Wildfire risk drives up Western utilities’ insurance premiums

UTILITIES: Xcel Energy tells Colorado regulators that climate change, wildfire risk and litigation have prompted insurers to increase the utility’s premiums by nearly 400% over last year. (CPR)

ALSO: Wyoming lawmakers look to craft policies to attract more energy-intensive data centers to the state and help utilities deal with associated power demand increases. (WyoFile)

ELECTRIFICATION: A public-private partnership launches a project aimed at decarbonizing a Colorado manufactured-home community by replacing gas appliances with electric ones, bringing in solar power and making other efficiency upgrades. (Utility Dive)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:

• California regulators consider proposed rules requiring 50% of motorcycle sales to be electric or zero-emission by 2035. (CalMatters)
• California regulators vote to amend the state’s Advanced Clean Trucks rule in an effort to help automakers comply with the requirement to phase out diesel truck sales by 2036. (E&E News, subscription)

LITHIUM:

• California officials consider measures aimed at mitigating lithium-battery fire hazards following blazes in grid-scale storage systems and in a battery-hauling truck on an interstate highway. (Fresno Bee)
• Advocates and auto workers tour mine sites in Nevada in an effort to understand the lithium extraction industry’s effects on communities and the environment. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

POLLUTION: Colorado advocates urge federal regulators to classify the state’s heavily populated Front Range as an ​“extreme” ozone violator following an abnormally smoggy summer. (CPR)

SOLAR:

• The U.S. Agriculture Department awards a western Colorado rural electric cooperative $50 million to purchase power from a planned 150 MW solar-plus-battery storage project. (Steamboat Pilot)
• A developer brings a 150 MW solar-plus-battery storage system online in southern California primarily to power Amazon data centers. (Data Center Dynamics)
• California rooftop solar installer Sunrun looks to develop ​“bespoke” distributed generation systems to power data centers. (Bloomberg)

CLIMATE:

• A California regulator says a proposal to tighten the state’s low carbon fuel standard would be a ​“win-win,” with the health and climate benefits outweighing the costs, including a potential gasoline price increase. (Sacramento Bee)
• Oregon agencies and local governments scale back logging in exchange for carbon credit revenue in an effort to strike a balance between the timber industry and forest advocates. (Oregon Capital Chronicle)

POLITICS: U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, touts his support for the SunZia transmission project in a campaign ad, signaling the party’s potential shift toward pushing clean energy infrastructure. (HuffPost)

CLEAN ENERGY: Advocates call on Alaska to tap into its largely unrealized clean energy potential after a report finds the state acquires 2.6% of its electricity from solar, wind and geothermal sources. (Renewable Energy World)