Clean Energy Finance Forum

Venture investors and auto-company directors rarely take strategic pointers from urban-planning activists. In light of this November 19 essay pinpointing electric SUVs' sustainability failings, perhaps they should.

In upstate New York, an aggregator called Joule demonstrates the unglamorous but inexorable logic of adding solar capacity under constraints, as this October 21 article details.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc and EDP Renovaveis SA agreed to sell power from a wind farm they’re building in the Atlantic Ocean for a record-low price. The 804-megawatt Mayflower wind farm, located south of Martha’s Vineyard, will supply electricity to utilities in Massachusetts for $58 a megawatt-hour over the life of the contract.

The Ohio Supreme Court threw out FirstEnergy Solutions’ lawsuit arguing that the recently enacted law bailing out its two nuclear power plants on Lake Erie cannot be subjected to voter referendum.

"Finally, the Sunshine State is living up to its name and taking steps to become a true leader in the solar revolution. A critical component of our just transition to renewable energy is ensuring that every Floridian can participate and benefit from affordable, clean, local solar power. That’s why we must extend the benefits of solar power to renters and people with homes that are not suitable for solar panels."

Questions remain about where the money is coming from to fund both the petition drive for a public vote on FirstEnergy’s subsidies and the inflammatory campaign against it by a group called Ohioans for Energy Security.

Documents show the company retained the law firm arguing that HB 6 is exempt from state referendum procedures.

Opponents fear the law will send the growing wind and solar industry to neighboring states while Ohio homeowners are stuck boosting old, uneconomical power plants.

The Department of Energy Resources released its report on "the necessity, benefits and costs" of pursuing an additional 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind power, which the Legislature last year authorized but did not mandate, and concluded that it would be a good bet for ratepayers, the environment and the economy.