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Why some N.C. customers are letting Duke control their thermostat

By Mason Adams

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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.

GRID

  • Duke Energy’s demand-response program in North Carolina that grants customers bill credits in return for letting the company remotely adjust smart thermostats by a few degrees when needed is relieving stress on the grid while offering utility-bill relief for households dealing with soaring energy costs. (Canary Media)

  • The PJM Interconnection board approves $11.8 billion in transmission projects, with Virginia’s Dominion Energy set to build $4.8 billion of them. (Utility Dive)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

  • Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, vote to approve their first contract with the company under representation by the United Auto Workers. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

  • Ford affirms its commitment to create 5,800 jobs at its BlueOval manufacturing site in Tennessee to keep intact a $900 million state-sponsored incentives package, despite pivoting away from electric vehicles to gas-powered vehicles instead. (Tennessee Lookout)

STORAGE

  • Ford’s plan to spend $2 billion to retrofit its former Kentucky electric vehicle battery plant to make grid batteries for data centers faces challenges, including uncertainty whether the batteries it plans to build will be eligible for tax credits because they incorporate Chinese technology. (E&E News)

FOSSIL FUELS

  • West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey and U.S. Interior Sec. Doug Burgum amend an agreement to expand the state’s authority to oversee permitting and inspecting coal mining on both state and federal lands. (WV Metro News, WTAP)

  • FirstEnergy says it expects the U.S. Energy Department to award a loan to pay for roughly half of a $2.6 billion gas plant it plans to build in West Virginia. (E&E News, Utility Dive)

  • Texas oil refiners prepare for the possibility of taking crude oil from Venezuela amid reports that Mexico will decrease its crude exports to the U.S. (Texas Tribune)

  • Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton files a lawsuit alleging that Dow Chemical Co., its subsidiary Union Carbide, and the Brazilian petrochemical manufacturer Braskem are violating their pollution permits at a chemical manufacturing complex on the Gulf Coast. (Houston Chronicle, Inside Climate News)

UTILITIES

  • A judge dismisses Carrboro, North Carolina’s lawsuit accusing Duke Energy of downplaying the risks of fossil fuels and climate change. (WUNC)

  • Georgia regulators reject environmental groups’ appeal of its decision to greenlight Georgia Power’s plan to build nearly 10 GW of new gas-fired power plants, battery storage systems, and some solar to meet demand from data centers. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

EFFICIENCY

  • A clean energy advocacy group issues a report recommending Southeast utilities take steps to improve energy efficiency despite the lack of state support for such programs. (Utility Dive)

SOLAR

  • Virginia lawmakers are moving to reduce hurdles to building solar farms, one example of how states are moving to fill the gap left by the Trump administration’s pullback from programs to counter climate change. (New York Times)

  • A Virginia county board schedules a public hearing next month to consider a proposed ordinance regulating solar energy development. (The Enterprise)

  • Secure Solar Futures announces it’s completed installation of a 766.79 kW solar array at a Virginia community college. (news release)

EMISSIONS

  • Virginia lawmakers add language to a pending budget bill to accelerate the state’s bid to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a regional carbon market. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

DATA CENTERS

  • Virginia lawmakers advance legislation preserving a data center tax break if they shift away from fossil fuels and reduce energy usage, and consider directing regulators to determine whether data centers should pay for power lines and capacity auction costs for Dominion to buy more power from PJM. (Inside Climate News, Virginia Mercury)

OVERSIGHT

  • North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein appoints a North Carolina State University professor to the state Utilities Commission. (WFAE)

COMMENTARY

  • Texas has added 31 GW of solar capacity and 17 GW of battery energy storage and weatherized power plants and natural gas infrastructure since 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, significantly boosting the grid against extreme weather, writes a lawyer specializing in renewable energy law and development. (Canary Media)

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