West Virginia county known as a tourist destination fight a company’s proposal to build a gas-fired power plant and 10,000-acre data center complex. (100 Days in Appalachia)

• Records show a Texas municipal utility substation could take months to repair after it was submerged under 8 feet of water during severe flooding earlier this month. (KSAT)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Chevron announces plans to lay off 575 workers in Houston after its $55 billion acquisition of Hess earlier this month. (Houston Chronicle)

HYDROGEN

• A company announces it will deploy two hydrogen-powered microgrids in Texas that will each produce 4 MW of power from less than 0.2 acres of land. (news release)

COMMENTARY

• Virginia lawmakers should loosen its clean energy law’s mandate to shift away from fossil fuels to address grid reliability, rising power bills, and the federal rollback of clean energy incentives, writes a Republican state lawmaker. (Cardinal News)

NEW FROM CANARY 

• EVs had a decent quarter. The next could be record-breaking. — Kathryn Krawczyk