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It’s called the “solar coaster:” The ups and downs the industry faces as solar-friendly policies ebb and flow. And in North Carolina, rooftop installers are in the middle of one wild ride.
On the heels of cutting bill credits for residential solar panels in October, Duke Energy is now poised to offer new rebates for rooftop arrays that are paired with batteries. Combined with federal incentives, the new “PowerPair” rebates could cut the cost of solar and battery systems in half and inject new interest in rooftop solar, which many installers say waned last fall.
“We definitely saw a dip,” said Doug Ager, the CEO and co-founder of Sugar Hollow Solar, describing his company’s business in the last quarter of 2023. But at least in the short-term, he said, “PowerPair will change all that.”
Approved to roll out in May, the pilot program will initially serve only an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 households. But proponents say it could pave the way for a new paradigm in which Duke invests in and manages distributed renewable energy and storage the same way it might a traditional power plant.
“It’s opening the door to active load management from Duke that is going to be increasingly important,” said David Neal, the senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center who helped negotiate the program. Heralding the pilot as one of the first of its kind, he said, “it’s going to be a lot more cost effective than just building new generation to meet expected loads.”
Ultimately, advocates are also hopeful that the solar coaster can be smoothed out a little.
“The rooftop solar industry really has experienced quite a bit of ups and downs,” said Matt Abele, executive director of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, which also helped devise the rebates. There’s still the question of what long-term strategies would support installers, he said. “But I would say this is not an insignificant program in the interim.”
Greenlit by regulators last month, the rebates grew out of a years-long dispute between Duke Energy, advocates, and the solar industry about how rooftop solar owners should be compensated for the electricity they produce.
About 40,000 rooftops across the state boast solar arrays, the bulk of them on homes and in Duke territory. The figure accounts for a tiny fraction of North Carolina’s roughly 5 million housing units.
Despite these small numbers, Duke, like other investor-owned utilities around the country, has long sought to lower the state’s one-to-one net metering credit, which it says unfairly burdens both the company and customers that don’t have solar panels.
Solar installers and advocates contend that rooftop arrays provide more benefits than costs, including cleaner air, fewer electrons lost in transmission, and reduced need for electricity from centralized fossil fuel power plants. Their assertion is backed up by most independent studies of rooftop solar, a 2019 analysis found.
Still, a pair of state laws, both heavily influenced by Duke, mandate a change to the current net metering scheme by 2027. To avoid the bruising battles and excessive fees on solar customers seen in California and elsewhere, some of the state’s leading clean energy advocates and solar installers forged a complicated truce with the utility.
The crux of the agreement is a move toward “time of use” billing. New residential solar owners are charged and rewarded more for electrons they add to or subtract from the grid during peak demand hours of 6 to 9 p.m. in the summer and 6 to 9 a.m. in the winter. On a monthly basis, any net solar electrons added to the grid are credited at the “avoided cost” rate — akin to a wholesale rate and currently about 3.4 cents per kilowatt hour.
Diligent solar owners can squeeze benefits out of this complex billing scheme, some installers say. But to ease the transition, they also negotiated a simpler, lower-risk “bridge rate” with Duke, in which solar customers enrolling before 2027 get a monthly credit at the wholesale rate for any electrons they add to the grid.
Regulators on the utilities commission accepted these compromises last March and ultimately ordered new rates to begin October 1. But they rejected another component of the deal, which would have given customers with electric heat an extra rebate for enrolling in Duke’s smart thermostat program, in which the utility can make temperature adjustments from afar.
“Instead, the Commission directs Duke to develop a pilot program,” their order read, “to evaluate operational impacts to the electric system, if any, of behind the meter residential solar plus energy storage.”
PowerPair is the result. “This program was in many ways a result of our negotiations around net metering,” Dave Hollister, the president of Sundance Power Systems, said over email.
Devised after months of conversations between Duke, solar installers, clean energy advocates, and others, the new rebates would be based on the size of the solar array and battery and capped at $3,600 and $5,400 respectively. Combined with a 30% federal tax credit, the cash back could cut the cost of an average $40,500 system down to less than $20,000.
For customers, the deal is “actually really, really good in terms of the economics,” one installer said. And for Duke, the rebates could prove a low-cost strategy for smoothing out spikes in demand and strengthening the resilience of the grid.
“Cost effective and dispatchable customer-sited resources are key components of our clean energy transition,” Lon Huber, a senior vice president at Duke, said in an email. “We are committed to expanding the scope and adding ways for our customers to deploy grid beneficial technology.”
Customers will be divided into two equal cohorts. Those subscribed to the simpler bridge will allow the utility to remotely control their battery up to 18 times a year and will earn an extra $37 a month on average. Enrollees in the more complicated time-of-use rate plan, on the other hand, won’t get monthly incentives but would have control of their batteries.
“It will be interesting to see how many folks will allow Duke to control their battery and who wants to have that freedom and independence to manage their customer-generated electricity themselves,” Hollister said. “ We deal with so many folks who are looking for self-reliance and the idea of ‘smart grid’ is somewhat of a third rail for them.”
Already, batteries are popular options for rooftop solar customers. Installers say between a quarter and 40% of their clients were already choosing them for a variety of reasons, from a desire to save money to a quest for energy security in the face of outages.
Sugar Hollow Solar’s Ager said residential storage fits with the western North Carolina vibe. “Being in the mountains,” he said, “people just want batteries.”
With the PowerPair, the percentage of solar arrays paired with storage will undoubtedly rise, and many installers predicted it would double.
“I fully anticipate us selling tons of systems with batteries,” said Brandon Pendry, communications and outreach specialist with Southern Energy Management, one of the state’s oldest installers and a negotiator for both the bridge rate and the PowerPair scheme.
To avoid the problem installers and their clients faced with the last round of rooftop solar rebates — when demand far exceeded supply each year and available grants disappeared in minutes — the architects of the program gave it an overall cap of 60,000 kilowatts but no annual limits. That way, rooftop solar and battery owners can get the rebates on a rolling basis.
“In this case, there is only one capacity and it’s not time dependent,” said Pendry. “It’s just: when it runs out, it runs out.”
If customers choose the maximum allowable size of a 10 kilowatt solar array, a total of 6,000 households could benefit. But no one really knows when the capacity will be reached, with some predicting 18 months from May and others estimating as few as four.
Duke projects it will connect 11,400 residential rooftop systems this year. But a spokesperson said it was simply too early to tell when PowerPair rebates would dry up.
Once they do, the hope is that data gathered during the pilot will inform whatever comes next.
“It may possibly be a win-win for everyone,” Hollister said, “especially if it can be extended or transformed into a more permanent program.”
Since half of the PowerPair cohorts will be using the bridge rate, there’s some chance a permanent program would extend that rate’s life — a key priority for some in the industry.
No matter what, while most installers contacted for this article eagerly await the pilot, they’re also clear-eyed about their business plan for the future.
“We have been installing solar in [the state] for over a decade and have certainly seen lots of incentives come and go, said Jesse Solomon, vice president and director of sales for N.C Solar Now, in an email. “But we have always been able to design the investment to make sense for our clients.”
Solar installers also focus on the overall trends buoying their industry: Fossil fuels are becoming more expensive, while the materials designed to harness and store forever-free sunlight are getting cheaper.
Every year Duke raises rates, said Pendry of Southern Energy Management, “solar becomes a better and better investment.”
Environmental agencies in nine states will work together to reduce planet-warming carbon emissions by making electric heat pumps the norm for most new home HVAC equipment sales by 2040.
The memorandum of understanding, spearheaded by the inter-agency nonprofit Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, or NESCAUM, was released today and signed by officials in California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island.
While it is not legally binding and does not commit particular funding, the agreement calls for heat pumps to make up 90% of residential heating, air conditioning and water heating sales in these states by 2040.
An interim goal of 65% by 2030 is based on last fall’s target from the U.S. Climate Alliance, a group of 25 governors, to quadruple their states’ heat pump installations to 20 million in the same timeframe.
The residential sector is one of the top two or three contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in most of the East Coast states signing on to the agreement, driven in part by cold climates and a heavy reliance on oil and gas for home heating. Residential emissions rank far lower in the Western states participating.
In a press release, NESCAUM emphasized the harmful smog, haze and ozone driven by nitrogen oxide and particulate emissions from fossil fuel combustion, calling buildings “a hidden source of air pollution.”
Senior policy advisor Emily Levin said states must move quickly to help residents replace these fossil-fired HVAC and water heating systems with heat pumps in time to limit the harms of global warming.
“You may only have one more crack at these buildings between now and 2050, because these are long-lived pieces of equipment — they can last 10 or 20 years,” she said. “So we really can’t miss our opportunity.”
Matt Casale, senior manager of market transformation with the Building Decarbonization Coalition, said the new agreement’s market-share approach adds specificity to how states will meet existing, number-based goals for heat pump installations.
“The idea is to send a clear signal to the market that heat pumps are the future of home heating and cooling, while reflecting the urgency with which we need to act to meet GHG emissions reduction targets,” he said.
Manufacturers have called for this kind of “long-term signal,” said Levin — “they need to plan, they need to make significant investments.” She said agreements like this show companies that “this is the direction we need to go in” and that state governments are committed to helping make the transition happen.
“Greater demand for heat pumps will also put pressure on installers,” Casale added. “We will need policies that both grow and further develop the workforce. The MOU is a great opportunity to bring them in more directly, learn from them, and talk about their needs.”
Under the new agreement, participating states will “collaborate to collect market data, track progress, and develop an action plan within a year to support the widespread electrification of residential buildings,” according to NESCAUM.
Afton Vigue, a spokesperson for the Maine Governor’s Energy Office, said taking advantage of consolidated industry data will help prevent another new reporting requirement for participating states and will help align with varying state metrics.
The states’ forthcoming action plan is expected to include emphasis on workforce development and supply chain constraints, which have tempered otherwise strong heat pump progress in states like Maine.
“It really does focus on that element of driving the market and collaborating with manufacturers,” Levin said. “Right now, states don’t really necessarily know … how their heat pump market is developing. Creating systems to bring visibility to that, provide insights into that … it’s a really important element.”
The agreement tees up annual reports on each state’s progress toward the 2030 and 2040 goals, and schedules a 2028 check-in about any necessary adjustments.
“A greater focus on consumer education, workforce development, and affordability will be critical to the success of the transition,” said Casale. “This means getting the most out of the Inflation Reduction Act and other incentive programs, but we also need to answer the questions of how this solution best serves multi-family buildings, renters and others for whom purchasing a new system isn’t entirely within their control.”
In the agreement, the states pledge to put at least 40% of energy efficiency and electrification investments toward disadvantaged communities — those facing high energy cost burdens or disproportionate pollution — in line with the federal Justice40 program, which underlies similar rules for the IRA.
Working through NESCAUM and other existing groups, the participating states will brainstorm tools for reaching these goals, potentially including funding for whole-home retrofits, building code enforcement and other uniform standards, data collection, research projects, use of federal resources and more.
“It’s going to look a little different in every state,” Levin said. “But they’re committing to collaborate and to advance a set of policies and programs that work for their state to accomplish those broader goals.”
This could include adapting or building on each other’s approaches. Levin highlighted Maine and California as having successful models for consumer outreach and heat pump market coordination, and said Maryland has shown strong impact and ambition around clean building performance standards.
Maine, which relies more on heating oil than any other state, is among the participants with existing heat pump goals in their climate plans. The state surpassed an initial target — 100,000 installations by 2025 — last year, and now aims to install 175,000 more heat pumps by 2027.
Officials in Maine have said that heating oil use appears to be slowly falling in concert with increasing use of electricity for home heat. Vigue said the new agreement lines up with existing state goals and will help Maine “bolster our ongoing collaboration with other states, share experiences, and see where gaps may exist.”
CARBON CAPTURE: A Bill Gates-backed startup plans to begin production at what it says will be the world’s largest carbon removal plant this week, where it will collect woody biomass from area paper mills and convert it into bricks to be stored underground. (E&E News)
ALSO: West Virginia lawmakers advance a bill to shift control of the permitting of carbon capture wells from the U.S. EPA to the state. (WV News)
SOLAR:
OIL & GAS:
EMISSIONS: A judge denies a motion by Virginia’s attorney general to throw out a lawsuit by an energy conservation group that seeks to block the state’s withdrawal from a regional carbon market. (Roanoke Times)
OVERSIGHT: Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry appoints a new leader for the state agency that oversees coastal restoration and hurricane protection, while also considering whether to merge that agency with the energy and natural resources department to make it easier for oil and gas companies to operate. (Louisiana Illuminator, NOLA.com)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
PIPELINES: A federal judge blocks a company’s attempt to condemn and transfer property for a Texas pipeline before talking to landowners it’s so far been unable to reach. (Texas Public Radio)
GRID:
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: The U.S. EPA holds listening sessions to “ground-truth” its efforts in Richmond, Virginia, and other environmentally stressed communities as President Biden nears the end of his first term. (Inside Climate News)
EFFICIENCY: North Carolina officials confirm the state applied for federal efficiency and appliance rebates, which should be available to residents later this year. (Winston-Salem Journal)
COMMENTARY: News that Alabama Power is entering negotiations with the U.S. EPA to remove and recycle tons of coal ash could be good news for 300 square miles of “America’s Amazon” downstream from a coal-fired power plant, writes an opinion contributor. (New York Times)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A Chicago-area regional government agency offers communities a blueprint for upgrading electric vehicle charging infrastructure. (Energy News Network)
ALSO: A southeastern Michigan consortium receives a $60 million federal grant to advance research into electric vehicle batteries. (Michigan Public)
UTILITIES: A grid expert says Xcel Energy’s proposal to switch Minnesota customers from fixed to variable rates would be an outlier nationally because of the major gap between peak and off-hour rates. (Star Tribune)
PIPELINES: South Dakota lawmakers advance three bills that would give landowners more rights and compensation when dealing with pipeline developers, from surveying to eminent domain cases. (South Dakota Searchlight)
GRID:
CLEAN ENERGY: Clean energy groups criticize Xcel Energy’s long-term energy plan that calls for 2,200 MW of new natural gas peaking plants and keeps three waste-to-energy plants operating for a decade after their planned retirements. (Utility Dive)
HYDROELECTRIC: Michigan utility Consumers Energy plans to seek proposals this month for 13 hydroelectric dams it hopes to sell. (MLive)
OIL & GAS:
EFFICIENCY:
University Park is a small suburb south of Chicago, built around sprawling warehouses for companies like Clorox, Amazon and Solo Cup that attract a steady stream of diesel truck traffic. Its residents, 88% of whom are African American, are also exposed to pollution from a steel and wire processing facility relocated there from a gentrifying Chicago neighborhood, as well as steel mills and an oil refinery in nearby Northwest Indiana.
So, village manager Elizabeth Scott figured, the town was a prime candidate for improving quality of life and the environment by adopting electric vehicles — even if only two local households had EVs when Scott first checked the secretary of state’s website.
An EV Readiness program developed by the Chicago-area Metropolitan Mayors Caucus helped University Park catapult to being a leader in electric vehicle adoption, with the program offering a “blueprint” for preparing charging infrastructure, accessing grants and doing community outreach. University Park earned the second-highest score of a dozen municipalities participating in the first cohort to finish the EV Readiness program last year, and they were the only municipality in the region’s “Southland” to complete the program.
University Park is in the process of acquiring an EV charging station for electric semi-trucks city leaders hope will increasingly serve its warehouses, and they hope to add electric vehicles to their municipal fleet while also supporting residents to get their own EVs.
University Park’s EV Readiness website offers resources for local electric car owners and aspiring owners, from a video demonstrating how electric vehicles work to an interactive map of charging stations.
Scott, who has an electric car herself, had long noticed the vast disparity in available charging stations in the predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods and suburbs on the South Side of Chicago, versus the wealthier and whiter neighborhoods and suburbs to the north.
“In Black and Brown communities there’s been a lot of disinvestment,” said Scott. “This [electric vehicle rollout] is big, it’s something new — for the world, and especially for this country.”
The truck charging station will be one of the first in the Midwest. “We’re kind of pioneers in this, this is uncharted territory,” Scott continued.
The EV Readiness program, funded by utility ComEd, offers guidance on a wide range of issues, including updating zoning and building codes to facilitate EV charger installation, training first responders in dealing with electric vehicle fires, and accessing federal and state incentives.
Municipalities receive scores for various achievements and can earn bronze, silver or gold certification through the program. Doing a fleet assessment to prepare to acquire municipal EVs helps earn silver certification, for example, and actually adding EVs to the fleet earns gold. Oak Park received a gold certification during the program’s first cohort, with the rest of the municipalities earning bronze.
The cohort of participating municipal leaders received guidance and instruction from the Mayors Caucus and met regularly.
“It was like a support group, to be able to partner with other communities, bounce ideas off one another,” Elizabeth Scott said. “I highly recommend every municipality to go through the program.”
Between October 2022 and November 2023, according to state registration data, the total number of EVs owned in the municipalities participating in the first cohort increased from 2,175 to 3,608. Hanover Park doubled its EV ownership, from 105 to 219, and Oak Park increased ownership from 581 to 904. Much-smaller University Park doubled its EV ownership — from eight to 16 vehicles.
The concept of EV Readiness was born in 2018 during public meetings around the Volkswagen vehicle emissions cheating settlement that provided funding to states for alternative fuels and electric vehicles. Metropolitan Mayors Caucus director of environmental initiatives Edith Makra noted that the majority of public comments made during that period were focused on acquiring electric vehicles.
The caucus launched the initiative with a series of listening sessions with stakeholders including the IBEW electrical workers union, fire safety officials, advocacy groups and municipal leaders. The caucus developed an EV Readiness checklist, certification program and curriculum. The first cohort of municipalities started the program in December 2022 and “graduated” in December 2023.
“When we first signed on to support this program, we weren’t fully sure what the response from municipalities would be,” said ComEd external affairs director Philip Roy. “We were kind of blown away by the interest. We have over 400 municipalities in our service territory, that are all very different — in size, makeup, resources, they all need different kinds of help. That’s where having a group like the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus that is so used to working with a broad, diverse set of municipalities is key to success.”
The EV Readiness program dovetails with an ongoing Metropolitan Mayors Caucus initiative known as the Greenest Region Compact that involves communities collaborating to develop and adopt sustainability standards.
EV Readiness also builds on the model of SolSmart, a nationwide technical assistance initiative that helps municipalities invest in and prepare for solar power, at no cost to them. Many of the municipalities in the first cohort of EV Readiness were also participants in SolSmart.
With both programs, part of the goal is to help communities be well-positioned to apply for federal grants and incentives.
“We wanted communities to be ready for the influx of funding that was on the way, we knew it was coming, we wanted to make sure they were thinking about it,” said Metropolitan Mayors Caucus sustainability specialist Cheryl Scott (no relation to Elizabeth Scott).
During the first cohort, the federal government announced the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program providing grants for EV charging under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The smallest grants available were $2 million, “more than most of our communities need,” as Makra said. And ironically the paperwork to apply for the environmental justice-focused Justice 40 mandates of the program was “a really heavy lift for most small communities,” as Makra said.
So, the Mayors Caucus worked with communities to prepare an aggregated NEVI grant application, seeking $15 million to install 114 chargers in 35 towns and two counties. Recipients have not yet been announced.
Illinois has been a leader in legislation promoting electric vehicles on the state level. The 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act created incentives for public transit electrification and EV ownership, with a goal of having one million EVs on Illinois roads by 2030. The law creates rebates of up to $4,000 for consumers who buy electric vehicles, and demands utilities pursue transportation electrification in an equitable way that does not burden customers who don’t own EVs.
Last year the Illinois legislature passed the Electric Vehicle Charging Act, which requires new single-family homes and multi-family buildings be EV capable, meaning conduit is laid to allow easy installation of chargers and wiring. State law also prohibits landlords and homeowners associations from unduly interfering with charger installation, and clarifies how renters should pay for electricity used in charging EVs.
ComEd funded the first two cohorts of EV Readiness with $225,000, and the utility is in the process of finalizing increased funding for additional cohorts, said Roy. The second cohort of the program – including 16 municipalities and two counties – is underway.
During a recent luncheon sponsored by the Executives’ Club of Chicago, ComEd CEO Gil Quiniones touted the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus’s work and the importance of EV rollout.
“We want to make sure our grid is ready, if someone wants to buy an electric vehicle today and put in a charging station,” Quiniones said. “We want electric vehicles to be an easier choice for our customers.”
He said alleviating “range anxiety” by installing more charging stations is key. Currently, there are about 2,000 level 2 chargers and 1,000 fast-chargers in ComEd’s service territory, he said.
As part of its Beneficial Electrification program, ComEd is spending $231 million on rebates and other incentives to encourage electrical vehicle adoption by municipalities and individuals.
“We recognize that municipalities are going to play a vital role in the transition to electrification,” said Roy. “Many of the policies that drive how and where infrastructure is installed are very hyperlocal policies that municipalities oversee: zoning, parking code, use of public space.”
The mayors caucus helps municipalities coordinate with utilities on EV readiness and helps them understand suggested electrical code standards and practices.
Cheryl Scott said most municipalities require permits for level 2 or fast-charging stations, but not for level 1 charging.
“If it’s the same outlet as plugging a toaster in, should the government get involved?” she asked. “Level 1 is where we saw uncertainty about how to do that. If it’s an older house, older wiring could cause problems. The owners manual (for chargers) says check with an electrician.”
“Do you permit for EV charging at a residential level or not?” added Makra. “We ask a community to think that through. Do you risk being overly burdensome, or not necessarily protecting your constituents in terms of safe installation?”
The EV Readiness program encourages communities to adopt policies going beyond the state EV charging law, and some including University Park did so by requiring new commercial construction be EV-capable.
Oak Park, a suburb west of Chicago, adopted the “most transformative” charging infrastructure policy, in Cheryl Scott’s words. The town requires a level 2 charger be installed in any new residential building with a garage or parking space, and commercial buildings and multi-family residences must have a level 2 charger for every five parking spaces. Several towns including University Park also adopted policies that commercial construction must be EV-ready or EV-capable; the state law only applies to residential buildings.
Elizabeth Scott said she’s seen interest in EVs blossom in University Park since EV Readiness launched, for environmental and financial reasons.
She said she spent $350 a month on gasoline for her car before getting an EV, since her position requires constant driving. Now, she spends about $100 a month on charging.
“It’s convenient, it’s safer, I have no catalytic converter to steal, I don’t have oil changes,” Scott noted. “But it’s really an investment in the sustainability of our future and our communities. I’m really grateful we’re able to do this as a community of color that normally doesn’t have all the opportunities.”
RENEWABLES: At least 15% of U.S. counties have halted new wind and solar projects through moratoriums, outright bans and construction impediments, making projects harder to build amid new clean energy targets. (USA Today)
COAL: A newly formed Michigan advocacy group wants a local government to buy a retiring Consumers Energy coal plant along Lake Michigan and keep it operating as a first step to create a municipal utility. (MLive)
BIOMASS: Two Michigan wood-fired biomass plants are set to close in the coming months as a utility seeks cheaper power options, raising questions about the future of the industry in Michigan. (Crain’s Grand Rapids Business)
OVERSIGHT:
OIL & GAS: A 2011 Ohio law keeps details about the companies bidding to frack under state parks and wildlife areas confidential. (Cincinnati Enquirer)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: DTE Energy proposes a nearly $125 million plan to boost electric vehicle charging in low and moderate-income communities by providing rebates to residents and businesses. (Planet Detroit)
FINANCE: A group of Wisconsin state pension holders press a state investment board to divest from all fossil fuel-related funds. (Wisconsin Examiner)
PIPELINES:
POLITICS: A nonprofit funded by Michigan’s largest utilities contributed at least $600,000 to three fundraising accounts tied to Michigan Democrats the year before sweeping clean energy laws narrowly passed the legislature. (Detroit News, subscription)
CARBON CAPTURE: A company hopes its plan to capture carbon emissions from a fertilizer production plant to be stored underground will serve as a model for the industry. (Indianapolis Star)
SOLAR:
POLICY: A majority of Maryland voters want the state to be tougher on oil and gas companies by making them pay for climate-related infrastructure upgrades, a new poll finds. (Maryland Matters)
ALSO: New Hampshire’s lack of resources for local, county and state officials to put together successful grant applications may be why it recently missed out on funds for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. (NHPR)
GRID: Federal energy regulators approve new reforms proposed by PJM Interconnection to improve reliability by changing the grid operator’s resource adequacy risk modeling and capacity accreditation processes. (Utility Dive)
GAS:
OFFSHORE WIND: Federal ocean energy officials kick off a public comment period for the draft environmental assessment of the Beacon Wind project. (North American Wind Power)
FLOODS: Some New Jersey towns along the Passaic River experience frequent flooding, but climate resiliency projects that could alleviate the issue come with large price tags. (Gothamist)
BUILDINGS: A Massachusetts historical society’s museum receives net-zero certification after installing a solar array. (Berkshire Eagle)
CLIMATE:
AFFORDABILITY: Maine lawmakers may extend a soon-to-expire electric bill assistance program that helps low-income ratepayers make timely payments in exchange for bill forgiveness. (Portland Press Herald)
UTILITIES: Xcel Energy’s latest long-term energy plan would keep its two Minnesota nuclear plants until the early 2050s and add 3,600 MW of renewables, 600 MW of storage and two new gas plants. (Star Tribune)
OHIO: Lt. Gov. Jon Husted says any provisions linked to the state’s scandal-tainted House Bill 6 should be repealed, exposing an ongoing divide among Ohio Republicans over how much of the law should remain in place. (WCMH)
TRANSPORTATION: A Minnesota work group recommends making refineries buy credits that would fund grants to clean fuel producers, but environmental groups oppose the inclusion of ethanol among beneficiaries. (Star Tribune)
GRID:
PIPELINES: North Dakota regulators are set to vote next week on when state rules preempt local ordinances on pipeline zoning issues. (North Dakota Monitor)
SOLAR: Researchers are piloting a roadside snow fence with 6-inch-wide solar panels along a Minnesota highway. (MPR News)
HYDROGEN: Critics say utility plans to burn hydrogen for electricity at natural gas plants as a way to cut emissions would be a costly distraction from pursuing other technologies. (Canary Media)
POLITICS: Missouri Democrats grill Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft for requesting $1.2 million in public funding to defend his legal fight against environmental, social and governance driven investing. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A Minnesota company begins producing electric fire trucks that can get up to 150 miles on a charge and include new safety features for operators. (WCCO)
OIL & GAS: A power outage Thursday at a Northwest Indiana oil refinery caused significant flaring and will likely increase gas prices in the near term. (WLS)
CLEAN ENERGY: Analysts and advocates urge clean energy developers to consult with tribal nations early in the planning phase and earn their support rather than risk expensive legal challenges later in the process. (Grist)
CLIMATE: Proposals to mitigate the effects of climate change with solar geoengineering could infringe on tribal nations’ sovereignty, Indigenous advocates say. (High Country News)
SOLAR:
WIND: Oregon lawmakers call on federal agencies to address their concerns about proposed offshore wind development along the state’s southern coast. (Cannon Beach Gazette)
COAL: Utah lawmakers advance a bill aimed at keeping a coal plant running long after its scheduled retirement date, even if it means taxpayers end up purchasing the 40-year-old facility. (Salt Lake Tribune)
POLITICS: Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signs a bill into law aimed at allowing the state to sidestep federal regulations it deems objectionable, such as the U.S. EPA’s “good neighbor” ozone pollution reduction rule. (Deseret News)
OIL & GAS:
GRID: Unusually extreme cold grips south-central Alaska, straining natural gas supplies and leaving thousands of households without power. (Anchorage Daily News)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
COMMENTARY:
Clean energy is aligned with conservative values. So says North Carolina Rep. Kyle Hall, a Republican legislator in his fifth term from a small town near Winston-Salem.
“It’s conservative to support market competition, consumer savings, property rights, and innovation,” Hall said at an event last November, when he received an award for spearheading a bill to promote rooftop solar and other clean energy measures in 2023.
The event also showcased what pollsters have known for years: Energy independence, less pollution, economic development, and other aspects of clean energy are popular with voters across the political spectrum.
Still, last year’s defeats and half-wins in North Carolina – where Republicans control both houses of the state legislature – show those factors aren’t always enough to propel policies favoring solar, wind, and electric vehicles forward. Obstacles remain in this purple state, including powerful special interests, misinformation, and individual lawmakers who have the power to make or break legislation.
“Polling consistently shows overwhelming public support statewide — in every community and across political ideologies — for more clean energy and for freer energy markets,” Carson Butts, the director of Conservatives for Clean Energy North Carolina, said in an email. But, he acknowledged, “clearly, we have more work to do.”
Advocates like Butts believe they’re making progress in winning Republicans over to their cause, and there’s evidence for that.
In 2013, for the first time in over 100 years, the North Carolina GOP assumed control of the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the General Assembly. Members of their ranks immediately sought to weaken clean energy policies, with some success. Today, state-level solar tax incentives are gone, and land-based wind turbines are scant albeit legal.
But strong bipartisan support for clean energy also started to congeal, culminating in 2021, when the legislature and a Democratic governor elected in 2016 crafted a law to zero out electricity sector carbon emissions by midcentury. It remains the only such bipartisan measure in the region.
John Szoka, who helped write that law, may be the greatest testament to the efforts of right-leaning clean energy advocates. A former legislator who took office the first year of the GOP trifecta, today he leads the Conservative Energy Network, a nationwide association of state-based groups like Conservatives for Clean Energy.
“I’m the perfect example,” Szoka said in an interview, about how conservatives can evolve through education.
“When I first ran for office, I thought solar only existed because of subsidies and a bunch of crazy stuff,” he said. “But then, I ended up being a proponent for it. I made the transition because I had people who are trusted conservatives tell me what the truth was.”
Though Republicans regained a legislative supermajority in 2022, the bipartisan emissions law faced no attacks last year. A largely symbolic measure to ban ocean-based wind turbines in state-controlled waters also never got a hearing.
“Sometimes we define success as something that didn’t happen,” said Brian Turner, a former Democratic state representative who now directs policy for Audubon North Carolina. “We didn’t get another wind moratorium,” he noted at a November energy conference. “That’s something we were able to bottle up and keep from moving.”
What’s more, Republicans allocated at least $10 million in matching funds for an avalanche of clean energy grants headed to North Carolina thanks to federal initiatives like the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“There was significant funding allocated for clean energy related items, and that wasn’t necessarily a given,” said Cassie Gavin, policy director at the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association. “Every state hasn’t done that.”
Rep. Hall also moved to raise the current cap on leasing rooftop solar from 1% of Duke Energy electricity sales to 10%, a key change for businesses and nonprofits looking to rely more renewable energy. After paring down the scope of the bill to satisfy Duke, it cleared the house with just 10 “no” votes — a milestone he called significant.
“Being able to carry it through,” Hall said in an interview, “I think was kind of a victory.”
This activity aligns with poll after poll showing that voters across the political spectrum support wind, solar, and other forms of clean energy. Last year, a trio of surveys continued that trend.
The left-leaning North Carolina League of Conservation Voters found divisions between conservative and liberal voters on fossil fuels, but strong majorities in favor of “solar energy,” “clean energy,” and “renewable energy.”
Szoka’s group found that 67% of voters support community solar — in which individuals pay in for a share of a large solar farm — including 59% of Republicans.
And Conservatives for Clean Energy found that 73% of voters, including a majority of Republicans, would be more likely to support a candidate who backed policies to encourage “wind, solar, and waste-to-energy technologies.”
Consultant Paul Shumaker conducted the latter poll, a survey of 500 North Carolina voters last spring. In terms of running election campaigns, he said during a presentation of the results, “anything over 70% is a winning issue.”
But lawmakers didn’t always heed these surveys.
Shumaker’s poll, for instance, found that more than three quarters of voters, including 72% of Republicans, favored more competition in the electricity market.
Slightly smaller majorities said they would support “current legislation that would authorize a study to examine the public benefits of restructuring options for the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in North Carolina.”
The question references House Bill 503, aimed at analyzing the pros and cons of Duke joining a competitive wholesale electricity market, among other reforms. Like similar measures introduced in 2019 and 2021, it saw no movement last year.
“With the overwhelming numbers of voters supporting competition, why can’t we even study it?” asked Kevin Martin, the director of the Carolina Utility Customers Association, after the presentation.
“That’s a question for lawmakers,” Shumaker answered. He then relayed an adage he said came from the late historian David McCullough: “Special interests drive the narrative.”
Duke has a long public record of opposing the market reform study and did not respond to a request for comment for this story. But it wasn’t the only special interest that influenced policy last year.
The state budget prohibited an effort by Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, to reduce pollution from the state’s transportation sector. Called the Advanced Clean Truck Rule, it would have required manufacturers to sell increasing percentages of electric heavy-duty vehicles.
The provision originated in the House and endured when the Senate passed its version of the state spending plan. Still, Hall said he fought to remove it in conference — to no avail.
“That sent a signal to electric vehicle companies across the country that you’re not welcome in North Carolina,” Hall said.
The source of the provision, Hall believes, was the North Carolina Chamber, the business lobby that represents a host of companies including truck makers Daimler Truck and Volvo Group. “They wanted that in the budget,” he said, “and like Duke Energy, they wield a lot of power.”
The Chamber celebrated the budget language on its website in September. “Government mandates and intervention into the market would stifle… innovation and investment, as well as increase costs in new trucks, on which nearly all of our members rely,” it said.
The lesson, said Hall, is that companies with a vested interest in clean energy policy — in this case manufacturers and fleet managers who want their companies to go electric — need to do a better job of educating both lawmakers and the trade groups they belong to.
“Groups like Duke and the [electric] co-ops are doing it,” Hall said. “This side of the energy sector needs to do it as well.”
Still, the clean energy economy remains nascent compared to the entrenched business interests that benefit, at least in the short term, from the status quo. That was certainly true last year, when the well-organized building lobby faced off against the more diffuse energy efficiency industry.
State standards for insulation thickness, window quality, and other energy-saving building features in new single-family homes have remained virtually unchanged for over a decade.
The state’s Building Code Council sought to change that, tying updated standards to a 2021 international model code. The move was expected to add an average of $5,000 to the cost of a new house but generate a positive cash flow immediately by lowering energy bills.
The math was generated by an independent government lab and confirmed anecdotally by green builders, who supported the code updates. But the powerful North Carolina Home Builders Association refused to accept it. A major campaign donor and presence in the legislature, the builders lobby instead claimed the average cost would exceed $20,000.
With the state in dire need of affordable housing, the builders’ reasoning was potent – convincing several Democrats and every single Republican to vote for a measure to reject the update and freeze the 2009-era codes in place until 2031.
“We do have an affordable housing crisis,” said Hall, a realtor by trade who’s observed soaring home prices even in his small town of King. And if the builders had less “burdensome regulations,” he said, they could build homes more cost-effectively. “I think that was a compelling argument.”
Special interests aren’t the only ones with sway in Raleigh. Sen. Paul Newton, a Cabarrus County Republican and former Duke Energy North Carolina president, is widely viewed as the arbiter of clean energy policy for the Senate.
A lead negotiator for the 2021 decarbonization law, his positions frequently align with Duke’s. But he also asserts himself on bills that don’t directly concern the utility, and his influence extends beyond his chamber.
For four years in a row, he was thought to be the sticking point for government building efficiency legislation — a measure with no organized opposition and few detractors in the House. The 2023 Conservatives for Clean Energy poll found the measure had 79% support, including 68% of Republicans. Last year, the measure was reintroduced in the House with bipartisan support, but never got a hearing.
Newton’s key imprint from 2023 was his bill to promote nuclear, a carbon-free but non-renewable power source. The measure is more message than substance, but one key provision removes a requirement that Duke pursue more cost-effective measures like energy efficiency and renewables before trying to build a new nuclear plant.
“We support energy efficiency as the most affordable energy resource, and so we remain concerned about the changes to the [Certificate of Convenience and Public Necessity] section,” said Gavin of the Sustainable Energy Association.
When the bill first cleared the House, it included language sought by Hall to increase the solar leasing cap. That provision was rejected by Newton and other senators in the conference committee between the two chambers. “The Senate just stood their ground,” Hall said, “and flat out said ‘no.’”
Though his solar leasing bill is still eligible this year, Hall lamented its failure to become law in 2023. “That’s probably the most disappointing thing from the session,” he said.
Dan Crawford, director of governmental relations with the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, said the situation was indicative of the dynamic on energy policy at the General Assembly.
In the House, “you have conservatives that are trying to lead and do something positive,” he said. “But then you have the Paul Wall in the Senate.”
Newton didn’t respond to a request for a comment for this story.
Along with Hall, many observers point to Rep. Larry Strickland, a Johnston County Republican in his fourth term, as an emerging leader on energy in the House.
But they also note the absence of Szoka, who left in 2022, and former Republican representative Chuck McGrady, who now sits on the state’s Board of Transportation.
“Those are two really big losses,” Crawford said.
Szoka says one reason Republicans don’t always seem to follow the will of the majority of voters traces back to conservative grassroots circles.
Of the GOP voters his group polled who self-identified as “more conservative” on energy than their party as a whole, a whopping 64% said there was either no reason to be concerned about climate change or that more research was needed.
“So, that raises a question,” Szoka said. “How do you get elected? What’s going on in Republican grassroots organizations? Where do they get their information from?”
While outlets like Fox News have largely abandoned outright climate denial, misinformation persists about climate science, renewable energy sources, and energy policy. Throughout much of last year, for example, conservative media amplified false claims that offshore wind development was killing whales along the Atlantic Coast, an analysis by the liberal group Media Matters found.
Former president Donald Trump also trumpets such falsehoods, deepening distrust of the clean energy transition among Republican voters. And numerous studies have shown social media algorithms tend to push some users toward conspiracy theories and other misinformation.
At the same time, activists fighting solar, wind, and transmission projects, sometimes backed by fossil fuel interests, sow untruths in otherwise receptive or neutral rural communities.
“That stuff is still prevalent in a lot of rural areas, because there are people who actively work against clean energy, and they perpetuate misinformation,” Szoka said. Debunking it — a key mission of his organization — takes time and patience, he said, but it can work. “You’ve got to convince them,” he said, “and separate fact from fiction.”
Even so, with districts increasingly gerrymandered for partisan advantage, Republican candidates who support clean energy may never campaign on it: it doesn’t necessarily help them win a primary, and it rarely distinguishes them from their Democratic opponents.
“Most people don’t talk about it enough,” Szoka said, especially considering clean energy’s importance to unaffiliated voters – now the largest cohort in the state’s electorate. “And in some of these tight races, conservatives should talk about it more and the race wouldn’t be quite as tight.”
Still, advancing the clean energy transition may not be a simple matter of translating popular polling issues into policy. As politics becomes more nationalized and more polarized, with top Republicans deriding wind and solar, there’s some evidence that voters could be following suit.
Conservatives for Clean Energy has conducted polling for eight years. In 2015, nearly 87% of voters were more likely to vote for candidates who supported wind and solar. But that figure has seen a steady, if slight, decline ever since, and last year reached a new low of 73%.
The fossil fuel industry has also likely benefited from the centuries-old term “natural gas,” which despite its coinage describes a fuel that contributes substantial heat-warming pollutants to the atmosphere.
While most voters in the Conservative Energy Network poll believe we should put “less emphasis” on developing coal and oil, most said production of natural gas should stay “about the same.” Similarly, the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters poll found that 68% of all voters, including 55% of “left-leaning voters,” had a favorable view of natural gas.
Hall, who doesn’t advocate a full transition to “things like solar and wind,” believes the key is focusing on not just economics, but independence.
“If you ask people, ‘do you want to be energy independent, or do you want to rely on China and Russia for your energy,’ everybody’s going to vote for America first,” Hall said. “When I speak to constituents, their number one concern is that when they flip the switch that the light turns on — and if you could do it cheaper, cleaner, and made right here in America, that’s what they care about.”
Some way or another, clean energy advocates on the right are going to have to figure out what works. For all the intrigue in this year’s elections, legislative district lines leave little doubt that Republicans will retain control of the General Assembly. And left-leaning advocates say they’re not the best messengers in that case.
“There is an important role for Conservatives for Clean Energy to be that validator on the economy and clean energy,” Crawford said.
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