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Of the states that made big strides on renewable energy in 2019, Nevada stands out because of the contrast with its very recent history. In states where progress is slow or even non-existent, Nevada can serve as an inspiration, and I’ll tell you why.
I’m Dan Gearino, your guide to the clean energy economy. Send me news tips and questions at dan.gearino@insideclimatenews.org, and thanks for reading!
— Dan
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Renewable Energy Takes a Quantum Leap in Nevada
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Nevada regulators took action last week on a case that says a lot about how far the state has come in the transition to clean energy.
The Nevada Public Utilities Commission approved a proposal from the state’s largest utility, NV Energy, to add 1,190 megawatts of solar power and 590 megawatts of energy storage. This will be done in the county that includes Las Vegas through three projects, each with a combination of solar power and battery storage.
The projects, to be completed by the beginning of 2024, will put the company on pace to get about 40 percent of its electricity from clean sources by 2025. That gets it most of the way toward meeting the state’s 2018 law of 50 percent renewable energy by 2030.
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Right now, NV Energy gets 24 percent of its electricity from renewables. That seems like a lot, and it is. But about half of the renewables total comes from geothermal power, systems that generate electricity using the heat inside the earth. Some of these utility-sale systems date back to the 1980s. Today, solar power is much more cost effective than building other technologies, and that’s the main reason it is at the heart of the utility’s plans going forward.
The NV Energy plan underscores what has been a year of rapid progress in the West and much of the country, said Noah Long, who oversees the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate and clean energy program in the West.
“2019 has to be, if not the most consequential year in terms of state activity on clean energy and on climate, certainly the most consequential that I’ve seen in my career,” he said.
Just two years ago, this would have seemed out of reach in Nevada. Then-Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, vetoed a 2017 bill that called for 40 percent renewable energy by 2030. He also vetoed a measure that would have expanded the ability of consumers to subscribe to community solar projects. Those actions were part of a mixed record on clean energy issues, in which he favored new investment but moved more slowly than many advocates wanted.
And, NV Energy’s parent company, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, is part of a conglomerate that had earned a reputation for being reluctant to take aggressive action to address climate change. Political leaders—and NV Energy—looked like they were comfortable with a slow transition away from fossil fuels.
One of the big changes was the election last year of Democrat Steve Sisolak as governor. On April 22, Earth Day, he signed a bill increasing the renewable energy target to 50 percent by 2030.
He said at the signing ceremony that the measure sends “a message to the country and world that Nevada is open for business as a renewable leader, and our commitment to growing our clean energy economy will not falter or fade due to the political climate.”
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NV Energy has played a key role by moving quickly to come up with projects to follow the law.
“This is a big deal,” Long said. “It represents a turnaround for this utility, which I think is pretty representative of other major utilities in the West.”
A notable example is Rocky Mountain Power, another Berkshire Hathaway Company, which issued a plan in October to close most of its coal-fired power plants and invest heavily in renewables and battery storage.
Long says the embrace of renewable energy by utilities and state governments is a response to the falling costs of wind, solar and battery storage, and the growing concern about drought, fires and extreme precipitation. There also is the Trump factor, with states stepping up to fill the void left by federal inaction, he said.
I often write about the virtuous cycle of renewable energy, with projects leading to environmental and economic benefits that then help to encourage even more projects. Nevada, with a ramp-up in projects about to happen, is one of the places I’ll be watching to see this in action.
(Photo: A robot cleans solar panels at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas. Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
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Vineyard Wind Gets a Second Super-Size Project
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Until last week, Vineyard Wind was a company with a single pending project, an offshore wind farm off Massachusetts—also called Vineyard Wind—that would be one of the largest in the country.
Now Vineyard Wind has a second project underway, and it’s even bigger than the first.
Connecticut state officials have selected the company to move forward with a proposal for an 804 megawatt offshore wind farm located about 20 miles south of the one proposed off Massachusetts.
The project, called Park City Wind, would come online in 2025 and provide the equivalent of 14 percent of the state’s electricity, according to the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environment.
“The climate crisis is no longer a future problem, and the time for action is now,” said Katie Dykes, the office’s commissioner, in a statement. “The selection of this project—the largest renewable purchase in Connecticut history—demonstrates that a zero-carbon electric future is attainable in a relatively short period of time.”
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This is the second offshore wind plan Connecticut officials have approved. The first was an agreement for the state’s residents to receive electricity from the 700 megawatt Revolution Wind project that is being developed in the Deepwater Wind lease area, near the sites of Vineyard Wind and Park City Wind.
State officials picked Vineyard Wind following a competitive bidding process. It is a big step for the company to be selected, but there are many steps ahead, including the negotiation of a contract with the state and obtaining environmental permits.
Vineyard Wind, a partnership of U.S.-based Avangrid and Denmark’s Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, knows well that big projects can take some unplanned detours. The company had hoped to begin construction this year on its 800 megawatt project in Massachusetts, set to be the country’s largest when it was announced last year. (Since then, it’s been dethroned by several others, including the proposed 1,100 megawatt Ocean Wind off New Jersey.)
The Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts was delayed after the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said this summer that it needed more time to review concerns about how offshore wind will affect the environment, including cumulative effects of having several projects next to each other.
ICN reported on how critics of the move say the Trump administration is being inconsistent by doing a thorough review of a renewable energy project at the same time it is trying to expedite reviews of fossil fuel projects.
While Vineyard Wind waits for a decision on its Massachusetts project, it now has an even larger project on which to work.
“Today’s announcement takes Connecticut one step closer to being the epicenter of the new offshore wind industry, with thriving ports in both Bridgeport and New London,” said Lars Pedersen, CEO of Vineyard Wind, in a statement.
The company has pledged to invest heavily in Bridgeport Harbor and other parts of the state by making sure that wind industry parts suppliers and other related businesses set up shop in the state.
The Park City Wind project is the latest in what has been a year of big announcements as states one-up each other with offshore wind plans. What we haven’t seen is actual construction of any new project, leaving just Block Island Wind Farm.
The day is coming, likely in 2020, when all of this planning will be followed by the early stages of construction.
It’s a long road. But when the electrons start flowing in the mid-2020s, offshore wind will become a vital part of the East Coast energy mix, easing the transition away from fossil fuels.
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Utilities’ Charitable Giving Has Strings Attached
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I’ve covered many public hearings about utility rate proposals, often held during the evening at park shelters or community centers, and often with little participation from regular citizens. Instead, the people lining up to give testimony are from charitable groups and they’re there to tell regulators about how the utility is a good corporate citizen.
Something about this feels icky to me—how food banks and other charities somehow got the message that they should testify in favor of utility rate increases for companies that also gave them money.
So I read with interest this week as the Energy & Policy Institute, a watchdog group that probes utilities and fossil fuel companies, issued a report called “Strings Attached: How Utilities Use Charitable Giving to Influence Politics and Increase Investor Profits.”
One recurring theme in the report is how utilities enlist the help of charitable groups to help stifle the growth of rooftop solar.
In Michigan, DTE Energy last year proposed a new monthly fee for rooftop solar owners along with a sharp reduction in the rate the utility would pay to rooftop solar owners for excess electricity sent to the grid.
The proposal was met with intense public opposition. But among its supporters was a new group called Michigan’s Energy Promise. The group’s website had a long list of allies that were mostly churches and nonprofits that advocate for communities of color, many of which had received donations from DTE.
Michigan’s Energy Promise argued that the solar proposals would help to fix what it described as the unfairness of a system that gives benefits to rooftop solar owners. The fact that community groups let their names be used gave this argument the veneer of legitimacy.
I asked DTE to respond to the report.
“As DTE participates in the political process we practice good corporate citizenship and look out for the best interests of our customers,” said spokesman Pete Ternes in an email. He listed examples such as promoting mass transit in Detroit, and said expenses from the company’s advocacy “do not get charged to our customers, but are instead allocated to shareholders.”
Energy & Policy Institute cites Michigan’s Energy Promise as indicative of a pervasive practice used by major utilities across the country.
“We found that all of these major utilities use their charitable giving to manipulate politics, policies and regulation in ways designed to increase shareholder profits, often at the expense of low-income communities whose communities are more likely to bear the brunt of climate impacts and suffer higher levels of air pollution,” the report says.
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