SOLAR: Two West Virginia utilities ask state regulators to restructure net metering policy to pay a lower, “wholesale” rate for solar power in the northern part of the state, threatening the state’s budding solar industry. (Mountain State Spotlight)

ALSO:

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Canoo completes its first electric vehicles in Oklahoma and looks to hire 1,300 workers at two factories in the state, even as it posts a $112 million loss for the quarter. (Oklahoman; Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, subscription)

TRANSITION: A new analysis finds a disproportionate amount of wind, solar, battery and manufacturing investment spurred by the federal climate package is going to communities that once relied on fossil fuels, including West Virginia. (Washington Post)

GRID: 

EMISSIONS: Tennessee officials work to create an inventory of the state’s biggest climate offenders and draft a plan to cut that pollution statewide. (WPLN)

OIL & GAS: 

WIND: Siemens’ decision to cancel its planned turbine blade factory in Virginia shakes the burgeoning coastal wind industry, but Dominion Energy affirms its plans to continue construction of its offshore wind farm. (Engineering News-Record)

UTILITIES: Residents in two East Texas towns outside the state’s deregulated market sue to have state regulators review their municipal utilities’ rates and provide more transparency about how they’re set. (Texas Tribune)

CLIMATE: A drought-caused influx of salt water, rising seas and extreme storms threaten communities in lower Louisiana. (New York Times)

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: West Virginia University researchers study the effect of hydropower dams on communities in South America, with a throughline of understanding how coal extraction has disrupted West Virginia communities. (Times West Virginian)

OVERSIGHT: Texas State Board of Education members raise concerns about proposed science textbooks, saying the oil and gas industry is portrayed too negatively and questioning connections made between climate change and extreme weather. (Corpus Christi Caller Times)

COMMENTARY: The president of the Kentucky Senate argues the state’s fleet of coal plants are needed to ensure grid reliability until “we cross the river into the new energy future, likely more than two decades away.” (Louisville Courier Journal)

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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.