GRID: The country’s grid monitor warns of high power outage risks across Texas and the mid-South this summer due to extreme drought and fossil fuel plant retirements, though Texas’ grid operator claims it’s prepared. (CNN, Texas Tribune)

ALSO: A Texas power plant the state grid operator told last week to delay repairs and keep operating to meet high demand was one of six in the state that unexpectedly went offline one day later. (Texas Tribune)

SOLAR:
• A Virginia county board delays voting on four solar projects because of concerns about stormwater runoff from solar projects in other counties, even though it passed a robust solar ordinance last year. (Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star)
• South Korean company Hanwha Solutions is expected to announce it will ramp up investment and output at its Georgia factory. (Pulse)
• A new report finds the Southeast is home to only one of the top 12 cities in the U.S. for total amount of solar power capacity and solar per capita. (Canary Media)
• Reporters investigate a solar company operating in Kentucky, Georgia and Tennessee for not properly obtaining permits and installing solar arrays that customers complain don’t work. (WHAS)

OIL & GAS:
• A company announces it will build a pipeline from the Permian Basin to Houston after securing agreements with shippers. (Reuters)
• Two West Virginia residents sue the governor over a sweeping new law they say allows drilling companies to take natural gas from land without paying mineral tract owners. (Charleston Gazette-Mail) 

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Samsung plans a $17 billion factory in Texas — what the governor calls “the largest foreign direct investment in the state of Texas, ever” — to make semiconductor chips. (Associated Press)
• Electric vehicle maker Rivian’s planned $5 billion Georgia plant emerges as a wedge issue in local and state political races near the factory site, both because of fears it will change the area’s rural character and because of tax breaks and other incentives. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

UTILITIES:
• Eight Virginia climate and environment groups join more than 230 organizations in asking federal regulators to investigate “abusive utility practices” they say have led to higher electricity prices and obstruction of renewable energy competition. (Virginia Mercury)
• A Virginia city will apply refunds from a natural gas supplier over disputed costs to offset higher fuel prices. (WVIR)

CARBON CAPTURE: A Canadian fertilizer company considers a Louisiana site for a $2 billion “clean ammonia” plant that would use carbon capture to sequester 90% of carbon dioxide emissions. (The Advocate, subscription)

COAL: This week marked the 120th anniversary of an explosion at an East Tennessee mine that killed 219 boys and men. (WBIR)

COMMENTARY:
• A South Carolina lawmaker’s mention of the Carolina Panthers in legislation to attract offshore wind suppliers could undermine the state’s potential to become a wind energy leader, writes an editorial board. (Post and Courier)
• An analyst considers how much Texas’ wildly fluctuating grid has changed since 2008: a smaller coal fleet, larger natural gas plants, nearly triple the installed wind capacity, and exponential growth in solar and battery capacity. (Bloomberg)

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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.