ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Virginia could boost electric vehicle adoption by creating point-of-sale rebates and inventory requirements for car dealers such as those in Maryland, a clean energy group’s new report says. (Energy News Network)

UTILITIES:
• Fewer than half of Tennessee’s 23 electric cooperatives allow members to attend board meetings, and only three offer community solar programs, according to an environmental group’s new report calling for more transparency. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)
• Dominion Energy has given more than $750,000 to political campaigns in Virginia in 2020, with more than a third going to 17 lawmakers who helped kill a bill to trim the utility’s excess profits. (Energy and Policy Institute)
• A mild winter and effects of the pandemic resulted in a 9% decline in revenue for the Tennessee Valley Authority from last year. (The Chattanoogan)
• JEA’s incoming CEO says it’s time to “stop wallowing in the past,” referring to upheaval from last year’s attempt to find a buyer for the Jacksonville utility. (Florida Times-Union)

SOLAR:
• Kentucky regulators begin hearings on Kentucky Power’s proposal to raise net metering rates on solar customers who sell power back to the grid. (Daily Energy Insider)
• Mississippi Power and Southern Company announce plans to build a “smart neighborhood” with homes featuring wall batteries, energy efficient appliances and Tesla’s solar roofs. (WXXV25)
• A property owner whose plan to build a solar farm was denied by a Florida county commission appeals to a judge for a second opinion. (Gainesville Sun)
• Construction begins on a 195.5 MW solar and storage facility in southern Georgia. (Solar Power World)
• A renewable energy developer announces completion of a 133.6 MW solar project in North Carolina. (Solar Industry)

OIL & GAS:
• Louisiana’s oil industry criticizes the governor’s veto of a tax break for drilling new wells and bringing old ones back into production. (Daily Comet)
• Spire Inc. breaks ground on a 2.7-mile pipeline and natural gas utility expansion in Mississippi. (Hattiesburg American)
• Virginia Natural Gas scales back its plans to expand natural gas infrastructure in eastern Virginia, creating more uncertainty around the construction of two proposed, privately owned gas plants. (Virginia Mercury)

BIOMASS: A biofuels company considers building a $9.2 billion renewable fuels facility on the Mississippi River near the Port of Greater Baton Rouge. (Biomass Magazine)

COAL:
• Dominion Energy expects the clean-up of coal tar in South Carolina’s Congaree River to take at least four years under optimal conditions. (The State)
• Friday marks the 52nd anniversary of the Farmington Mine Disaster, which killed 78 miners and prompted a push for federal mine safety reform. (WVNews)

COAL ASH:
• Georgia Power executives say they need another 15 years to close three coal ash ponds in the northwestern part of the state. (Marietta Daily Journal)
• Coal ash ponds at a Georgia Power plant make a repeat appearance on the Georgia Water Coalition’s “Dirty Dozen” annual list of threats to state waters. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

ENERGY EFFICIENCY: An executive recruitment firm launches its search for a new president of the nonprofit Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance. (Hunt Scanlon Media)

COMMENTARY: Changes wrought by electric vehicles will disrupt auto manufacturing clusters in Tennessee and Michigan unless the U.S. adopts a more thoughtful, comprehensive strategy, writes a professor at George Mason University. (Information Technology and Innovation Foundation)

Mason has worked as a journalist since 2001, covering Appalachian communities and the issues that affect them. He compiles the Southeast Energy News digest. Mason previously worked as a wildlife biologist before moving into journalism by freelancing at Coast Weekly in Monterey, California, before taking an internship in 2001 at High Country News. He wrote for the Enterprise Mountaineer in western North Carolina and the Roanoke Times in western Virginia before going freelance in 2012. His work has appeared in Southerly, Daily Yonder, Mother Jones, Huffington Post, WVPB’s Inside Appalachia and elsewhere. Mason was born and raised in Clifton Forge, Virginia, and now lives with his family and a small herd of goats in Floyd County, Virginia.