Virginia farm pitches agrivoltaics as county considers solar ban

SOLAR: The CEO of a Virginia research farm opposes changing a county ordinance to prohibit solar development because it would block agrivoltaics, which allow power production alongside farming operations. (Winchester Star)

ALSO:

• A West Virginia county commission wrestles with how to regulate utility-scale solar farms. (Spirit of Jefferson, subscription)
• A company begins commercial operation of a 135 MW solar farm in Mississippi. (Renewables Now)

UTILITIES:

• West Virginia regulators scrutinize a requested rate increase for FirstEnergy subsidiaries as the company looms at the center of an Ohio bribery scandal. (Huntington Herald-Dispatch, Energy News Network)
• Dominion Energy’s South Carolina CEO says energy demand from data centers is the reason the company can no longer serve a municipal utility, even as it sees data centers as a big growth area in the next 15 years. (Energy and Policy Institute)
• Residents of Memphis, Tennessee, complain about the city council approving a 12% rate increase for the municipal utility despite flooding, power failures and a high poverty rate. (WATN)
• Florida regulators decrease Duke Energy’s rates due to storm recovery costs and lower fuel and capacity costs. (Citrus County Chronicle)
• San Antonio, Texas’ water utility will pay millions more than expected to install natural gas backup generators at critical pump stations. (San Antonio Report)

OIL & GAS:

• A Texas judge reverses state regulators’ decision to approve a Gulf Coast oil terminal’s expansion over questions about the state’s informal ​“one-mile rule” that denies standing for project opponents who live more than a mile away. (Inside Climate News)
• The Permian Basin reacts to the U.S. EPA’s newly proposed rules to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas operations. (KMID/KPEJ)
• The Tennessee Valley Authority announces it will replace some of its shrinking coal capacity by building a new natural gas-fired power plant in Mississippi at the site of a smaller plant that was dismantled in 2007. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:

• Florida lawmakers relaunch a push to impose annual $200 registration fees on electric vehicle owners. (News Service of Florida)
• Georgia technical colleges see rising enrollment due to growing demand for workers in the state’s surging electric vehicle industry. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, subscription)
• Charlotte, North Carolina’s school system announces it will deploy three electric school buses and chargers as it begins the electrification of its fleet. (news release)
• A Tennessee professor works with the U.S. Energy Department’s program to encourage rural drivers to test drive electric vehicles for two weeks. (WKRN)

EMISSIONS:

• Georgia researchers study how creating new oyster reefs might remove and sequester carbon. (WABE/​Grist)
• A construction equipment company partners with an eastern Tennessee lab to research methanol-fueled marine engines as a means to reduce carbon emissions. (WATE)

COAL:

• The Tennessee Valley Authority considers future uses for its recently closed Bull Run coal-fired power plant in Tennessee. (Power Engineering)
• West Virginia leaders cast U.S. involvement in discussions to halt new coal plant construction as a new ​“war on coal.” (WOWK)

COMMENTARY: Virginia has announced a surge of energy projects in southwestern part of the state, but has offered the public few avenues to provide input, writes a biology professor. (Virginia Mercury)