Correction: Two battery storage system fires took place in a Hudson Valley town in New York. An item in yesterday’s digest misstated their location.
CLIMATE: Intense rainfall brings flooding to eastern New York and Vermont worse than 2011’s Hurricane Irene, killing at least one person, washing out roads, and leaving some towns inaccessible. (NPR, Associated Press)
ALSO: New Jersey lawmakers discuss rising flood insurance costs and difficulties obtaining private insurance with local leaders as they push for the reauthorization of a national flood insurance program. (Asbury Park Press)
SOLAR:
• “It was a bad deal:” New York lawmakers and analysts lament the state’s $1 billion deal to land a SolarCity factory that, a decade later, looks more like “the single biggest economic development boondoggle in American history.” (Wall Street Journal, subscription)
• It’s unclear how much Maine’s newly approved tweaks to solar subsidies, inspired by rising rates to incentivize community solar developments, will save ratepayers. (Bangor Daily News)
NUCLEAR: Nuclear decommissioning company Holtec is disassembling power plants across the U.S. with aspirations to replace them with small modular reactors built at a New Jersey factory. (HuffPost)
COAL: The fate of a western Maryland coal plant and its 70 employees remains unclear after state utility regulators allow Potomac Edison to exit its contract with the plant 7 years early. (Maryland Matters)
WIND:
• Barnstable, Massachusetts, is becoming a hub for offshore wind transmission, as the coastal town has capacity to take on more power and connect it with the New England grid. (CommonWealth)
• A single wind turbine spinning since 2017 in a coastal Maryland city could provide lessons as the state builds out offshore wind farms. (Salisbury Daily Times)
• Ørsted will soon deploy a project management technology to speed construction at its South Fork wind farm off Long Island. (Offshore Wind Biz)
STORAGE: Fires at two lithium-ion battery storage systems in a downstate New York town may have released toxic chemicals into the air, though levels released were considered safe, county officials say. (Staten Island Advance)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: New York lawmakers continue to push for a state bill allowing direct-to-consumer electric vehicle sales after it stalled in the Legislature earlier this year. (Newsday)
GRID: A federal court agrees with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s decision to dismiss a renewable power company’s complaint against the New York grid operator’s interconnection rules. (Utility Dive)
OIL & GAS: New York and Pennsylvania are eligible for a combined $350 million in federal funding to plug abandoned oil and gas wells. (news release, The Hill)
BUILDINGS: A former New Britain, Connecticut, factory will be converted into 154 apartments powered in part by a 150 kW solar array and complete with electric vehicle charging stations and efficient appliances. (Hartford Courant)
EFFICIENCY: New York appliance sellers must now only sell products approved by a regional energy efficiency partnership. (Times Union)
COMMENTARY:
• Wood-burning heat will power air conditioning systems at two forthcoming New Hampshire assisted living facilities and could help preserve the state’s logging industry, a reporter writes. (Concord Monitor)
• A Rhode Island labor leader calls for energy permitting reforms to ensure the state can quickly build out new offshore wind and solar farms. (Providence Journal)
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