Coal Transition

Good morning and happy Friday,

This week, execs from the Edison Electric Institute met with Wall Street analysts, investors and bankers to brief them on the state of the industry and said investor-owned utilities “will likely issue equity this year to fund the energy transition’s record capital spending,” news that comes on the heels of the U.S. Energy Information Administration projecting solar and battery storage will account for 81% of new utility-scale electric-generating capacity additions in 2024.?

And as some environmentalists fret that Biden’s approval of fossil fuel projects is alienating young, pro-climate voters , the president of Impax Asset Management argues that America should be the eagle, not the ostrich, of the clean energy transition .

Read on for more.

Coal Transition

NPR recently took a look at what happens when a wind farm comes to a coal town and offered a few insights into how folks in Appalachia – many of whom feel a deep connection to the place, as expressed in this catchy music video – may view the clean energy transition. Here are some sound bites:

• Host Ari Shapiro visited Keyser, West Virginia. Coal used to be the main economic driver in this community, but automation began to eliminate coal jobs in the 1970s, affecting the town and the entire region. Instead of coal trains running non-stop through town as they once did, wind turbines spin on a ridge in the distance.?
• Interviewing the mayor, Shapiro asked if the IRA is delivering on its promise of a just transition for people moving out of work in the fossil fuel industry, noting that renewables are “just not as hands-on” as coal mining used to be.?
• Indeed, although IRA dollars are flowing to red districts, an economist found that less than 2% of workers leaving fossil fuel jobs ended up in a renewable energy job...and in WV, a mere 0.25% of workers who left fossil fuels moved into renewable energy. Another issue is that investments in wind and solar projects may not be in the exact same geographic location as places where coal was once king.

?? The Takeaway

Po’ Boyz no mo’. While it’s true that coal’s decline has been playing out for decades and “renewables are not the reason those jobs went away,” Senator Joe Manchin “was seen as selling out” for supporting the IRA. Be that as it may, Hoppy Kercheval, a local radio broadcaster who’s been on the air for nearly 50 years, affirms that “the last two years has seen more economic development announcements than I can remember in this state.” And while Republican political leaders may denounce the IRA, they “are more than willing to be at the ground-breaking and the ribbon cutting.”

Heck of A Texas REC

Renewable energy certificates (RECs) have supporters and detractors. While they have certainly supported the growth of compliance markets and helped finance gigawatts of projects, critics point to many instances where they are used for greenwashing. Here are some points to ponder:

• In recent years, many market observers have begun to call for market- and location-based reporting (RMI), and a recent Princeton study calls the lack of 24/7 matching an “unseen pitfall ” in clean energy procurement.???
• However, there’s hard evidence that REC contracts continue to result in steel in the ground – even if that ground is in a different state and energy market from the buyer, as when the South Carolina-based JNA signed a VPPA with Greenalia last November to purchase Texas RECs to offset JNA’s CO2 emissions across North America.?
• And, just last week automotive interior systems supplier Toyota Boshoku America, Inc. (TBA)announced a 12-year agreement to purchase RECs generated by Clearway’s Texas Solar Nova 1 project. TBA says the purchase will help it “make significant strides” toward reducing its Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions.

?? The Takeaway

Texas solar goes global. That global corporations are purchasing RECs generated in Texas to fulfill their corporate sustainability commitments is a wee bit ironic given that the Lone Star State is staunchly pro-fossil fuels and participating in an effort (currently under appeal ) by 26 Republican-led states to make ESG-focused investing illegal .

• Union Power: Union Workers Power Minnesota’s Fast-Growing Clean Energy Industry
• OpEd: Michigan’s new clean energy legislation is a big deal
• Extra Credit: Storage tax credits in US priced highest among all clean energy types
• Not-So-Peachy: Georgia's largest state utility is opposing Republican-led efforts to expand the state's community solar program
• Oil-rich: Kern County California will be home to a massive carbon-removal project, hoping it will help create a new generation of jobs

• Virginia Piney River Solar Project denied
• Feds Deny Permits for Hydro Projects on Navajo Land, Citing Lack of Consultation With Tribes
• Washington wind project cut to a fraction due to hawks
• Washtenaw, County Michigan considers large-scale solar
• Lawrence Township, OH trustees to seek public input about building wind and solar farms

Giga-scale Power in Gujarat

The island state of Singapore isn’t huge – at 283.5 square miles, it’s about the same size as Lexington, Kentucky. According to extensive research involving Google maps, you could walk the length of the main island in about 12 hours.

It’s one thing to consider a teeming city in such a space – but how about the world’s largest renewable energy park ? Such a marvel is in the works in the western Indian state of Gujarat, in the large salt desert and marshlands that separate India from Pakistan.?

The Khavda RE park will someday be home to enough wind and solar generation to power 16.1 million homes. It recently delivered its first power to the grid , “albeit it a relatively modest 551 MW of its planned 30 GW capacity.” The Indian government estimates it will cost at least $2.26 billion.

Conceived and operated by Adani Green Energy Limited, the second largest solar developer in the world, the park is 70 km (about 44 miles) from “the nearest signs of humanity.” One of the first challenges “involved the development of basic infrastructure, including roads and connectivity,” as well as creating “a habitable environment for its 8,000-strong workforce.”

The company hopes the solutions they’ve deployed at Khavda “will provide a scalable blueprint for future giga-scale renewable energy projects across the globe.”