News

After three years of development, dozens of public workshops, and hundreds of meetings with stakeholders, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) on Thursday adopted a final rule to cap California’s greenhouse gas emissions and put a price on carbon. The cap-and-trade program starts in 2013 for electric utilities and large industrial facilities.

Florida’s Public Service Commission (PSC) on Monday approved cost recovery amounts for construction of new nuclear power facilities and additions to existing nuclear plants planned by Progress Energy Florida and Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL). The decision would help secure “a diversified and stable energy future for Florida,” regulators said.

Surging coal prices have continued to prompt generators to displace some coal used for power generation with natural gas, and gas demand is again expected to jump this winter, which could pose some supply restraints, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said in its Winter 2011-2012 Energy Market Assessment.

The Department of Energy (DOE) is seeking contenders for a three-year-long funding opportunity for applied scientific research to advance novel concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies. The $60 million investment is part of the DOE’s SunShot Initiative, a collaborative effort to reduce the cost of solar energy 75% and make it cost competitive with other forms of energy by the end of the decade.

A companion bill to the U.S. House’s recently passed Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act (H.R. 2273) was last week introduced in the Senate by Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.).

A new rule enacted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday orders organized wholesale power market operators to pay “just and reasonable rates” for providers of regulation service, an ancillary transmission service that protects the grid by correcting deviations in grid frequency and balance on transmission lines with neighboring systems.

An Alberta court on Friday rejected an environmental group’s challenge to the August-issued Alberta Utility Commission approval of a planned 500-MW supercritical coal-fired addition at the 150-MW H.R. Milner Generating Station in the Grande Cache area. The court’s decision paves the way for Maxim Power to begin construction of the controversial unit—the first coal plant built in the province in a decade.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regulatory Relief Act of 2011 (H.R. 2250) by a vote of 275-42 .The bill, which seeks to limit the federal agency’s rules limiting toxic air pollutants from commercial and industrial boilers and thwart the EPA from proposing a new standard for at least 15 months after enactment, now heads to the Senate, where it is unlikely to pass, industry analysts say.

On Friday, following passage of a bill to delay Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)–promulgated Boiler MACT rules, the U.S. House of Representatives also passed the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act (H.R. 2273), legislation that would impede the federal agency from proceeding with its May 2010 proposed rule to regulate coal ash residuals.

An association of 41 European transmission system operators (TSOs) from 34 countries last week warned that adequacy margins in the coming winter could dip dangerously and threaten power supply for most of the continent.

A coalition of seven U.S. manufacturers of solar cells and panels today petitioned the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to investigate whether Chinese manufacturers are illegally dumping crystalline silicon solar cells into the U.S. market and receiving illegal subsidies from China. The measure follows a string of bankruptcy filings by several U.S. solar manufacturers in the past few months.

New variants of Stuxnet—the sophisticated computer virus designed to attack control systems and which was used last year to sabotage the Iranian Bushehr nuclear power plant—has been detected in European computer systems. The malware, dubbed “Duqu” is “essentially the precursor to a future Stuxnet-like attack,” computer security firm Symantec said on Tuesday.

A study conducted by the New York Independent System Operator Inc. (NYISO) to evaluate whether the cost of compliance with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)—a regional cap-and-trade program—has caused an increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in neighboring non-RGGI areas such as Pennsylvania concluded RGGI has not caused an increase in emissions or significantly affected the pattern of power supply.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Thursday announced approvals of loans worth $2.1 billion to 43 projects in 27 states that would help rural electric utilities build and upgrade infrastructure in rural America.

Heavy rain in key mining areas in India has caused a critical coal shortage and restricted supplies to several major coal-fired power plants in the nation that fuels 55% of its power capacity with coal.

NextEra Energy Resources today powered up the 5-MW Hatch Solar Center, in Hatch, N.M., a project it says is the largest operating concentrating photovoltaic solar power plant in North America.

PPL Electric Utilities on Tuesday said it would build 57 miles of a new 230-kV power line from the Wilkes-Barre area in Pennsylvania to an area west of Hawley, Wayne County, as well as three new substations to improve service for homes and businesses in northeast Pennsylvania and the Poconos.

ICF International, a consultancy group that earlier this year had predicted 68 GW of coal-fired power plants could retire by 2030 as a result of finalized and proposed regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), on Monday downgraded its retirement projections to 50 GW.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday proposed “technical adjustments” to the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) finalized on July 6 that would increase statewide limitations on emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxide (NO_x) for nine states. This proposal also amends the assurance penalty provisions for all states within the program so that they start in 2014, instead of 2012, to promote the development of allowance market liquidity and smooth the transition from the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) program.

Twenty-five states and the U.S. Territory of Guam on Monday filed an amicus brief and urged a federal court to force the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to delay its proposed Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (Utility MACT) rule by one year, until at least Nov. 16, 2012. The EPA has said it is on track to finalize the rule this November.

The start of operations at the Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima’s (TVO’s) Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant, Europe’s first EPR, which is under construction in Finland, could be postponed until 2014. The $4 billion project, originally due to come online in 2009, is years behind schedule and has been consistently plagued with faulty materials and planning problems since construction began in 2005.

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens on Thursday filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), which was finalized by the EPA this summer. On Monday, Xcel Energy also filed suit against the EPA, asking the agency to reconsider its methodology for calculating allowable emissions.

Instead of transferring to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) its authority to conduct congestion studies and establish a process for designating national transmission corridors under section 216 of the Federal Power Act (FPA), as it was considering last month, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the Department of Energy would work “more closely” with FERC in reviewing new transmission projects.

An analysis released by ISO New England on Thursday identifies several challenges that could dramatically change New England’s grid, including the retirement of generators and the integration of renewable resources.

Ameren Energy Resources (AER) Co. on Tuesday announced it would shutter its coal- and oil-fired Meredosia and Hutsonville energy centers in Illinois by 2011, citing concerns about rising costs related to the compliance of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR).

Just weeks ago, President Obama signaled he would veto the TRAIN Act—a bill that could indefinitely delay implementation of the Cross-State Air Pollution and the utility MACT rules. This week, the White House said that it “strongly opposed” two bills that would delay the compliance period for reducing pollution from industrial boilers, solid waste incinerators, and cement plants.

California’s Supreme Court last week gave the state’s Air Resources Board (ARB) the green light to proceed with a statewide cap-and-trade program that seeks to cut California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Friday extended a construction permit for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) unfinished Unit 1 reactor at the Bellefonte site near Scottsboro, Ala. The agency last week also listed actions Dominion must take before restarting operation of the quake-hit twin-reactor North Anna nuclear power plant near Louisa, Va.

Stirling Energy Systems, the Scottsdale, Ariz., maker of a reflective dish that concentrates sunlight onto a Stirling engine, has reportedly filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy—making it the fourth solar company to fall this year amid the plummeting price of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels.

Hours before the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) controversial advanced energy loan guarantee program (funded under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) expired on Friday, the agency finalized seven loan guarantees totaling more than $5.9 billion. Projects include solar power facilities in California, Nevada, and Arizona, and a bioenergy project in Kansas.