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Good morning and happy Friday,
This week delivered a wallop to the Pacific Northwest, where a bomb cyclone claimed at least two lives and left hundreds of thousands without power.
Speaking of power, President-elect Trump named ND Governor Doug Burgum to lead the Interior Department as well as a newly created National Energy Council that may adopt “drill, drill, drill” as its unofficial slogan.
Meanwhile, oil and gas industry exec (and climate change denier) Chris Wright was tapped to lead DOE, cementing the fossil fuel focus of his administration.
As COP 29 wraps up in Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia has been a ‘wrecking ball’ in global climate talks; for his part, President Biden visited the Amazon and declared there’s no going back in America’s “clean energy revolution.”
Closer to home, NARUC held its annual meeting where, among other topics, it was argued that transmission is vital for economic growth, and not just a boondoggle for renewables.
No Dispatch next week – have a safe and happy Thanksgiving, and we’ll be back December 6!
Read on for more.
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From Reform to Overhaul
Whither permitting reform? Last week we reported that the chances retiring Sen. Manchin’s bill will see action during the lame duck are slim (although some still hold out hope). But as E&E reports, Republicans say that’s OK – they can do it on their own in the 119th Congress, and they’re considering following “an unlikely model for such an effort: Democrats.” Here’s the game plan:
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Several Republicans say they’re studying how the Dems whittled the “Build Back Better” package to what would ultimately become the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed through budget reconciliation, a legislative procedure that skirts the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold and allows Congress to fast-track changes in law.
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It’s not that easy, argue some Democrats. Reconciliation bills have to be tied directly to economic impacts, and while many aspects of permitting reform meet that requirement, others – such as a rewrite of NEPA – may not.
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Both Manchin and his co-sponsor Sen. Barrasso “insist they can cinch a deal by the end of the year,” and Manchin notes that the bill would be more durable because it has bi-partisan support. Allies like Sen. Hickenlooper aren’t ready to give up. “Until Joe Manchin says it’s over, I don’t think it’s over.”
⚡️ The Takeaway
Meanwhile, at the state level... While the prospect of federal permitting legislation remains uncertain, states continue to work on the issue on their own, with mixed results. In Michigan, nearly 80 counties and townships have filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s new clean energy zoning law, which is scheduled to take effect on Nov. 29. On a more positive note, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has signed into law a new bill that prioritizes clean energy siting and permitting and clean energy procurement.
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Solar Means Business
SEIA has released its 2024 Solar Means Business report, which profiles record levels of corporate purchases of, and investment in, solar power. A key finding is that tech firms have become the dominant player, driven by electricity demand from data centers. Here are some additional highlights:
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Meta, Amazon and Google topped the rankings, with nearly 12.5 GWdc of installed solar capacity among them. Development pipelines are looking pretty swole as well: The top ten corporate buyers currently hold a pipeline of 27.8 GWdc.
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Onsite solar installations play an important role in corporate usage of clean energy, and Target maintained its #1 spot for the third year in a row with 319 MWdc of installed capacity. Over the past five years, rooftop commercial solar capacity has expanded at 12% CAGR across the U.S.
- This is the first year the report tracked corporate usage of energy storage, finding that “Google, Apple, and Meta are also among the top 10 companies turning to storage to cover more of their power needs on a real-time basis, along with major retailers like Target, Walmart, Home Depot, and Kohl’s.”
⚡️ The Takeaway
Carrots and future carrots. SEIA reports that “most companies surveyed listed the IRA’s long-term clean energy incentives as a major reason for expansion of their renewable energy procurement,” adding that interconnection reforms, community solar legislation, and simpler tax credit monetization are drivers companies cited as having the potential to increase their investments in solar and storage. |
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Doing the Wave
Back in September, the BOEM postponed its first Oregon offshore wind auction due to a lack of interest from bidders – not to mention a fair bit of opposition to the idea. As those issues play out, a small town south of Portland, OR is experimenting with a less obtrusive power source: wave energy.
Newport, “a rainy coastal town of nearly 10,500 people” is famous for its aquarium, but soon it will benefit from up to 20 MW of wave-derived energy from the PacWave South testing site, located seven miles offshore.
The DOE has helped fund the $100 million effort, and notes that “there’s enough energy in the waves off America’s coasts to power one third of all the nation’s homes.”
The technology to capture wave energy is still being developed – “since waves don’t move in a linear motion, they’re harder to capture energy from than the flow of wind over a turbine, for example,” and “one wave energy converter may not work in all environments, either.”
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PacWave is an Oregon State University project, and OSU’s “strong relationship with the community” has helped the project win acceptance, particularly among fishermen. The technology still has a long way to go in terms of viability and economics – “the consensus in the industry is that wave energy’s development is 20 years behind that of wind” – but its potential, particularly for remote communities, is significant.
On the other side of the country, the island of Eastport, Maine, is also exploring the use of microgrids tied to tidal and solar power as protection from power outages, and since 2021 Scotland has been harnessing the energy of the ocean to power homes, planes and whisky distilleries. Cheers to that!
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