Energy
Toyota boosts investment in Georgetown EV plant to $1.3 billion
Toyota announced an additional expansion to its manufacturing plant in Georgetown, bringing planned new investment in the Kentucky facility to $1.3 billion, as the Japanese automaker steps up production of electric SUVs for U.S. customers. The automaker announced last year it was putting $591 million into the Scott County plant’s conversion and retaining 9,000 employees […]
Clean power advocates eye grid operator’s planning reforms warily
PJM, the nation’s biggest grid operator, is changing how it plans transmission upgrades needed to ensure reliable service for the 65 million people who live in its footprint. The effort comes after plenty of criticism of how the regional transmission organization, responsible for coordinating the flow of electricity in all or parts of 13 states […]
Utilities plan onsite gas storage to improve reliability; critics warn of costs, safety concerns
As the U.S. electric power system has become more reliant on natural gas plants, it’s also become more vulnerable to gas system failures. During Winter Storm Elliott in 2022, about 18% of the anticipated power supply in the portion of the grid that serves the entire eastern half of the United States, called the Eastern […]
‘Excessive and disturbing’: Regulator slashes Kentucky Power proposed rate hike by two-thirds
Kentucky’s utility regulator has allowed Kentucky Power to raise its electricity rates, but by much less than what the utility had originally asked for.? The Kentucky Public Service Commission in a Friday afternoon order allowed Kentucky Power, which serves about 163,000 customers in 20 Eastern Kentucky counties, to increase monthly bills? for the average residential […]
Congressional office agrees to investigate ‘zombie’ coal mines in Kentucky
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — With a federal investigation into technically active but non-producing “zombie” mines set to begin in March, a citizens law group in Kentucky has found production idled at nearly 40% of all active coal strip mines in the state, with some not mined in more than a decade. In all, these “functionally abandoned” […]
Hydrogen tax rules draw fire from industry
The October announcement that the U.S. Department of Energy had selected seven regional hub projects for billions in federal money to spur the production of clean hydrogen was met with considerable fanfare from the fledgling industry, seen as crucial to helping decarbonize the American economy. But when the Biden administration’s Treasury Department released proposed regulations […]
Kentucky’s largest utility testing wind’s energy potential with state’s first utility-scale turbine
Kentucky’s largest utility has built what it says is the state’s first utility-scale wind turbine in an effort to test the potential of wind energy.? The wind turbine, which Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) constructed at the end of last year with its parent company PPL Corporation, stands at 165 […]
US approves a non-water-cooled nuclear reactor
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a construction permit for a new nuclear test reactor to be built in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Kairos Power, the California company developing the Hermes demonstration reactor, says it’s the first non-water-cooled reactor to be approved for construction in the U.S. in over 50 years. Construction of the 35-megawatt […]
Kentucky Power lowers proposed rate hike after pushback. Some ratepayers say it’s still too much.
Letcher County Judge-Executive Terry Adams walked up to a microphone inside a hearing room in Frankfort Tuesday morning, one of numerous people who had given public comments over the past few weeks to the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC).? The utility regulator over the upcoming days will be questioning Kentucky Power executives and other witnesses […]
New life for old coal: Minelands and power plants are hot renewable development spots
PETERSBURG, Ind. — AES Indiana’s Petersburg Generating Station, which towers over the White River here in southwest Indiana, has been burning coal to generate electricity since the late 1960s. That era, though, will come to an end soon. Two of the power plant’s four coal-burning units have already retired and the last is planning to […]
Kentucky could win ‘massive’ solar investment in federal competition. Here’s what’s possible.
An unlikely collaboration between a Kentucky coalfield county and Kentucky’s largest city began when a former high school English teacher, Megan Downey, walked into the Lawrence County courthouse in Louisa in August.?? Inspired by a personal desire to find ways to tackle the impacts of climate change, Downey had launched a nonprofit called The Solar […]
Reliability v. sustainability: Inside the debate over the EPA’s proposed carbon rules
Electric reliability has been a hot topic lately — from congressional hearings to regulatory agencies and at the regional transmission organizations that run the electric grid in much of the country. The American electric grid is undergoing a major change, prodded by state and federal decarbonization policies, market forces pushing cheaper and cleaner forms of […]