SOLAR: South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announces an energy company will develop a 74.94 MW solar farm in the northwest part of the state, bringing its volume of planned solar projects to 14,000 MW over the next five years. (The State, WLTX)

ALSO:
• A company begins operation of a 15 MW solar farm in Virginia. (WDBJ)
• A North Carolina city enlists a solar developer to build a plant to power 42% of its municipal wastewater treatment plant. (Winston-Salem Journal)
• An energy company announces it’s sold a 147 MW solar farm in Texas to an asset manager. (news release)

OIL & GAS:
• Two-thirds of the donations to the re-election campaign of a Texas regulator who oversees the oil and gas industry have come from oil and gas interests, according to campaign finance records. (Dallas Morning News)
• ConocoPhillips’ CEO blames inflation, the labor market and supply-chain snags for slow growth in the Permian Basin and elsewhere, even as the company sees a 90% spike in its 3rd quarter profits. (Bloomberg, Houston Chronicle)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• A Belgian polymers company announces it will build a factory in Georgia to make electric vehicle battery components. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• The Tennessee Valley Authority and a South Carolina utility will conduct a power outage this weekend to transfer power to a new GM Ultium battery plant. (Columbia Daily Herald)
• EV maker Arrival, which plans to open a North Carolina factory next year, receives a warning from Nasdaq that its stock price is too low and may eventually get delisted. (TechCrunch)
• Mississippi awards $7.3 million from the 2016 Volkswagen settlement for projects to reduce emissions, with $5.4 million for the purchase of 42 lower-emitting diesel buses, 12 electric buses and 10 charging stations. (Mississippi Today)

COAL ASH: A new report finds Kentucky has 15 power plants with coal-ash ponds and landfills where pollutants from are contaminating groundwater, the third most in the U.S. (Lexington Herald-Leader)

BIOGAS: A Virginia judge recuses himself from hearing a lawsuit to overturn a county board’s approval of Dominion Energy and Smithfield Foods’ planned biogas facility. (Smithfield Times)

GRID: As Duke Energy improves the grid in North Carolina, it’s so far not considering the widespread undergrounding of lines due to difficulties in obtaining easements and other accommodations. (Winston-Salem Journal)

TRANSITION: A 200MW coal-to-solar project, green hydrogen development and pumped hydro storage project are slated for development soon in Kentucky. (CleanTechnica)

CLIMATE: North Carolina awards nearly $20 million to help coastal communities fortify beaches battered by recent storms, but critics say rebuilding is only temporary unless action is taken to reduce climate change. (Daily News)

UTILITIES:
• Business owners and residents in a Florida city complain electric rates are so high they might have to close up and leave town. (WPBF)
• Entergy’s nuclear unit in Mississippi makes leadership changes. (Vicksburg News)

COMMENTARY: The potential for Memphis, Tennessee, to break ties and the addition of six new board members could lead the Tennessee Valley Authority to finally break its reliance on fossil fuels and turn to renewables, writes an energy justice campaigner. (Utility Dive)

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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.