POWERnews

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week voted to approve interpretive guidance that calls for disclosure of climate-related business risks. These include the anticipated impact of climate change on assets and financial risks associated with compliance costs for existing and pending regulations.

The Brazilian government granted an environmental license to the controversial 11,000-MW Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the Amazon rainforest on Monday in hopes that the $17 billion project will help the country cope with growing demand.

President Barack Obama emphasized the role of nuclear power, offshore oil and gas exploration, and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in his first State of the Union speech last week. The proposed $28.4 billion Fiscal Year 2011 budget for the Energy Department released by the White House this week could provide a much-needed boost to these and other measures.

The Supreme Court last week refused to review a February 2009 ruling by a federal court that blocked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from asserting its power to override transmission decisions made by states.

A technical study released by the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) last week shows that shifting 20% or more of the Eastern Interconnection’s electrical load to wind energy by 2024 is technically feasible, but it would require significant expansion of the transmission system and system operational changes.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week said it would take a fresh look at regulatory policies to integrate variable renewable energy resources such as wind, solar, or non-storage hydro generating plants into the nation’s power grid while maintaining power system reliability.

Westar Energy has agreed to spend approximately $500 million to significantly reduce air pollution from a Kansas power plant and pay a $3 million civil penalty under a Clean Air Act settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Justice Department. The company has also agreed to spend $6 million on environmental mitigation projects.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday set the new one-hour standard for nitrogen dioxide (NO2)—formed from vehicle and power plant and other industrial emissions—at a level of 100 parts per billion (ppb). The agency said it would also retain the existing annual standard of 53 ppb.

The Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA), which represents 11 municipal utilities, today announced it would undertake what it called the “nation’s first cost-effective, utility-scale distributed energy storage project.” The 53-MW project will use several rooftop ice-storage units from Ice Energy to reduce the state’s peak electrical demand by shifting as much as 64 GWh of on-peak electrical consumption to off-peak periods every year.

A Texas district judge has reversed an order from the state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to award billions of dollars in transmission projects relating to Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ), ruling that the regulatory agency should suspend the process until the PUC adequately weighs the costs and benefits to electric customers.