Policy

Executive, career and boardroom moves in solar, storage, cleantech, utilities and energy VC.

Also in the brief: Clean Energy Virginia and U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette credits activists for a pair of high-profile pipeline setbacks.

Communities of color are benefiting less from new clean energy technologies, and as a result, they are paying more for their energy.

A new interactive map created by the Yale Program on Climate Communication shows the difference in responses and opinions between America’s two political parties across questions of climate change, renewable education and utility procurement.

Under Duke Energy’s current review process, interconnection queues grew to 14 GW in North and South Carolina last year. A new process should speed interconnection reviews, and enable projects located near each other to share the costs of transmission upgrades.

Utilities that are transitioning away from coal are starting to view the creation of a natural gas “bridge” to renewable energy as an unnecessary step.

Congress has authorized more than $3 trillion in coronavirus relief, but none of this money has been for job creation. Supported by SEIA, a national climate bank can create millions of jobs, especially in low and medium-income communities.

With a timely focus on jobs and environmental justice, recommendations in the 538-page plan range from a solar ITC extension to a pushback on FERC’s ability to create wholesale market barriers to clean energy.

Industry participants noted the significance of a real-time pricing project on a single distribution circuit in California. State officials are evaluating real-time pricing as a means to help integrate more solar and wind power on the grid.

“Reports indicate that the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, the Heartland Institute and NERA all have ties to the Koch brothers, who have funded climate denial and pro-fossil fuel campaigns for roughly three decades.”