WIND:
• Dominion Energy and Virginia’s attorney general reach an agreement to cap how much customers could pay for its first major offshore wind project, though state regulators still need to approve the deal. (Associated Press)
• The University of New Orleans launches an offshore wind research hub for students, engineers and companies to collaborate to bring offshore wind to the Gulf of Mexico. (NOLA.com)

POLITICS: A Virginia clean energy advocate says Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s recently released energy plan represents a “U-turn away from a cleaner and cheaper energy future.” (Energy News Network)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• The availability of electric vehicle chargers in South Carolina lags behind driver interest and recently announced investments by the industry. (Post and Courier)
• North Carolina State researchers develop a tool to help electric vehicle drivers find charging stations while also assisting charging station operators to maximize access and use. (CleanTechnica)
• An energy and telecom cable company announces it’s installed 10 new electric vehicle charging stations at its Kentucky headquarters. (news release)

SOLAR: A company installs rooftop solar on the headquarters of a group that celebrates the Black history of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. (Augusta Free Press)

GRID:
• West Virginia could benefit from a federal proposal to upgrade the grid in rural areas and use microgrids to provide resilience against flooding. (Huntington Herald-Dispatch)
• Federal regulators find Texas’ standalone grid would not hold up well under extreme winter weather conditions, while a state regulator predicts it will do just fine due to reforms after last year’s winter storm. (Houston Chronicle, KRIV)
• A University of Oklahoma professor receives federal funding to study how thermal energy storage could lower the cost of renewables. (Journal Record)

COAL: Black lung advocates lobby for legislation to accelerate the process for coal miners to receive black lung benefits, which now stretches out to an average of more than six years per claim. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

CLIMATE:
• Florida Power & Light officials say they’ll seek to recoup about $1.1 billion from customers for the cost of restoring electricity after Hurricane Ian. (News Service of Florida)
• Hurricane Ian leads to Florida’s highest numbers of unemployment claims in more than a year after resorts lay off hundreds of workers following the storm. (News Service of Florida)
• Texas plans to add about two dozen new large reservoirs plus other sources of surface water, which critics say are vulnerable to the effects of climate change. (Texas Tribune)

COMMENTARY:
• An editorial board complains that offshore wind was largely left out of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s “all-of-the-above” energy plan. (Virginian Pilot, subscription)
• Virginia residents who live near former surface mines weren’t consulted before the governor’s energy plan included a small modular nuclear reactor and experimental industry incubator near their homes. (Roanoke Times)

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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.