US Wind gets final federal approval

WIND: Federal officials give US Wind’s 2 GW offshore wind project off the Maryland and Delaware coastline its final approval, although local officials have previously threatened to sue if the project got this far. (Capital News Service, Maryland Matters)

RENEWABLE ENERGY:

• Pennsylvania and New Jersey utility Allegheny Electric Cooperative is reportedly set to receive an undisclosed portion of a $7.3 billion federal investment into rural electrification and renewable energy works. (Pennsylvania Capital-Star)
• New York’s governor attends a Syracuse summit focused on renewable energy’s future role in the economy, touting the state’s steps toward becoming ​“a national leader in protecting our climate.” (WSYR)

SOLAR: Advocates say Pennsylvania’s largest-ever solar facility, the 220 MW Great Cove project, shows how renewable energy has a place in the fracking-heavy state. (E&E News, subscription)

EQUITY:

• New research shows a Baltimore community has much higher levels of black carbon — an air pollutant associated with fossil-fuel burning — than should be expected in a residential area. (Baltimore Sun)
• Several trade groups form a new coalition aimed at steering Pennsylvania union workers through an equitable transition to a decarbonized economy. (Grist)

BUILDINGS:

• Developers file their early plans to remediate and convert a former ExxonMobil tank farm north of Boston into a multi-use space that would include an energy storage facility in addition to residential and commercial components. (Boston.com)
• Building decarbonization advocates say New York’s progress toward its 2025 energy efficiency target for state facilities is hardly a step in the right direction given that much of the headway is from closing facilities, primarily prisons. (E&E News, subscription)

GRID: A PJM Interconnection executive says the grid operator could propose an accelerated interconnection approval process for shovel-ready generation projects. (Utility Dive)

BATTERIES: A Burlington, Vermont, concert series this summer took its usual diesel generators out of service and replaced them with 1.3 MWh of battery electric generators. (news release)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: In Massachusetts, Eversource customers begin seeing a relatively new electric vehicle program fee delineated on their bills that was previously tucked into the general delivery charges. (WCVB)

COMMENTARY:

• The head of an economic development nonprofit says Massachusetts needs to adopt equity-focused targets and a scorecard to evaluate what the state is doing for environmental justice communities amid its renewable energy transition. (CommonWealth Beacon)
• As Maine looks to approve an offshore wind port in Searsport, three environmental activists discuss what was learned about community engagement and benefit setting during a similar development process in Salem, Massachusetts. (Bangor Daily News)