CLEAN ENERGY: The Minnesota attorney general’s office raises concerns about state utility regulators’ call for clean energy proposals to help boost the state’s economy during the pandemic, citing potential costs to ratepayers. (Star Tribune)
SOLAR:
• Wisconsin’s largest solar project, a 150 MW utility-scale development on 800 acres near Lake Michigan, begins operations. (Wisconsin State Journal)
• A circuit court judge upholds the local approval of a planned 120 MW solar project in central Indiana. (Anderson Herald-Bulletin)
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WIND: An Iowa farmer drops his appeal asking the state Supreme Court to block a planned wind project after the developer withdraws the plan because of supply chain challenges. (Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier)
UTILITIES:
• Environmental groups say We Energies’ plan to retire the oldest parts of its Oak Creek power plant is a step in the right direction but quicker action is needed to retire Wisconsin’s remaining coal fleet. (Racine Journal Times)
• We Energies’ parent company plans to retire 1,800 MW of coal generation over the next five years while adding 1,500 MW of renewable energy and battery storage plus 300 MW of natural gas capacity. (Wisconsin State Journal)
CLIMATE:
• President-elect Joe Biden is poised to reverse the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks and recommit the U.S. to global emission-reduction targets. (Washington Post)
• Commissioner Neil Chatterjee says he may have been removed as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission partly for his position on carbon pricing and distributed energy. (Utility Dive)
PIPELINES: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will hold a public hearing next month to take comments as it considers a permit for Enbridge to build a tunnel for Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac. (MLive)
COAL: Construction is completed on a $40 million data center that replaces a former coal plant along Lake Michigan in Northwest Indiana. (Times of Northwest Indiana)
POLITICS: All 46 Ohio lawmakers who voted in favor of the state’s power plant subsidy law at the center of a corruption scandal won re-election last week. (Ohio Capital Journal)
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OIL & GAS: Enbridge plans to meet a company-wide net zero emissions goal by 2050 by investing in lower carbon infrastructure as well as in wind, solar, hydrogen and renewable natural gas. (Reuters)
COMMENTARY:
• A local Farm Bureau president and a former mayor say Minnesota’s adopting California’s clean car standards would be “ceding its regulatory powers to an unelected … bureaucracy.” (MinnPost)
• The Ohio legislature continues to “twiddle its thumbs” by failing to act on repealing HB 6 even though federal law enforcement, state regulators and FirstEnergy have taken steps to address alleged corruption, an editorial board says. (Cleveland.com)