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IEEFA
Renewables Now: French energy giant Total SE has signed an agreement with 174 Power Global to create a 50/50 joint venture (JV) aimed at developing 12 utility-scale solar and storage projects for 1.6 GW of combined capacity in the US. Total said Thursday that these projects have been transferred from a pipeline developed by 174 […]
IEEFA
Casper Star Tribune: Wyoming’s long-held dream of exporting Powder River Basin coal from a West Coast terminal was recently dashed when the project’s owner filed for bankruptcy and failed to find an interested buyer. Lighthouse Resources Inc. petitioned for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Dec. 3. The company owns the Decker coal mine in Montana, just […]
Press Release, Suzanne Mattei and Tom Sanzillo
Commission’s 21-year-old pipeline policy puts contracts ahead of utility customers
December 17, 2020 (IEEFA) — The federal agency responsible for approving interstate gas pipeline projects is basing its decisions on contracts rather than on today’s consumer energy needs or the public interest, according to a report released today by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. The report—FERC’s Failure to Analyze Energy Market Forces—details […]
Press Release, Karl Cates and Seth Feaster
Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center (VCHEC), one of the newest in U.S., risks closure due to market forces
December 16, 2020 (IEEFA)—Retiring the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center (VCHEC) will bring unnecessarily abrupt economic hardship to Wise County if state and local officials do not begin to plan now for a transition, concludes a report published today by the Institute for Energy Economic and Financial Analysis. The 8-year-old coal-fired power plant, owned by […]
Clark Williams-Derry
Weak demand and low prices are likely creating steep losses for NTEC
U.S. coal exports to Asia—once heralded as the saving grace for struggling coal producers in the western United States—are facing new strains from low prices and weak demand in the wake of the global COVID-19 crisis. In its third-quarter financial statement released earlier this month, Westshore Terminals in British Columbia, the primary terminal for U.S. thermal coal […]
Press Release and Karl Cates
Tri-State currently plans using coal through 2050 and expanding into gas; projected rate increases of 55% by 2050
Nov. 17, 2020 (IEEFA) — One of the biggest power suppliers to rural electric co-ops in the U.S. is putting its business model at risk as members clamor for better access to renewable energy, more affordable rates, and more say in how they buy or produce power, concludes a report released today by the Institute […]
Clark Williams-Derry and Seth Feaster
Bear market for coal, new financial pressures push world’s largest coal company towards default
Just three-and-a-half years after emerging from its previous bankruptcy, Peabody Energy—the world’s largest private coal miner—admitted to investors on Monday that it could face yet another trip to bankruptcy court in the coming months. Coal bankruptcies in the United States have become increasingly common. Cheap gas and renewable power have steadily replaced coal in the […]
Guest Commentary: Brent Israelsen and Karl Cates
Long-simmering initiative to send Utah product to Asia is dead
A long-shot proposal to send coal 700 miles overland from Utah to Oakland for transoceanic shipment to Asian markets is dead. A U.S. bankruptcy judge in Kentucky last week approved a plan by the proposed project’s major creditor, Autumn Wind Lending LLC, to take over a sublease at the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal (OBOT) […]
Dennis Wamsted
Plan shows economics, not politics, driving the shift from coal to renewables
Idaho Power’s latest revision of its 2019 integrated resource plan (IRP) charts the utility’s direction through 2040 but is likely to have the greatest impact in neighboring Wyoming in the next year or two. The IRP has Idaho Power being coal-free by 2030 and carbon neutral by 2045. This has major implications for Wyoming because […]
Seth Feaster and Karl Cates
Avangrid acquisition of PNM signals regional market shift to renewables; coal company in maneuver to stay in business, puts more Navajo Nation finances at risk
In announcing its merger yesterday with renewable energy giant Avangrid, PNM Resources reaffirmed its commitment to end its use of coal, stating that it would continue with the abandonment of the San Juan Generating Station in 2022, and that it was actively working to sell its 13% stake in the Four Corners Power Plant. The […]
IEEFA U.S.: FERC gives blank check approval to pipeline builders, while investors and consumers pick up costs
Commission’s 21-year-old pipeline policy puts contracts ahead of utility customersDecember 17, 2020 (IEEFA) — The federal agency responsible for approving interstate gas pipeline projects is basing its decisions on contracts rather than on today’s consumer energy needs or the public interest, according to a report released today by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. The report—FERC’s Failure to Analyze Energy Market Forces—details […]