UTILITIES: Colorado’s largest electric cooperative officially splits with Tri-State Generation and Transmission following years of wrangling over the wholesale power supplier’s rates, fossil fuel reliance and limits on local generation. (Greeley Tribune)
ALSO: Arizona regulators reject a utility’s request to exempt its proposed natural gas plant expansion in the western part of the state from environmental reviews. (12 News)
TRANSMISSION: Developers complete construction on the 125-mile Ten West Link transmission line designed to move solar power between California and Arizona. (Inside Climate News)
GRID: PacifiCorp becomes the first entity to formally commit to the California grid operator’s extended day-ahead power market. (RTO Insider, subscription)
SOLAR:
- A Colorado county extends a moratorium on large-scale solar installations to allow it to create land-use regulations for major utility projects. (Telluride Daily Planet)
- Idaho landowners tout the benefits of selling or leasing their property to utility-scale solar developers. (KIVI)
CLEAN ENERGY:
- New Mexico’s renewable energy industry says a lack of qualified workers could hinder the state’s clean energy transition. (Albuquerque Journal)
- On a New Mexico visit, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm highlights the ways the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act has led to clean energy manufacturing job creation. (NM Political Report)
COAL: Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon plans to sue the Biden administration over rules aimed at reducing power plant pollution, saying it will hasten the demise of the state’s coal industry. (WyoFile)
OIL & GAS:
- Navajo Nation residents call for more federal and state oversight of an oil pipeline spill cleanup, saying they have lost trust in tribal regulators. (Fronteras)
- Wyoming and Montana join other states in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the federal Bureau of Land Management’s new methane waste prevention rule, saying it harms oil and gas producers. (WyoFile)
- A trial begins for a mass environmental injury lawsuit accusing the U.S. military of breaching its duty of care in its handling of a 2021 fuel facility leak in Hawaii that contaminated drinking water. (Associated Press)
HYDROPOWER: Alaska utilities send their proposed plan for the Eklutna hydropower dam to Gov. Mike Dunleavy after months of debate over the facility’s management. (KTUU)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
- Tesla lays off nearly 700 workers at its electric vehicle manufacturing facility in Sparks, Nevada, after a sales slump. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
- A southern California transit agency opens a solar-powered charging facility for its battery-electric buses and vans. (Orange County Register)
CLIMATE: Portland, Oregon’s clean energy fund considers investing $50 million in seven school districts to fund solar installations, efficiency upgrades and other emissions reduction and climate change mitigation efforts. (OPB)
More from the Energy News Network: Midwest | Southeast | Northeast | West