FOSSIL FUELS: The EPA denies requests from six coal-fired power plants — including one in western Pennsylvania — to continue dumping coal ash, signaling the agency’s commitment to enforcing long-flouted federal ash rules. (Energy News Network)
ALSO:
• A federal agency finds that natural gas has displaced most coal-fired generation in Pennsylvania in the past two decades. (Energy Information Administration)
• As the largest owner of oil and gas wells in the country shows signs of going bankrupt, observers fear what will happen to its thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells across Pennsylvania and Appalachia. (Environmental Health News)
• An upstate New York county approves a resolution opposing any natural gas appliance bans in the state. (Salamanca Press)
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OFFSHORE WIND:
• A U.S. wind developer files a bid to install enough offshore wind power in the New York Bight to electrify up to 800,000 homes in the state’s latest offshore wind solicitation. (news release)
• Multiple developers announce joint proposals in New York’s offshore wind solicitation, including an Ørsted-Eversource bid and an Equinor-BP plan, to each generate enough power to supply around 1 million homes. (news releases)
• GE would build two wind turbine component manufacturing facilities in New York, creating hundreds of direct jobs, if it secures enough work from the state’s offshore wind solicitation. (news release)
• A Cape Cod newspaper writes a guide to wind projects off Massachusetts’ coast, and explains why the area is so fit for development. (Cape Cod Times)
SOLAR:
• New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport will install a 13,000-panel solar array and a 2 MW battery storage system, creating a microgrid to boost the airport’s resiliency. (The Hill)
• Four affordable housing complexes in Washington, D.C., will host 2.2 MW of solar capacity through rooftop panels and solar carports; DC Green Bank invested $12.4 million in the project. (DCist)
• Construction starts on a 2.18 MW rooftop solar project on an affordable housing complex in Maryland’s Montgomery County. (My MCM)
• A Maine town board schedules a vote for residents to decide whether to instate a six-month moratorium on new solar farms to allow time to draft an ordinance. (Courier-Gazette)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• After years of protest against diesel buses at a city bus garage, some Washington, D.C., residents cheer the news that the facility will host only electric vehicles when it reopens in 2027. (DCist)
• New York City’s mayor says he’ll mandate rideshare companies use only emissions-free vehicles by 2030. (The Guardian)
GRID:
• Climate activists are working to seat advocates on an ISO New England committee to steer the grid operator toward more ambitious climate action. (Boston Globe)
• New York will host Zinc8 Energy Solutions’ first commercial manufacturing site for zinc-air long duration energy storage systems. (news release)
• A proposed battery storage facility in an industrial part of Armonk, New York, that would store enough power for 750 homes for a year gains support from the town board. (Examiner News)
CLIMATE:
• Some New Yorkers are unplugging their refrigerators to eliminate their largest “optional” electricity usage in a bid to live more sustainably. (Associated Press)
• New York City and Philadelphia are days away from breaking their no-snowfall records amid a warm mid-Atlantic winter. (Forbes)
UTILITIES:
• Maine certifies that a citizens initiative to let voters decide whether the state can take on a debt over $1 billion — like it would if it purchased the state’s investor-owned utilities — gathered enough signatures to be on the November ballot. (Portland Press Herald)
• PPL has remedied the technical system issue that led to overestimated customer bills earlier in the month, the utility announced. (Penn Live Patriot-News)
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