WIND:
• The governor of Massachusetts asks Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke not to lease an area south of Long Island to offshore wind developers, saying it’s one of several “high-value grounds” for regional fishermen. (The Standard-Times)
• Wind turbine installations have slowed in Maine, largely because it’s too expensive to build the transmission lines needed to move wind power to southern New England. (Portland Press Herald)
TRANSMISSION: Opponents of a proposed hydropower transmission line from Canada to Massachusetts are hopeful that a series of regulatory delays will ultimately derail the project. (Boston Globe)
COAL: Two green groups plan to sue the owners of a coal-fired power plant south of Concord, New Hampshire, over the temperature of water discharged into the Merrimack River. (NHPR)
NATURAL GAS: A gas leak causes a 9,000 square foot house to explode outside Philadelphia. (WPVI)
POLLUTION: An Ohio-based gas processing company will spend nearly $7 million to settle air pollution violations in multiple states, including volatile organic compound controls at truck loading and gas compressor stations in Pennsylvania. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
SOLAR:
• A 4-acre solar farm in Portland, Maine, is nearly complete after a year of delays stemming from environmental issues. (Portland Press Herald)
• New Hampshire’s Dartmouth College receives a $400,000 federal grant to support research into early-stage solar technologies. (news release)
• A 2.9 MW community solar array is scheduled to go online early next year in northwest New York. (Watertown Daily Times)
BIOFUEL: A 1 MW anaerobic digester that turns waste into energy opens on a farm in northeast Massachusetts. (WHAV)
EFFICIENCY: Fewer Connecticut businesses are participating in a statewide energy conservation program that helps with clean energy improvements after lawmakers took $117 million from the program to help balance the budget. (Hartford Business Journal)
POLICY:
• A leaked draft of a New York City bill to shrink the carbon footprint of large buildings might force the owners of rent-stabilized buildings to make expensive retrofits, which could lead to rent increases of up to 6 percent a year. (Huffington Post)
• New Hampshire is the only New England state that didn’t join a coalition in asking the EPA to oppose a Trump administration plan to replace the Clean Power Plan with weaker emissions standards. (NHPR, Delaware Business Now)
POLITICS: More than a dozen executives at New Hampshire’s largest electric utility gave Gov. Chris Sununu’s re-election campaign $8,700 last month. (Energy and Policy Institute)
COMMENTARY: Residents living near New Jersey’s shuttered Oyster Creek nuclear plant will become “a test case for long-term, deadly nuclear waste storage,” says the founding member of an energy safety group. (Asbury Park Press)