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Good morning. More NextEra-Dominion merger drama just dropped. The Washington Post revealed that NextEra donated $4M to President Trump’s White House ballroom project. The power company made its donation more than six months before announcing its plan to acquire Dominion…but some consumer advocates suspect the move was intended to secure federal approval for the mammoth deal. 👀
P.S. Get the inside scoop on developing credible, defensible, and effective vegetation management programs. Join the Oct. 21 webinar hosted by Energy Central and our partners at Fulcrum, featuring experts including AEP SWEPCO Vice President Drew Seidel.
— Molly, Carrie, and the Energy Central editorial team
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Virginia is writing the grid utilization standard.
The background: In April, Virginia enacted a first-of-its kind law requiring Dominion and Appalachian Power to report metrics on their grid utilization. With those numbers in hand, state regulators will gauge how these companies can benefit from distributed energy resources (and avoid unnecessary infrastructure upgrades).
The numbers: In accordance with that law, Dominion recently shared some key stats with the VA State Corporation Commission. Annually, the company is harnessing 41% of its distribution capacity and a median 33% of its transmission capacity.
Dominion’s data highlights how “the grid is lightly used most hours and tight in specific places at specific times,” energy entrepreneur Jigar Shah explained on LinkedIn. Going forward, more in-depth reporting from Dominion will “show whether off-peak headroom can connect new loads faster and ease pressure on rates.”
More states are warming up to plug-in solar. Here’s what that means for utilities:
The trend: Ten states have legalized the tech, also referred to as balcony solar, enabling residents to hook up small systems without utility approval.
That raises the question: How can utilities keep tabs on these quickly spreading systems during grid planning?
The friction: Working ahead of the balcony solar rollout, safety science org UL Solutions created new requirements for these products…but plenty of commercially available plug-in solar tech fails to comply with them, Kenneth Boyce, Vice President of Engineering at UL Solutions, told us. This discrepancy could threaten lineworkers and residents.
The bottom line: “It's really important to be proactive in addressing [potential hazards] so that people get the benefits of the new opportunity to generate their own electricity—but do it in a way that will be safe.” he said.
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AEP, Amazon, and X-energy are teaming up on a (potential) 960-MW advanced nuclear plant in Indiana.
The players: AEP would bring the nuclear operation know-how, X-energy would bring the tech (12 of its SMRs), and Amazon would buy the electrons. The companies are looking to build on the site of a former coal plant. But…that all hinges on a pending “final investment decision.”
Big tech 🤝 big energy: As we recently reported, AEP has also committed $4B to a Google-backed, 700-MW fuel cell project in Wyoming. Meanwhile, Amazon is clearly feeling bullish on nuclear—last month, the company announced a deal to purchase 690 MW of nuclear from Constellation (and fund a 190-MW plant uprate).
A clean energy standoff? It’s looking likely in Nevada. 🤠
The Wild West: Today, the federal Bureau of Land Management plans to auction off parcels in Nevada for geothermal development. The problem?Thousands of those acres overlap with planned solar projects from developers including NextEra, Reuters reported. So NextEra asked BLM to "remove, defer or reconfigure” several proposed geothermal parcels. The agency refused.
This town is big enough for the two of us? If NextEra’s 1-GW solar project gets approved first, potential geothermal developments would have to work around it. Now, the ball is in BLM’s court. (And, judging by the Trump administration’s record, geothermal is likely to get priority.)
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Thanks for reading. Bye-bye!