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EFFICIENCY: Advocates call on Duke Energy to pursue energy efficiency more aggressively than the projected 1% decrease in retail sales currently included in its plan to cut carbon emissions in North Carolina. (Energy News Network)
STORAGE: A company announces it will build a $3.5 billion battery recycling plant in South Carolina that will remove key elements for reuse in electric vehicles. (Associated Press)
CLIMATE:
• Tornadoes strike Louisiana and Mississippi, killing at least three people, injuring dozens more and knocking out power to more than 50,000 homes and businesses. (NOLA.com, CNN)
• Officials in a metro Florida county announce a plan to respond to hotter weather and its effects on residents. (Florida Politics)
• Florida lawmakers pass legislation to try to keep private insurers in the state as climate change increases the strength of hurricanes and intensity of storms. (Associated Press)
• Virginia’s transportation department announces a resilience plan to deal with climate change, particularly increased flooding. (WHRO)
SOLAR:
• Louisville, Kentucky, reintroduces a popular program allowing residents in the region to use collective buying power to get discounted solar installation rates. (WLKY)
• A Virginia county board approves a permit for a solar farm to be built on 1,092 acres. (WSET)
GRID:
• The consulting firm that analyzed the Texas grid defends its work against criticism from state lawmakers and others because it did not consider the 2021 winter storm that devastated the grid in 2021 and launched the state’s market redesign. (Utility Dive)
• Oklahoma power and natural gas companies say they’re better prepared for extreme winter weather than in 2021, when outages led to price spikes state residents will be paying for 30 years. (KFOR)
HYDROGEN: Experts and clean energy advocates question Duke Energy’s participation in a coalition pursuing a regional hydrogen hub because the utility plans to use natural gas plants for at least several decades before fully transitioning to hydrogen. (Courier-Tribune)
NUCLEAR:
• Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power both say they’re considering building small modular nuclear reactors in Virginia. (Cardinal News)
• This week’s announcement of a breakthrough in producing power from nuclear fusion builds on decades of research at a national laboratory in eastern Tennessee. (WATE)
UTILITIES:
• Georgia Power is rated by J.D. Power as the best large utility for customer satisfaction in the South, and the municipal utility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, tops the list for midsize providers. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)
• A new Kentucky law taking effect next year will impose sales tax on utility services to any place other than one’s primary residence. (WFIE)
EMISSIONS:
• An environmental group sues the U.S. EPA to update its emission rules for a carcinogenic chemical that some Memphis, Tennessee, residents believe has damaged their health. (Prism)
• ExxonMobil reports its Texas oil refinery released emissions of carbon monoxide and other gases. (MarketWatch, subscription)
MINING: A rural Virginia county board votes to form a committee to recommend how the county should approach commercial gold mining while state lawmakers consider the same question. (Farmville Herald)
COMMENTARY: Texas regulators must continue working on a redesign of the state energy market after their previous ideas fell flat with lawmakers, writes a columnist. (Houston Chronicle)
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