Morning Brief: sPower merging with AES’ clean energy development business in US, Evergy makes it difficult for Kansas solar

sPower, a renewable energy IPP, announced an agreement by the firm’s owners, AES and Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), to merge with AES’ U.S.-based clean energy development business. AES’ wholly-owned clean energy development business includes AES Distributed Energy and a wind development team formerly part of Advance Energy. Future projects developed from the combined 12 GW development pipeline will be owned 75% by AES and 25% by AIMCo, leveraging our partnership at sPower. The newly formed platform will manage the 2.5 GW of operating assets and the existing 2.6 GW contracted backlog. Source: sPower

My husband and I are working parents of small children. We decided to install solar panels when we moved to a rural property in Douglas County in Kanasas two years ago, because we wanted to put into action our values by doing our part to help promote clean energy and conservation in the state. Evergy is proposing a new electricity rate just for residential solar customers, the rate includes a monthly fee of $3 per kW of solar. If this proposal is unacceptable to our state regulators, the Kansas Corporation Commission, Evergy’s alternative request is a minimum bill of $35 for all residential customers, including those without solar. This is a bald attack on customer-owned solar. Solar customers already pay the “customer charge,” which Evergy’s own website says is “to cover costs of metering, billing, collection and customer service incurred in servicing your account.” Further, we pay the capital and maintenance costs for our solar, in addition to paying the same per-kWh rate as all other residential customers for the energy that we consume in excess of our production. In the winter, this is several hundred dollars for our all-electric residence.  Source: The Topeka Capital Journal

Climate risks are accelerating. Here’s what Duke, PG&E and 16 other utilities expect to pay. Utility Dive took a closer look at how climate risks are threatening utilities — and how much it’s going to cost to mitigate them. The risks and liabilities from climate change-related events have taken center stage for financial institutions and investors in the energy space. Such risks and liabilities are also not far from mind for electric utilities, but how do these companies weigh the impact and mitigation costs of their generation, distribution and transmission activities?

Utah lawmakers push to block cities from banning natural gas. Some California cites have enacted rules that prohibit new homes from connecting to natural gas, a fossil fuel whose emissions contribute to climate change. That won’t happen in Utah under a bill that a legislative committee advanced Tuesday on a straight party-line vote. Source: The Salt Lake Tribune

Invenergy, the Chicago wind, natural gas and solar energy company that’s building the Samson Solar Energy Center near Paris, Texas, said it’s signed up some big customers for the facility.When totally completed in 2023, Invenergy said the $1.6 billion, 1,310-megawatt Samson solar energy generation facility will be the largest in the U.S.