ALSO: 

• An insurance broker projects Hurricane Helene could cause $3 billion to $6 billion or more in losses, posing a major test for a battered Florida insurance market that had previously teetered on collapse but recently shown signs of stabilizing. (Politico)
• Hurricane Helene generates record storm surge that flooded St. Petersburg and other Florida cities. (New York Times, Tampa Bay Times)

SOLAR: 

• First Solar opens a $1.1 billion Alabama factory to make sheets of glass into thin-film solar panels. (Business Alabama)
• A Texas cotton farmer responds to a multi-decade drought and growing debt by shifting to grazing sheep and leasing space for solar generation, demonstrating a new business model the agriculture and clean energy industries are beginning to embrace. (Washington Post)
• A Virginia county board rejects a 72 MW solar farm. (VPM)

OIL & GAS: 

• Texas regulators approve a plan to expand grid infrastructure in the Permian Basin to accommodate a significant increase in electric load demand from the oil and gas industry. (Reuters)
• The Tennessee Valley Authority’s new long-term resources plan generates criticism from environmental groups frustrated that every scenario envisioned by the utility involves construction of new gas plants to meet escalating power demand. (Nashville Scene)
• Texas scientists use some of the $20 billion from BP’s settlement over the Deepwater oil spill to grow and perhaps restore the 12 different coral species affected by the disaster. (Houston Landing)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: 

• Florida officials urge residents to move their electric vehicles to higher ground to avoid exposure to saltwater from hurricane storm surge, which could elevate the risk of fire. (Tallahassee Democrat)
• Austin, Texas’ transit agency delays plans to launch high-frequency routes with electric buses because of a lack of charging infrastructure, and instead will move forward with two new routes that will use diesel buses and offer slightly slower service. (Austin Monitor)

NUCLEAR: The Tennessee Valley Authority considers how to pay for development of small modular nuclear reactors, after it already budgeted $350 million for initial design and permitting. (Knoxville News Sentinel)

COAL: An Indiana bank that sued one of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s coal companies for more than $4.5 million signals it’s in talks with the company about an out-of-court settlement. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

GRID: Google announces a new $2 billion data center and a $1.3 billion expansion of an existing center in South Carolina, charging state lawmakers’ debate about the sector’s growing power demand and utilities’ push for new power plants to meet it. (South Carolina Daily Gazette)

POLITICS: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announces the launch of a green bank with $10 million to accelerate the deployment of clean generation and energy infrastructure, prompting skepticism because he previously vetoed Democratic legislation to establish a similar program. (Virginia Scope)

COMMENTARY: Dominion Energy’s offshore wind farm and other clean energy projects in Virginia should benefit coastal communities that are most threatened by rising seas and climate change, writes the Virginia director of Conservatives for Clean Energy. (Virginian-Pilot)

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ALSO: An Alabama coal miner dies following a rock collapse at a coal mine that’s been accused of numerous safety violations and was sued over the death of a resident in a home explosion atop the mine earlier this year. (Inside Climate News)

GRID: 

• Utilities and energy producers prepare for outages and potential damage to infrastructure as Hurricane Helene bears down on Florida as a “catastrophic” Category 4 storm. (Tallahassee Democrat)
• New Orleans’ city council debates whether to cut back more trees around power lines after Entergy presents data about vegetation-related outages while the city’s parks department argues against changing tree clearance policies. (NOLA.com)
• Environmental activists in Memphis, Tennessee, call for the Greater Memphis Chamber to better engage with the community about Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer project and its effects on utilities and air quality. (Commercial Appeal)

PIPELINES: 

• The planned 645-mile DeLa Express Pipeline across Texas from the Permian Basin to a Louisiana terminal creates landowner concerns about its effects on nearly 13,000 acres of land, including the possibility of eminent domain. (KOSA)
• The 580-mile Matterhorn Pipeline from the Permian Basin to Houston is set to begin operations in the next few weeks. (KMID/KPEJ)

UTILITIES: 

• The Tennessee Valley Authority announces it will award bonuses to its leaders based on adding renewables and batteries to the grid, after environmentalists criticized it for boosting executive pay in recent years based on deciding to build more gas plants. (WPLN)
• Dominion Energy partners with federal and state agencies in Virginia for an exercise simulating cyberattacks against the power grid. (WTVR)
• Florida regulators approve four utilities to collect more than $1.1 billion from customers for projects to weatherize electric systems against storms. (News Service of Florida)

STORAGE: Georgia Tech researchers develop a low-cost iron chloride cathode for lithium-ion batteries, which could reduce costs and improve performance in electric vehicles and large battery storage systems. (news release)

OVERSIGHT: A Republican incumbent on a powerful three-person Texas commission that regulates the oil and gas industry is running for re-election against candidates from the Democratic, Libertarian and Green parties. (Houston Chronicle)

CLIMATE: Advocates say New Orleans’ emergency preparedness plans for shelters and evacuation don’t have enough support for people with disabilities. (Louisiana Illuminator)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tells electric vehicle drivers to move their cars to higher ground to avoid exposure to seawater during Hurricane Helene. (Florida Politics)

BIOFUELS: A renewable diesel company considers selling its Alabama refinery after filing for bankruptcy. (Biodiesel Magazine)

COMMENTARY: North Carolina regulators should use flexible, carbon-free renewables instead of natural gas plants to fill a pending power generation gap caused by the planned retirement of coal-fired plants and anticipated load growth, writes a decarbonization advocate. (Southern Alliance for Clean Energy)

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ALSO:

• CenterPoint Energy’s CEO has defended paying $800 million to lease large generators that went unused during Houston’s mass blackouts during Hurricane Beryl, but documents raise numerous questions about the deal’s cost and the qualifications of the company that handled it. (Houston Chronicle)
• Austin, Texas’ municipal utility considers 17 options for its new generation plan as environmentalists tell the city council they do not want a new gas-fired power plant. (Austin Monitor)
• Tennessee residents and environmentalists criticize the Tennessee Valley Authority for relying too much on fossil fuels and natural gas expansion in its newest long-term planning proposal. (WKRN)

SOLAR: 

• Ten Louisiana “community lighthouses” outfitted with commercial-scale solar and battery storage to provide power during blackouts got their first test during Hurricane Francine earlier this month. (Louisiana Illuminator)
• The Tennessee Valley Authority signs a power purchase agreement to take the output of a 200 MW solar farm under construction in Mississippi. (Renewables Now)
• A small-town grocery store in Kentucky uses a solar array to lower its energy costs. (Resource Rural)
• Virginia residents have mixed reactions to a farmer’s plan to lease land for a solar facility. (WTKR)
• Virginia solar advocates plan an open house event to discuss large- and community-scale solar development. (Cardinal News)

TRANSITION: There’s been little progress on plans to convert a troubled West Virginia coal-fired power plant to run on hydrogen, and its new owners have operated it barely half the time since acquiring it a year ago. (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Federal officials designate Canoo’s electric vehicle manufacturing facilities in Oklahoma as a Foreign Trade Zone, which exempts them from import tariffs. (Oklahoman)

NUCLEAR: One of Georgia Power’s new units at its nuclear Plant Vogtle has been offline for a week after a valve problem led to a shutdown. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, subscription)

GRID: 

• Utility customers in Texas and elsewhere are signing up for programs to save money in return for allowing power companies to remotely adjust their thermostats to manage grid demand. (Washington Post)
• Arkansas utilities Entergy and Central Arkansas Water make improvements to facilities to withstand severe weather events. (El Dorado News-Times)

CLIMATE: Insurance costs spike an average of 33% from 2020 to 2023, and some insurers are withdrawing altogether from areas like Florida and the Gulf Coast as climate change increases the likelihood of disasters. (Grist)

POLITICS: 

• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper will tout more than $20 billion in clean energy investments made in the state during a climate conference in New York. (Raleigh News & Observer, New York Times)
• Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump criticizes electric vehicles during a speech in Georgia, which has become the EV manufacturing capital of the U.S. thanks to the federal climate law. (GPB)

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Energy-burdened Louisiana residents brace for another bill is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

SOLAR: 

• A study finds several Southeast states could attain 45% solar generation by 2035, which would save utilities roughly $20 billion per year. (PV Magazine)
• FirstEnergy subsidiaries Mon Power and Potomac Edison break ground on a 5.75 MW solar farm, their third utility-scale solar project in the state. (news release)

WIND: A long-delayed plan to build a 75 MW onshore wind farm in Virginia is pushed back yet another year, with plans to begin construction next year and begin generating power by 2026. (Roanoke Times)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A planned Hyundai electric vehicle and battery plant in Georgia that’s being supported by local, state and federal incentives sparks protests from farmers and residents concerned that it will use roughly 4 million gallons of water per day. (E&E News)

PIPELINES: An energy analyst discusses how the 580-mile Matterhorn Express Pipeline between west Texas and Houston will relieve bottlenecks and likely spur more oil and gas production in the Permian Basin. (Texas Standard)

OIL & GAS: 

• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sues two federal agencies and Biden administration officials for declaring the dunes sagebrush lizard endangered, saying the listing is intended to undermine the oil and gas industry. (Texas Tribune)
• University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and five other major U.S. universities have accepted more than $100 million from oil and gas companies over the last 20 years, placed fossil fuel leaders among their boards, and failed to disclose conflicts of interest for fossil fuel industry research, student organizers report. (The Guardian)

NUCLEAR: U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin trumpets the federal climate package’s role in a deal to restart Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania. (WV News)

GRID: 

• A Duke Energy official discusses the utility’s grid-hardening efforts in Florida, including plans to bury more than 700 miles of power lines. (St. Pete Catalyst)
• Georgia Power projects data centers will account for more than 80% of its new large customer power demand. (Atlanta Business Chronicle, subscription)

POLITICS: Republican governors from Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and Tennessee meet in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to discuss energy efficiency, nuclear power, ethanol and the grid’s growing demand for power. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

COMMENTARY: 

• A Southeast clean energy group and an Appalachian advocacy organization criticize the Tennessee Valley Authority’s new long-term plan for vagueness and apparent reliance on building out more natural gas infrastructure to meet escalating energy demand. (Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Appalachian Voices)
• Texas’ companies’ plans to invest big in carbon capture would prolong the oil and gas industry with technology that endangers water supplies and wouldn’t be viable without government subsidies, write two environmentalists. (Austin American-Statesman)
• A Texas election for a powerful regulatory post currently held by a Republican “queen of the oil patch” has been largely overlooked because of a misleading name and failure by voters to understand what’s at stake, writes a columnist. (Houston Chronicle)

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TVA rolls out long-term plan for up to 26 GW of new power is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

SOLAR: 

• Arkansas’ solar industry and utilities split over a pending 60% reduction in net metering credits paid to customers with rooftop solar. (Arkansas Business)
• A Virginia official asks a county board what to do with six applications for solar farms that stacked up during a five-month moratorium on solar development and are still awaiting review. (Gazette-Virginian)
• An electricity provider signs a power purchase agreement to take the output of a 50 MW solar farm under construction in Texas. (Renewables Now)
• Dominion Energy manages honeybee hives at a Virginia solar farm. (WCAV)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: 

• Virginia struggles to develop the procedures and protocols needed for its electric vehicle infrastructure buildout, but the process is accelerating to take advantage of federal subsidies. (Virginia Mercury)
• Fueled by $26 million from the U.S. EPA, a growing number of Virginia school districts purchase electric school buses. (Virginia News Connection)

OIL & GAS: Tennessee residents and environmental groups protest in Nashville against the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plans to build a wave of natural gas-fired power plants across the Southeast. (Tennessean, WZTV)

CLEAN ENERGY: 

• The Inflation Reduction Act continues to fuel clean energy investment two years after its passage, with a sodium battery plant in North Carolina and a factory building electric sports cars in Virginia among recent project announcements driven by the law’s tax incentives. (Canary Media)
• A renewable energy enthusiast in Virginia uses solar panels, solar roof shingles, a wind turbine, a hydrogen fuel cell and battery storage to power his home and a detached office. (Yale Climate Connections)

STORAGE: A company that makes iron-air renewable batteries receives a $150 million federal grant for its new factory in West Virginia. (WV Metro News)

EFFICIENCY: West Virginia officials ask for public feedback on a planned rebate program for home climate control and energy efficiency improvements. (WV Metro News)

NUCLEAR: A Republican Congress member introduces legislation to expand nuclear power and suggests adding two small modular nuclear reactors at an existing Tennessee Valley Authority plant in Alabama. (WHNT)

PIPELINES: Texas residents are allowed to return home after a multi-day pipeline fire went out and an evacuation order was lifted. (Houston Chronicle)

COMMENTARY: Duke Energy’s North Carolina customers are enjoying a short-term rate reduction, but the utility’s ongoing reliance on natural gas over renewables ultimately will leave it susceptible to fuel markets’ unpredictable price swings, writes an environmental advocate. (Greensboro News & Record)

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Orlando’s complicated path to clean energy is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.