POWERnews

Fifteen states on Monday, led by Texas, filed an opening brief in a legal challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) finding that greenhouse gases (GHGs) pose a danger to public health and welfare.

The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) on Tuesday rejected a request by Exelon Corp.’s energy delivery arm ComEd to charge customers for several smart grid initiatives, including advanced meter deployment. The commission, however, approved ComEd’s request to collect an additional $155.7 million–a 7.6% increase over current revenue—through new delivery rates.

The Department of Energy (DOE) on Thursday conditionally offered a $737 million loan guarantee to support SolarReserve’s Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a 110-MW molten salt concentrating solar power (CSP) tower generating facility. The project would be the first of its kind in the U.S. and the tallest molten salt tower in the world, the federal agency said.

Efforts to confirm regulatory review of Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor design have resulted in the uncovering of “additional technical issues,” which Westinghouse must resolve before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) can consider finalizing certification for the design, NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko said on Friday.

An annual survey of more than 100 executives from the U.S. and Canadian electric and natural gas industries by consulting firm Capgemini has found that the five most critical challenges facing the North American energy industry are environmental regulation, aging infrastructure, non-environmental regulation, an aging industry workforce, and the need for new pricing mechanisms.

In the past week Luminant’s proposed Comanche Peak Units 3 and 4 and UniStar’s proposed Calvert Cliffs Unit 3 reactors received environmental approvals associated with applications for combined construction and operation licenses (COLs) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).