Trump disrupts Georgia’s growing solar industry

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SOLAR

• After adding a record 1.5 GW of capacity last year, Georgia’s solar industry faces chaos and uncertainty around Trump’s tariff threats and rollback of clean energy tax credits. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

• Oklahoma residents gather to oppose NextEra’s plans to build a 242 MW solar farm. (KOKI)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• Georgia residents have taken to calling the interstate exit for Hyundai’s massive electric vehicle plant ​“the quagmire” as traffic has snarled a once seldom-used intersection — and the plant still just employs a fraction of its projected future workforce. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

• Vietnamese electric car maker VinFast reaffirms its commitment to open its factory in North Carolina by 2028 despite economic turbulence and Trump’s tariff threats. (WTVD)

• Charlotte, North Carolina, launches an electric vehicle car-sharing program funded by a federal grant to reduce energy use. (WFAE)

• Florida lawmakers approve legislation to allow municipalities to charge electric vehicles up to three times the daily rate for storage after they’ve been involved in a wreck. (WUSF)

COAL ASH

• The Tennessee Valley Authority considers how to recycle coal ash at 10 plants across its Southeast territory. (WBIR)

FOSSIL FUELS

• The U.S. Interior Department orders environmental reviews for fossil fuel and mining projects — but not wind and solar projects— to be reduced to no more than a month, leading to praise from the oil and gas industry but criticism from environmental groups. (Houston Chronicle, E&E News)

• West Virginia U.S. Sen. Jim Justice’s coal companies have paid roughly $56 million of their overdue loans since a Virginia bank took legal action against them, with a remaining balance of $245.1 million. (Cardinal News)

GRID

• CenterPoint Energy officials tell investors they anticipate a 50% spike in energy demand by 2031 in the Houston area. (Houston Chronicle)

• A Virginia municipal utility contracts with a company to build an 11 MW battery storage facility to address peak demand. (Utility Dive)

NUCLEAR

• The Tennessee Valley Authority removes references to diversity, equity, and inclusion as it resubmits an application for $800 million in federal funding to accelerate its nuclear energy project in Tennessee. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

UTILITIES

• A Florida county board votes to end its participation in a Duke Energy clean energy program to fund solar projects to eventually lower bills. (St. Pete Catalyst)

• The general manager of Austin, Texas’ municipal utility announces his retirement. (Austin Monitor)

COMMENTARY

• Dominion Energy’s proposal to create a new rate class for large-load customers like data centers reflects a growing consensus that residential ratepayers shouldn’t shoulder the load, but it’s unclear how much the rate change will alter that dynamic, writes a columnist. (Virginia Mercury)

• Kentucky and West Virginia’s attorneys general praise Trump’s executive orders that ​“fight back on the wrongheaded policies of the war on coal.” (Courier Journal)

NEW FROM CANARY MEDIA

• The future of an offshore wind staging terminal in South Brooklyn — and the economic boost it was expected to give the community — is in jeopardy following federal orders stopping work on the Empire Wind project off Long Island, Clare Fieseler reports.

• Startup Electra brings in $186 million from investors to test whether electrowinning — a process for removing impurities from metals — can purify iron without coal-fired furnaces, Jeff St. John reports.

• The clean energy manufacturing investment boom is turning around, as firms have already cancelled $8 billion in projects this year, Dan McCarthy writes.

• A Minnesota bill would sunset the state’s groundbreaking community solar program and weaken its clean electricity standard, Brian Martucci writes for Minnesota Reformer.