SOLAR: Mid-Atlantic clean energy advocates see progress and setbacks as a long-running billing dispute over a Washington, D.C., shared solar program nears resolution, but Virginia regulators approve a rate structure that may jeopardize a similar program. (Energy News Network)

ALSO:
• A climate analysis firm compares satellite data against Texas’ records to find solar buildout in the state is running behind expectations, with 3 GW delayed by at least 6 months. (PV Tech)
• A Spanish company closes financing on 60 MW and 87 MW solar farms it’s building in Texas. (Renewables Now)

GRID:
• As 107-degree temperatures test the state power grid, a Texas city and county are using a new automated computer system that tracks usage patterns to save electricity. (Waco Tribune-Herald)
• An Austin, Texas, city council member who had warned the city wasn’t prepared for a heat wave wound up at one of the city’s cooling centers when her power went out Monday. (Austin Monitor)

WIND: Texas wind farms fall to just 8% of their potential output at a time when the state grid needs their power the most. (Bloomberg)

CRYPTOCURRENCY:
• Crypto-mining firms lured to Texas by the promise of low energy bills are idling amid record-setting power demand as the state tries to stave off blackouts. (OilPrice.com)
• Critics question a plan to build the world’s largest Bitcoin mining operation on 256 acres in Texas. (KXAS)

UTILITIES:
• North Carolina regulators will hold hearings this week on Duke Energy’s plan to reduce carbon emissions by closing all its coal plants, adding more natural gas-fired plants, and expanding renewable and nuclear energy. (WFAE)
• Clean energy advocates reeling from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision limiting the EPA’s powers eye a 2021 Biden administration executive order requiring federal entities such as the Tennessee Valley Authority to “lead by example” in cutting carbon emissions. (Tennessee Lookout)
• Florida Power & Light withdraws a proposed document that based its plans to handle peak power demand on a 1989 winter storm that caused massive outages. (News Service of Florida)
• A Louisiana Entergy customer complains after receiving a fee-filled $115.53 bill for using 0 KW of energy in June. (The Advocate)

GENERATION: A key metric for gauging coal plants’ profitability has nearly quadrupled from a year ago and has increased nearly 10-fold in Texas, and power plants seem set to reap their biggest summer profits in nearly two decades. (Bloomberg) 

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A Texas electricity retailer launches an electric vehicle leasing program. (Utility Dive)

NUCLEAR: A Florida county releases a report showing more than 200 times the normal level of a radioactive isotope in Biscayne Bay near Florida Power & Light’s Turkey Point nuclear plant. (Miami New Times)

PIPELINES: Federal regulators receive more than seven dozen comments on the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s request for four more years to complete construction. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

More from the Energy News Network: Midwest | Southeast | Northeast | West

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.