HYDROGEN: A Connecticut bill based on recommendations from a state hydrogen task force calls for a strategic plan to encourage green hydrogen production and to prioritize its use in hard-to-electrify sectors. (Energy News Network)
OIL & GAS:
• A nonprofit’s new report says New York can’t meet its climate targets without a “managed, phased transition” from the gas industry and investments in its distribution pipeline; instead, the state should utilize thermal energy networks and building electrification. (Canary Media)
• A Connecticut legislative committee votes tomorrow on a bill to increase food waste collection to generate gas via anaerobic digestion, mitigate direct methane emissions and avoid landfilling. (CT Mirror)
• A New Jersey utility company gains approval from state utility regulators to extend service to a new borough seeking more heating options and become eligible for a state energy efficiency and conservation grant. (New Jersey Herald)
• A Maryland company receives a $30 million investment to expand its anaerobic digestion facilities across the country. (news release)
GRID:
• The Sierra Club cites a report finding ISO New England’s grid unfairly advantages fossil fuel-fired facilities and isn’t as reliable as it should be for how much people pay. (Utility Dive)
• Maryland’s House advances a bill to make utilities publicly report votes at PJM Interconnection stakeholder meetings and how their votes benefit the public. (RTO Insider, subscription)
• As Eversource fights an appeal of permits it received to construct a substation in East Boston, the city’s council adopts a resolution opposing the development. (news release)
BUILDINGS: Beacon, New York, becomes the third municipality in the state to ban natural gas use in new buildings and major renovations, barring some exceptions. (Times Union)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• New York City codifies new e-bike and battery requirements in a bid to end a series of devastating fires, but officials lack a plan to transition noncompliant riders to safer equipment. (ABC News)
• Con Edison and New York City’s public housing agency install public chargers and storage outside of four housing complexes to encourage more electric micromobility riders and safer charging. (news release)
CLIMATE:
• In Maine, warming waters in the Casco Bay have contributed to a rapid 54% decline in eelgrass meadows — an important marine habitat — in the past four years. (Portland Press Herald)
• Cornell University outlines its strategies to become carbon-neutral by 2035, including via renewable energy generation. (news release)
• A climate-resilient hospital emerges from the site of a former hospital that flooded in New York City during Hurricane Sandy. (Gizmodo)
OFFSHORE WIND:
• A lawsuit brought by a nonprofit with links to oil and gas funding claiming federal officials improperly created wind farm lease sites off New Jersey was dismissed by a federal judge but given 30 days to amend its initial complaint. (Asbury Park Press)
• As Rhode Island Energy evaluates the sole bid in its recent offshore wind solicitation, the utility’s president acknowledges the company had hoped more developers would participate. (Offshore Wind biz)
AFFORDABILITY: Some costs of the renewable energy transition are already reflected on New York residents’ bills, but observers warn ratepayers could have sticker shock as more projects are incorporated into rates. (Politico)
SOLAR:
• Harrington, Delaware, residents are divided on whether to support a planned conversion of 16 acres of agricultural land into a solar farm. (WBOC)
• The housing authority board of Arlington, Massachusetts, approves a solar project to reduce its electricity costs, and also hears updates to the authority’s building electrification projects. (YourArlington)
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