MAREC Action

In this season of thanksgiving, MAREC Action is thankful for all of our members who work every day to bring clean energy to the Mid-Atlantic region. Wishing you and your families a wonderful holiday wherever that may take you -

Member shout out to REV Renewables for moving from an Associate Member to a General Member of MAREC Action! Thanks for your continued support of our work to bring clean energy to the PJM states. We are grateful to add you to our board!

MAREC Action is excited to announce that Form Energy has joined us as an Associate Member. Form Energy is a long-duration #energystorage company. Their commercial product is an iron-air battery capable of storing electricity for 100 hours at system costs competitive with legacy power plants.??Form Energy is putting their first factory in West Virginia at a former steel mill. Learn more about this company at the link below: https://formenergy.com/

MAREC Action is in Richmond, VA today at Senator Dave Marsden's energy conference. One of the topics of discussion is solar siting reform - here's a picture of Sun Tribe CEO Danny Van Clief talking about the fact that land use approval is the single most important risk factor in solar development - it is more important than land control, interconnection, managing construction risk, etc. "Right now it is totally subjective and discretionary and veers into the ideological. A business plan requires some level of predictability and the standards you are beholden to. And that varies from locality to locality and even during the application process. And that is why development is slowing down and that is troubling for Virginia". We are glad these conversations are happening and there is movement in Virginia to address these issues.

MAREC Action is excited to welcome Zenobē as an Associate Member. Zenobē designs, finances, builds and operates battery energy storage systems. Their batteries capture renewable energy, balance its supply on the grid and transport it to electric vehicles. At the end of their lifecycle the company repurposes them. Learn more about this company (https://lnkd.in/ewdJHK3T), whose headquarters are in London, England.

MAREC Action is hosting an in-person membership and board meeting at American Clean Power Association (ACP) offices in Washington DC. Thanks to Moira Cyphers and Evangeline Hobbs for letting us use ACP's offices. Great to see all of our member companies and chat about all things clean energy in the PJM states.

Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia Elizabeth Marshall talked at last week's VA Commission on Electric Utility Regulation (CEUR) about their VA solar database. The database provides a comprehensive summary of large-scale solar projects proposed for siting approval at the local level in Virginia. One statistic that really stood out to us was the recent uptick of Virginia utility scale solar denials. Check out the bar graph below (orange color) - this is why solar siting reform is sorely needed in Virginia.

MAREC Action offers congratulations to President-Elect Trump on his election and shares his focus on American energy independence. Our full statement shown below and attached: "MAREC Action, and our members building clean energy in the Mid-Atlantic and Appalachian states, share President-elect Trump’s focus on American energy independence. To keep up with rapidly growing electricity demand, policy stability and federal-state coordination is critical to growing energy investments and expanding the large-scale solar and wind resources necessary to maintaining American energy production at record levels. Adding more of these zero-fuel cost resources to the American energy mix will ensure needed energy infrastructure investments come at the lowest cost.”?–?Evan Vaughan, Executive Director, MAREC Action https://lnkd.in/eJ6AaE_7

As we approach election day, let's review where #solarenergy polls - Global Strategy Group and North Star Opinion Research conducted a survey of 1,000 registered voters nationwide between August 1 and August 8, 2024. Residents asked whether their electric utility utility should get more of its electricity from different resources - solar the clear winner. Wind power the close second -

MAREC Action was quoted in Financial Times about support for #offshorewind in New Jersey. We attended the American Clean Power Association (ACP) conference earlier this week in Atlantic City. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury to say ‘No, don’t build that.’ We have to make investments to keep up with demand,” said Evan Vaughan. “This is really our best shot, especially in a state like State of New Jersey, which doesn’t have strong #fossilfuel resources, to deploy a lot of American energy and reduce our dependence on foreign imports of energy sources,” Vaughan said." https://lnkd.in/eP9tVFnt