Trump order won’t deter offshore Virginia wind farm, Dominion says

WIND: Dominion Energy officials say they’re confident the utility’s massive offshore wind farm near Virginia will be completed on time and begin operations next year despite President Trump’s first-day order halting offshore wind leases. (Richmond Times-Dispatch, Virginia Business)

ALSO: North Carolina clean energy advocates blast Trump’s order halting offshore wind development for risking the state’s efforts to transition away from fossil fuels. (WRAL)

GRID:

• Texas’ grid operator braces for a winter storm bringing frigid temperatures and rare snowfall to the Gulf Coast and Southeast that could send power demand soaring and temporarily halt oil and gas production. (Dallas Morning News)
• The Tennessee Valley Authority asks customers to lower their power consumption as a frigid winter storm moves across the Southeast and strains the grid. (Greeneville Sun)
• Virginia lawmakers take a mixed approach to legislation targeting the state’s booming data center sector, killing a bill to increase state regulatory review while advancing another to provide noise and land site reviews. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

COAL ASH: A still-incomplete study has already documented more than 100 sites holding an estimated 200 million tons of coal ash across the six-state watershed that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. (Bay Journal)

SOLAR:

• Atlanta celebrates the addition of solar panels to a city fire station as the first of more than a dozen such facilities that will be outfitted with solar panels. (WABE)
• A Georgia nonprofit experiments with a solar-powered environmental sensor platform to monitor the health of environmental ​“landscape labs” along an 18-mile stretch of Georgia interstate. (Columbus Ledger-Enquirer)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Volkswagen adds profit sharing and a 14% pay raise to cover cost-of-living increases in a four-year contract to now-unionized employees at the company’s vehicle factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

OIL & GAS:

• Exxon Mobil and Chevron explore the possibility of building gas-fired power plants equipped with carbon capture technology to supply power to data centers in Texas and elsewhere. (Wall Street Journal, subscription)
• European natural gas prices spike due to freezing weather in Texas and the likelihood it will slow liquified natural gas exports from the Gulf Coast. (Investing)

CLEAN ENERGY: A new report finds Texas’ existing and planned solar, wind and battery storage projects will generate more than $20 billion in tax revenue and $29.5 billion for landowners over their lifetimes. (news release)

EMISSIONS:

• Virginia still hasn’t resolved a dispute over its membership in a regional carbon market after the state plans to appeal a judge’s decision that Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s effort to unilaterally withdraw was unlawful. (WHRO)
• Duke University attained carbon neutrality in 2024, but the annual expiration of its carbon credits will make it more difficult to achieve that goal in future years. (Chronicle)
• Louisiana local governments lobby for state lawmakers to approve a tax on carbon capture projects to fund infrastructure and other local needs. (Louisiana Illuminator)

OVERSIGHT: A Virginia legislative committee blocks a bill to localize land-use decisions around solar, wind, battery storage and data center projects. (Cardinal News)

COMMENTARY:

• Florida can lower rising power bills that are straining the state’s cost of living with energy efficiency improvements, writes an environmentalist. (Tampa Bay Times)
• Private sector involvement in reviving South Carolina’s failed nuclear plant could reinvigorate the project while reducing taxpayer risk, writes the state director of Conservatives for Clean Energy. (Post and Courier)