Federal appeals court shakes up transmission line siting. 3rd Circuit holds PA PUC's permit denial based on lack of need is preempted by PJM's regional planning process. Opinion is on PACER but not yet posted by 3rd Circuit on its site

I think we're at the tip of the iceberg for permissionless DERs. Imagine a 1200 W plug in solar, with a few kWh of storage on the same circuit acting as a UPS for your fridge or room AC. Could get interesting.

The cryptocurrency sector has responded enthusiastically to our study. The constructive engagement is appreciated, and at the same time, it's important to clarify a few key points made in this latest media coverage. 🧵 🔌💡

The ability to quickly build new resources, even those with "lower" capacity accreditation, will support power system reliability in the near term better than overwrought deliverability studies that try to account for each resource's contribution and slow everything to a crawl

Best news I’ve read in a while. The stop work order on Empire Wind has been lifted! 🔌💡#offshorewind www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

I've read through the text from House Energy and Commerce and now Ways and Means. I'm here to tell you this is as bad as it gets for clean energy. We are working to analyze the impact of the actual bill language, but it will be pretty close to our assessment of full repeal we did about a month ago.

🌙 Now Posted: @ferc.gov Issues Order on Compliance & Tariff Revisions in @iso-ne.com. This stems from #FERC Order 2023. ferc.gov/news-events/... 🔌💡 #EnergySky

Today I testified to the US House Energy & Commerce Energy Subcommittee for its hearing on "Scaling for Growth," alongside PJM, Southern Company & the Electric Coops - a few things that stood out to me 🧵(1/6) 🔌💡

Illinois lawmakers are pushing for more grid-enhancing tech, gigawatts of new energy storage, and the creation of a virtual-power-plant program. Reporting by Kari Lydersen:

Connecting infrastructure to the grid has been a passion since I worked on FERC's original Order 2003. Surplus interconnection is fast and provides states a tool to accelerate policy achievement even in the face of long queues. Great to work with ‪@mfarmer.bsky.social & the GridLab team!

Surplus interconnection + large load flexibility are two promising near-term ways to mitigate gas overbuild, writes UPenn Kleinman Center's @johnhquigley.bsky.social 🔌💡 kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/commentary/b...

The richest/saddest man in the world is emailing air traffic controllers that don't work for him, on Saturday night, to demand they say how many planes they landed last week, or else they get fired? Do I have that right? Loser stuff

The breadth of destruction in one short month is staggering: www.theverge.com/elon-musk/61...

Shutting down already installed infrastructure isn't "efficiency," it's sabotage electrek.co/2025/02/21/t...

Organizing in districts hit hard by DOGE slash and burn tactics (and Republican Congress’ failure to defend their constitutional power over spending) seems like a smart approach: www.huffpost.com/entry/georgi...

Great paper... for BPS, surplus interconnection reduces the study burden on operators by allowing new resources to connect without full interconnection studies = fewer upgrades and simpler reliability checks are needed + helping clear backlogged interconnection queues faster. 🔌💡

With "surplus interconnection", energy resources can move through the process hook up to the system in months rather than the typical 5+ years. @energyabe.bsky.social and I have a new report with GridLab on how to advance its use: surplusinterconnection.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025-02-21_G...

#EnergySky friends, we are releasing a set of papers today outlining how #SurplusInterconnection can unlock GW of new resources. Surplus is a way to plug wind and solar into existing thermal plants. Check out our papers, along with a cool interactive dashboard, here: www.scarcitytosurplus.com

Trump orders federal agencies to grant reckless, sweeping amnesty for corporate lawbreakers of federal health, safety, environmental, civil rights & labor laws • orders termination of valid & ongoing law enforcement when inconsistent with "Administration policy" www.whitehouse.gov/presidential... 1/

Fixing load interconnection is an increasingly important issue. Some thoughts from @allisonclements.bsky.social and Peter Freed: www.utilitydive.com/news/data-ce...

This agency is the place that stops hackers from shutting down the power grid

Also, this seems like a decent summary. But it would be nice if it acknowledged that the firm is currently suing FERC claiming that its structure violates the Constitution. www.jenner.com/en/news-insi...

PA is suing to stop the unlawful restriction of IRA funds for programs like Solar For All:

This new EO is a doozy, clearly written to test the constitutionality of independent agencies at the SCt. It purports to effectively bring all independent agencies - including the Fed Election Cmsn and the Fed (in part) under presidential control. Irreconcilable w/existing law full stop. /1

Tired: Asking the Supreme Court to overrule Humphrey's Executor Wired: Deeming the Supreme Court irrelevant and simply ignoring Humphrey's Executor (and plenty of other things)

Many saw the extension of OIRA review to independent regulatory agencies coming, but this EO does so much more... 🧵 www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

New Trump order on staff cuts adds questions on @ferc.gov independence, from @georgeweykamp.bsky.social and @mmweber.bsky.social: www.spglobal.com/market-intel...

In a world where flexibility of IBL is ↑ valuable, with exponential demand + time taken to integrate supply to BSP. Policies + regulations need to change to allow flexibility where appropriate, where it suits the need + economics, to balance reliability and resource adequacy, if needed.

Does the Trump Administration understand that the government provides essential services, like maintaining the reliability of the power grid, that will be at risk by the indiscriminate and fanatical war on public servants from Musk and his lackeys? www.newsdata.com/clearing_up/...

Co-location of large load and generation is on the agenda at next week’s @ferc.gov meeting: www.ferc.gov/media/sunshi... 🔌💡

Starting to hear about mass firings of "probationary" employees at agencies. What's that? Employees have to work for 1yr before civil service protections kick in. If they don't perform, they can be fired. But these aren't at-will employees and it's not clear firings are following the law.

This slide from NextEra is the roadmap for how we move forward during this administration that is open hostile to clean energy. It's about speed and savings. Clean energy is the only thing that is ready to deploy now, and is low cost. #EnergySky

Glad to see PJM and FERC adopt our recommendations. Devil will be in details of implementation, but an important step forward. Kudos to colleagues @gabetabak.bsky.social and Melissa Alfano at SEIA, as well as the team at Gabel Associates. Our report: acore.org/resources/re...

People want to do business with trustworthy counterparties that honor their contracts. Trump’s “freeze” is inviting a raft of contract lawsuits, and permanently damaging the credibility of the US government in the process. Hamilton would be rolling in his grave.

Last night, PJM released preliminary values for its 2025 load forecast, which once again represent a significant increase from the previous year. These findings will be presented at the Load Analysis Subcommittee next Monday and published in final form early next year. short 🧵 #energysky

The Trump Administration is *still* violating court orders to unfreeze obligated grant funds

FERC issues its order accepting PJM's Reliability Resource Initiative (RRI) proposal, allowing up to 50 additional projects to join an existing interconnection cluster. #fercafterdark elibrary.ferc.gov/eLibrary/fil...

FERC approved PJM's "surplus interconnection" proposal, which will help new energy storage, wind and solar resources share interconnection capacity with existing power plants that aren't fully using it. A significant step forward! elibrary.ferc.gov/eLibrary/fil...

1/ 🚨New study alert!🚨 🔌💡 My DukeU colleagues and I just released a 1st-of-kind study on how the US grid could integrate up to 100 gigawatts of data centers w/out major new infrastructure, provided modest load flexibility (0.5%/yr). AI load growth can be managed faster, cheaper, & cleaner. 🧵👇

DOE's general counsel and IT offices told DOE Sec. Chris Wright that giving DOGE rep Luke Farritor IT access was a "bad idea" bc he hadn’t had a standard background investigation needed to access the department’s system, per a source. Wright granted him access anyways. www.cnn.com/2025/02/06/c...

FERC must act very soon on ISO-NE's interconnection rule compliance filing (Order No. 2023), to allow projects to be developed under the new rules in time to deliver into the region's 19th capacity auction: www.utilitydive.com/news/ferc-is... . Failure to act would greatly increase consumer costs 🔌💡

this is against the law

The pause on dispersement of all federal grants doesnt just impact NEW grants not yet awarded. It applies also to grants already awarded & under contract, funds people are legally entitled to and counting on to make payroll. That's illegal & must be halted immediately. Courts must enforce the law.🔌💡

New Interior memo orders a 60-day pause on new approvals for all renewable energy development on federal land—not just wind, this one also affects solar. www.doi.gov/document-lib... (Very similar to an early Biden DOI memo ordering a 60-day freeze on new fossil fuel authorizations on public lands.)

An important court ruling validating state authority to require utilities to enter RTOs has flown under the radar. 6th Circuit: "the FPA does not preempt state laws requiring RTO membership" www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf... CC @aripeskoe.bsky.social

MISO is leading the path forward in building new transmission to drive economic growth and grid reliability: www.utilitydive.com/news/midwest... @ferc.gov

I'm trying out my own starter pack, and naturally, it's an ode to #energytwitter expats. Bluesky limits additions to 150, so my apologies for missing like 10x of our friends. go.bsky.app/P6pgVxa

A lot of people still don’t realize that dramatic cost reductions in geothermal is something happening *right now*, not theoretically in the future. Here is a look at the cost numbers published by NREL every year for Deep Enhanced Geothermal. A 50% improvement in 2024 with a lot more to come.

So long as regulation keeps up, "energy parks" that include electricity load paired with generation resources can and should be the wave of the future. This @ethanhowl.bsky.social article describes a cool new partnership btwn Intersect Power and Google: www.utilitydive.com/news/google-...

Cool feature from my cousin about how AI is being deployed to speed up interconnection queues and make the grid more efficient! Shout out to my friends at Utilidata for the good work they are doing.