Patty Durand, founder of Cool Planet Solutions and past president of the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative writes in The Roanoke Times that Virginia's focus on nuclear energy is misguided.

 “We live in amazing times to experience the benefits of technology, not only with smartphones, computers and medicine, but especially for energy. The number of advancements in how energy is produced and delivered and stored is mind-boggling. Things like data analytics, virtual power plants and distributed energy mean the electricity grid is able to decarbonize affordably and rapidly, and it means people can be engaged in ways never before possible.”

“Instead of leaning into these exciting developments, we know from several Roanoke Times articles and essays published over the past year that Virginia’s Gov. Glenn Youngkin is proposing to build a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) in Southwest Virginia as part of his Virginia Energy Plan. The plan seeks to increase nuclear energy with a stated objective to make Virginia the world’s leading nuclear innovation hub. This is unfortunate because there is nothing innovative about nuclear power.” ….

Tyler Adams, state director for Conservatives for Clean Energy Georgia, writes in the Valdosta Daily Times that developing more community solar in Georgia can boost grid reliability while adhering to conservative political principles. Adams writes that growing energy demand is an opportunity for decarbonization through increased renewable energy deployment.

The Ohio Capital Journal documents the ongoing investigation into the massive bribery scandal in Ohio involving FirstEnergy and state legislative leaders.

According to the Ohio Capital Journal, five have been charged and four have been convicted in the bribery and money-laundering scandal and there are now more signs that the federal criminal investigation continues.

In court documents filed in a separate case in late November, a special master said that a major player in the conspiracy — Akron-based FirstEnergy — continues to cooperate with federal prosecutors. The same documents order the major beneficiary of the conspiracy, a former FirstEnergy subsidiary, to do more to cooperate in a federal class-action suit.

Politico published a story this week on the struggles of the clean energy industry despite the record infusion of funding from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

Inflation, rising interest rates and unfriendly regulatory environments in some states are kneecapping solar, wind and other clean energy projects. Several Republican-controlled states (and some Democratic ones) are rolling back consumer benefits for rooftop solar installations, threatening Biden’s goal of a carbon-free electric grid by 2035, writes Jason Plautz. And, as Benjamin Storrow reports, progressive states like New York are struggling to meet their own carbon reduction targets amid a deteriorating economic environment.

The full story is worth you time. Check it out here.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a commentary in today’s paper from Georgia resident Patty Durand urging the state to restructure its utility regulatory system to keep up with the rapid change of technology.

We live in amazing times to experience the benefits of technology, not only with smartphones, computers and medicine, but especially for energy.

The number of advancements in how energy is produced and delivered and stored is mind-boggling. Things like data analytics, virtual power plants, grid edge services and distributed energy mean the electricity grid is able to decarbonize affordably and rapidly and it means people can be engaged in ways never before possible.

Yet none of that is seen in recent announcements from Georgia Power as reported in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in which the utility claims that large amounts of new capacity that only it can produce are required to meet a capacity crunch. Georgia Power is a monopoly utility that is guaranteed a healthy profit for building power plants, an antiquated business model that needs to change. Of course they will claim the need to build more capacity: that is how they make money.

The Energy and Policy Institute reports that Michigan legislators are failing to keep their transparency pledge to voters.

DTE Energy has given $176,000 to Michigan lawmakers’ campaigns and related funds since a February ice storm caused lengthy power outages, a reoccurring event that stoked widespread backlash from DTE customers. The spending comes as Democrats attempt to pass climate and consumer protection bills, raising questions over whether they will deliver on promises that some have made to rein in the utility.

Michigan’s House and Senate energy committees held a pair of hearings in March where members grilled utility executives and relayed the frustrations of residents whose lives were upended by days-long DTE outages. But despite blasting the outages as “unconscionable” seven months ago, legislators appear to have softened their push for utility accountability – and roughly 100 of them have taken DTE money since then, state campaign finance records show

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has postponed a decision on whether to reduce rooftop-solar incentives for users with multiple meters until Nov. 2. The delay comes after local clean energy advocates complained the move would reduce incentives for adopting solar and set back the state’s clean energy goals.

Reimagine Power, a local energy advocacy group, helped galvanize opposition from utility customers across the state, including agricultural organizations, renters’ rights groups, school districts and environmental advocates.

“The extension is likely the result of all the public pressure, hundreds and hundreds of personal communications, op-eds and editorials that the CPUC — and Governor who appoints the commissioners — received from everyone under the sun, that the decision must be amended,” Igor Tregub, Reimagine’s Strategic Partnership Director, told local media outlets. “I think the decision to postpone the meeting for three weeks is a positive one. Of course, I don’t know what their final decision will be.”

The Florida Supreme Court ruled on Sept. 28 that the state’s Public Service Commission failed to justify why the largest utility rate increase in state history for Florida Power & Light was in the public interest and how it was allowed by law. The court sent the case back to the commission in a a 4-2 decision in the case of Floridians Against Increased Rates, Inc. v. Gary F. Clark, etc., et al.

Floridians Against Increased Rates, Florida Rising and others, previously challenged a decision made by the Public Service Commission to approve a settlement agreement between Florida Power and Light and other interested parties providing for a rate increase. Floridians Against Increased Rates and Florida Rising had argued the Public Service Commission’s decision did not comply with Florida law resulting in “unfair and discriminatory customer rates.” 

In its Sept. 28 decision, the Florida Supreme Court ordered the commission to justify its approval of Florida Power and Light's $4.868 billion rate increase settlement, instructing the commission to “do the job with which the Legislature has tasked it” and explain why the increase in customer bills paired with charging customers for a higher rate of profit as agreed to in the settlement was “fair, just, and reasonable” for Floridians.

The Energy Choice Coalition recently joined more than 30 organizations representing commercial, industrial, and residential consumers and public interest groups in calling on the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Congress to support state efforts to launch and expand organized wholesale electricity markets.

The coalition sent a letter on November 19 to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm asking the Energy Department to support state efforts to develop new competitive wholesale electricity markets and improve existing ones.

As more states consider creating regional organized wholesale markets to integrate more dispatchable energy resources (DERs) like wind and solar and increase the flexibility of the overall electricity system, DOE should make every effort to ensure that state energy and regulatory officials and consumers have the necessary tools and technical assistance to needed to adopt a more competitive wholesale market structure.

Rooftop solar power generation in Florida is still a nascent industry, but Florida Power & Light, the nation’s largest power company, is pushing to hamstring it — by writing and delivering legislation the company asked state lawmakers to introduce, according to records obtained by the Miami Herald and Floodlight.

FPL, whose work with dark-money political committees helped to secure Republican control of the state Senate in the 2020 elections, asked state Sen. Jennifer Bradley to sponsor its top-priority bill: legislation that would hobble rooftop solar by preventing homeowners and businesses from offsetting their costs by selling excess power back to the company, an arrangement known as net metering.