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Tag: Utilities

  • Feds give record $27B in loans for utility expansion in Georgia and Alabama

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    ATLANTA — Federal energy officials on Wednesday announced a record $27 billion loan to electric utilities in Georgia and Alabama, saying the loan will save customers money as the companies undertake a huge expansion driven by demand from computer data centers.

    A total of $22.4 billion will go to Georgia Power and $4.1 billion to Alabama Power. Both are subsidiaries of Atlanta-based Southern Company, one of the nation’s largest utilities. The companies plan to use the cash to build new natural-gas fueled power plants, build new transmission lines and upgrade existing power plants.

    Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the loan will result in more than $7 billion in savings over decades from a lower, federally subsidized interest rate.

    “We’re focused on driving down costs,” Wright said. He added that the loan would help ensure Southern customers “have access to affordable, reliable and secure energy for decades to come.”

    Wright and President Donald Trump have frequently made the case for their fossil fuel-friendly policies — including orders over the past nine months to keep some coal-fired plants open past planned retirement dates — as necessary to ensure reliability of the nation’s electric grid.

    Wright says the orders have saved utility customers millions of dollars and helped keep lights on during last month’s winter storm. Critics say the orders are unnecessary and have raised electric bills as utilities keep older, more expensive plants operating.

    “These loans will help lower the cost of investments in our grid that will enhance reliability and resilience for the benefit of our customers,” said Chris Womack, Southern’s chairman, president and CEO.

    The new loan comes amid scrutiny on rising utility bills, with electricity prices increasing faster than inflation in many states. There is also widespread opposition to new data centers for artificial intelligence.

    Trump in his State of the Union Tuesday announced a “ratepayer protection pledge” against higher utility bills tied to AI. He said tech companies will provide their own power as they build data centers. Trump didn’t provide details but claimed prices will go down.

    It is unclear whether any tech companies have signed pledges to build their own power plants, but Wright said on a call with reporters Wednesday that “every name you know that’s developing a data center has been in dialogue with us.”

    He cited “cooperation” from giants such as Microsoft, Google and Meta, but he didn’t specify any written agreements.

    Federal officials have long given utility loans, including $12 billion in loans that the first Trump administration and President Barack Obama’s administration guaranteed for two costly nuclear reactors at Georgia’s Plant Vogtle, partially owned by Georgia Power.

    Trump’s tax and budget bill last year reshaped the loan program to focus on increasing capacity to generate and transmit electricity. Loan guarantees under President Joe Biden focused on green energy goals.

    Gregory Beard, who directs the newly renamed Office of Energy Dominance Financing, said Wednesday that cutting interest rates and discarding Biden’s policy “will get us back on the right track in terms of affordability.”

    The loan office will review individual projects to ensure they’re financially viable, he said. “We’re not going to build this plant or deploy this capital until we are sure that it’s the right thing to do for the local community, for the local ratepayer,” Beard said in an interview.

    Those requirements don’t seem to be laid out in loan agreements that Southern released Wednesday. Jennifer Whitfield, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center who represented Georgia Power expansion opponents, said the loans will save money for Georgians, but questioned their wisdom.

    “As a taxpayer, it’s hard to avoid the fact that this is a bailout paid for by every taxpaying citizen of the United States,” she said.

    Any savings for customers must be approved by the elected Public Service Commissions in Alabama and Georgia. Commissioners last July approved a three-year rate freeze requested by Georgia Power, while commissioners in Alabama approved a two-year rate freeze in December. Company officials tout the freezes when utilities nationwide have been seeking record increases. But opponents complain company-friendly regulators locked in high prices and high utility profits.

    Voters booted two Republican incumbents off the Georgia commission in November amid complaints about rising bills.

    Commissioner Peter Hubbard, one of two new Democrats, unsuccessfully tried to roll back approval for Georgia Power’s expansion in recent weeks. He said Wednesday that the declining costs of solar, wind and battery power could make new natural gas plants uneconomic over time.

    “It’s locking us into a costlier option,” he said of the federal loan. ”And so I think it just is not meeting the moment of affordability.”

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    Daly reported from Washington.

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  • Supreme Court agrees to hear from oil, gas companies trying to block climate lawsuits

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    WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear from oil and gas companies trying to block lawsuits seeking to hold the industry liable for billions of dollars in damage linked to climate change.

    The conservative-majority court agreed to take up a case from Boulder, Colorado, among a series of lawsuits alleging the companies deceived the public about how fossil fuels contribute to climate change.

    Governments around the country have sought damages totaling billions of dollars, arguing it’s necessary to help pay for rebuilding after wildfires, rising sea levels and severe storms worsened by climate change. The lawsuits come amid a wave of legal actions in states including California, Hawaii and New Jersey and worldwide seeking to leverage action through the courts.

    Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil appealed to the Supreme Court after Colorado’s highest court let the Boulder case proceed. The companies argue emissions are a national issue that should be heard in federal court, where similar suits have been tossed out.

    “The use of state law to address global climate change represents a serious threat to one of our Nation’s most critical sectors,” attorneys wrote.

    President Donald Trump’s administration weighed in to support the companies and urge the justices to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court decision, saying it would mean “every locality in the country could sue essentially anyone in the world for contributing to global climate change.”

    Trump, a Republican, has criticized the lawsuits in an executive order, and the Justice Department has sought to head some off in court.

    Attorneys for Boulder had agued that the litigation is still in early stages and should stay in state court. “There is no constitutional bar to states addressing in-state harms caused by out-of-state conduct, be it the negligent design of an automobile or sale of asbestos,” they wrote.

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    Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

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  • Discounted energy rates for low-income Marylanders to take effect by 2027 – WTOP News

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    For the first time, low-income Marylanders will be able to receive a discounted electricity and gas rate from utilities — lowering their bills without the need for outside grants or refunds.

    This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.

    For the first time, low-income Marylanders will be able to receive a discounted electricity and gas rate from utilities — lowering their bills without the need for outside grants or refunds.

    The program is set to take effect by Jan. 1, 2027, after the Maryland Public Service Commission issued an order Thursday laying out how all of the utility companies operating in the state should structure their programs.

    “Although it does not take effect immediately, it is a significant step towards eventually easing the energy burden on Maryland families,” said Acting Commission Chair Kumar P. Barve. “The primary goal of this mechanism is to ensure that households already strained by the rising costs of everything, won’t have to pay more than they can afford for vital utility services.”

    The program will automatically apply to most low-income customers who are signed up to receive assistance through the state’s Office of Home Energy Programs, or OHEP. They won’t need to fill out an additional application, according to the commission.

    “This is groundbreaking,” said Laurel Peltier, chair of the Maryland Energy Advocates Coalition, who also volunteers to assist low-income ratepayers with their bills.

    “There are people, literally, that are not buying certain things — not only are they getting behind on their utility bills, they’re having to take money from other areas,” Peltier said.

    It’s not clear yet how exactly the utilities will recover the costs for the program, but it would likely be spread among the remaining ratepayers. Before the commission, utilities and other parties made competing arguments for what percentage should be recouped from residential customers versus commercial and industrial customers. But the commission didn’t make a final decision.

    “The Commission needs additional information in the record pertaining to the companies’ proposed cost allocation methods and wants to hear from a variety of potentially affected parties to ensure they have adequate notice and opportunity to comment,” read the PSC order.

    The program will have a tiered structure, so that households with the lowest incomes would receive the most assistance. The goal, according to the commission, is to bring households’ energy costs to 6% of their annual income.

    At first the program will only cover ratepayers already signed up with the state, but the commission directed a work group to propose more ways to reach customers in need with the discounted rates.

    “The Commission is concerned that this program will not reach customers in need who happen not to be enrolled with OHEP,” read the Commission’s order. “The Commission encourages the Work Group to include in its future work plan an effort to find solutions.”

    The program was borne out of a 2021 law, sponsored by Sen. Malcolm Augustine (D-Prince George’s) and then-Del. Dereck Davis, the current state treasurer, which allowed for separate rate classes for low-income customers.

    The final order from the PSC couldn’t come at a better time, Peltier said, with costs skyrocketing because of energy market disruptions caused by demand from data centers, as well as intense infrastructure spending by utilities.

    “When this law was signed during the pandemic, nobody knew that five short years later … low-income families can’t pay their utility bills,” Peltier said.

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    Diane Morris

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  • As electricity costs rise, everyone wants data centers to pick up their tab. But how?

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    HARRISBURG, Pa. — As outrage spreads over energy-hungry data centers, politicians from President Donald Trump to local lawmakers have found rare bipartisan agreement over insisting that tech companies — and not regular people — must foot the bill for the exorbitant amount of electricity required for artificial intelligence.

    But that might be where the agreement ends.

    The price of powering data centers has become deeply intertwined with concerns over the cost of living, a dominant issue in the upcoming midterm elections that will determine control of Congress and governors’ offices.

    Some efforts to address the challenge may be coming too late, with energy costs on the rise. And even though tech giants are pledging to pay their “fair share,” there’s little consensus on what that means.

    “‘Fair share’ is a pretty squishy term, and so it’s something that the industry likes to say because ‘fair’ can mean different things to different people,” said Ari Peskoe, who directs the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard University.

    It’s a shift from last year, when states worked to woo massive data center projects and Trump directed his administration to do everything it could to get them electricity. Now there’s a backlash as towns fight data center projects and some utilities’ electricity bills have risen quickly.

    Anger over the issue has already had electoral consequences, with Democrats ousting two Republicans from Georgia’s utility regulatory commission in November.

    “Voters are already connecting the experience of these facilities with their electricity costs and they’re going to increasingly want to know how government is going to navigate that,” said Christopher Borick, a pollster and director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.

    Data centers are sprouting across the U.S., as tech giants scramble to meet worldwide demand for chatbots and other generative AI products that require large amounts of computing power to train and operate.

    The buildings look like giant warehouses, some dwarfing the footprints of factories and stadiums. Some need more power than a small city, more than any utility has ever supplied to a single user, setting off a race to build more power plants.

    The demand for electricity can have a ripple effect that raises prices for everyone else. For example, if utilities build more power plants or transmission lines to serve them, the cost can be spread across all ratepayers.

    Concerns have dovetailed with broader questions about the cost of living, as well as fears about the powerful influence of tech companies and the impact of artificial intelligence.

    Trump continues to embrace artificial intelligence as a top economic and national security priority, although he seemed to acknowledge the backlash last month by posting on social media that data centers “must ‘pay their own way.’”

    At other times, he has brushed concerns aside, declaring that tech giants are building their own power plants, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright contends that data centers don’t inflate electricity bills — disputing what consumer advocates and independent analysts say.

    Some states and utilities have started to identify ways to get data centers to pay for their costs.

    They’ve required tech companies to buy electricity in long-term contracts, pay for the power plants and transmission upgrades they need and make big down payments in case they go belly-up or decide later they don’t need as much electricity.

    But it might be more complicated than that. Those rules can’t fix the short-term problem of ravenous demand for electricity that is outpacing the speed of power plant construction, analysts say.

    “What do you do when Big Tech, because of the very profitable nature of these data centers, can simply outbid grandma for power in the short run?” Abe Silverman, a former utility regulatory lawyer and an energy researcher at Johns Hopkins University. “That is, I think, going to be the real challenge.”

    Some consumer advocates say tech companies’ fair share should also include the rising cost of electricity, grid equipment or natural gas that’s driven by their demand.

    In Oregon, which passed a law to protect smaller ratepayers from data centers’ power costs, a consumer advocacy group is jousting with the state’s largest utility, Portland General Electric, over its plan on how to do that.

    Meanwhile, consumer advocates in various states — including Indiana, Georgia and Missouri — are warning that utilities could foist the cost of data center-driven buildouts onto regular ratepayers there.

    Utilities have pledged to ensure electric rates are fair. But in some places it may be too late.

    For instance, in the mid-Atlantic grid territory from New Jersey to Illinois, consumer advocates and analysts have pegged billions of dollars in rate increases hitting the bills of regular Americans on data center demand.

    Legislation, meanwhile, is flooding into Congress and statehouses to regulate data centers.

    Democrats’ bills in Congress await Republican cosponsors, while lawmakers in a number of states are floating moratoriums on new data centers, drafting rules for regulators to shield regular ratepayers and targeting data center tax breaks and utility profits.

    Governors — including some who worked to recruit data centers to their states — are increasingly talking tough.

    Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat running for reelection this year, wants to impose a penny-a-gallon water fee on data centers and get rid of the sales tax exemption there that most states offer data centers. She called it a $38 million “corporate handout.”

    “It’s time we make the booming data center industry work for the people of our state, rather than the other way around,” she said in her state-of-the-state address.

    Energy costs are projected to keep rising in 2026.

    Republicans in Washington are pointing the finger at liberal state energy policies that favor renewable energy, suggesting they have driven up transmission costs and frayed supply by blocking fossil fuels.

    “Americans are not paying higher prices because of data centers. There’s a perception there, and I get the perception, but it’s not actually true,” said Wright, Trump’s energy secretary, at a news conference earlier this month.

    The struggle to assign blame was on display last week at a four-hour U.S. House subcommittee hearing with members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

    Republicans encouraged FERC members to speed up natural gas pipeline construction while Democrats defended renewable energy and urged FERC to limit utility profits and protect residential ratepayers from data center costs.

    FERC’s chair, Laura Swett, told Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, that she believes data center operators are willing to cover their costs and understand that it’s important to have community support.

    “That’s not been our experience,” Landsman responded, saying projects in his district are getting tax breaks, sidestepping community opposition and costing people money. “Ultimately, I think we have to get to a place where they pay everything.”

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    Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter

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  • Why freezing rain has millions at risk of losing power — and heat

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    ATLANTA — Every morning this week, Newberry Electric Cooperative CEO Keith Avery walks into his office and turns on The Weather Channel. Then he starts making calls, lining up crews and equipment to respond to outages if a forecasted ice storm cripples power across South Carolina.

    Avery has dealt with disasters before. Nearly every one of his 14,000 customers lost power when the remnants of Hurricane Helene tore through in 2024.

    But the approaching ice storm has him even more worried because ice-coated trees and power lines can keep falling long after the storm itself has passed.

    “I hate ice storms,” Avery said. “They are worse than hurricanes.”

    Officials across the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. have been sounding the alarm about the potential for freezing rain to wreak havoc on power systems. In the South, especially, losing electricity doesn’t just mean the lights going out. It means losing heat.

    That’s because a majority of homes are heated by electricity in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    Ice storms, Avery said, are especially punishing because of what happens after they move out: Crews struggle to reach damaged lines on ice-covered roads; cold, wet weather takes a toll on workers; and problems can linger for days as ice-laden branches continue to snap.

    “You get a power line back up and energized, and just as you leave, you hear a loud crack and boom, there’s a tree limb crashing through what you just repaired,” Avery said.

    Texas experienced the worst-case scenario in 2021, when Winter Storm Uri’s freezing temperatures crippled the state’s power grid for five days and led to 246 storm-related deaths, according to the Texas Department of Health Services.

    But experts say Uri’s damage stemmed largely from poorly weatherized power plants and natural gas systems, not downed power lines.

    “The main lesson was to enforce requirements for utilities to be ready for cold weather,” said Georg Rute, CEO of Gridraven, a Texas-based firm that analyzes power system risks for grid operators.

    Rute said utilities have applied lessons from Uri, and while he does not expect a repeat of that kind of grid collapse, he warned that other vulnerabilities remain, including transmission lines tripping during extreme cold.

    Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday gave assurances to Texans about the state’s power grid. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has said grid conditions are expected to be normal during this weekend’s storm.

    “The ERCOT grid has never been stronger, never been more prepared, and is fully capable of handling this winter storm,” Abbott said.

    The governor added, though, that residents could lose power as ice weighs down power lines and trees fall onto them. But, he said, energy providers are prepositioned to fix any outages, and there’s been an effort to clear trees and branches near power lines in recent years.

    Winter Storm Uri also exposed disparities in how outages affected communities, said Jennifer Laird, a sociology professor at the City University of New York’s Lehman College who studies energy insecurity. Researchers have found that residents in predominantly Hispanic areas experienced more outages, while Black residents were more likely to face outages lasting a day or more.

    Laird said outages expose vulnerabilities people don’t anticipate, from medical equipment that requires electricity to families with infants who rely on refrigeration for breast milk. Younger households and those with lower levels of education, in particular, are less likely to have contingency plans in place, she said.

    “There are lots of ways that we’re dependent on energy that we don’t realize until a crisis hits — and then it really exposes those vulnerabilities,” Laird said.

    Even if this weekend’s storm does not produce significant outages, the financial burden on families could linger for months. About 1 in 6 U.S. households are already behind on their energy bills, and with millions expected to turn up their heaters during the cold snap, that number could rise, Laird said.

    “A month or two after the storm hits, suddenly the bill hits,” she said. “We could see a rise in disconnection notices and disconnections.”

    Utilities in the Southeast have also warned customers to prepare for possible outages. Duke Energy, which serves more than 4.6 million customers in North and South Carolina, urged residents to be ready for multiple days without power. The utility said more than 18,000 workers would be ready to respond once conditions are safe.

    The Tennessee Valley Authority, which serves more than 10 million people across seven states, said it has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in weatherization since a 2022 winter storm and has built-in redundancies to reroute power if a line goes down.

    “It takes a lot of snow and ice to down one of those big lines,” TVA spokesperson Scott Brooks said.

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    Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writers Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee; Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.

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  • Trump administration scraps multimillion-dollar

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    SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has canceled solar projects in Puerto Rico worth millions of dollars, as the island struggles with chronic power outages and a crumbling electric grid.

    The projects were aimed at helping 30,000 low-income families in rural areas across the U.S. territory as part of a now-fading transition toward renewable energy.

    In an email obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S. Energy Department said that a push under Puerto Rico’s former governor for a 100% renewable future threatened the reliability of its energy system.

    “The Puerto Rico grid cannot afford to run on more distributed solar power,” the message states. “The rapid, widespread deployment of rooftop solar has created fluctuations in Puerto Rico’s grid, leading to unacceptable instability and fragility.”

    Javier Rúa Jovet, public policy director for Puerto Rico’s Solar and Energy Storage Association, disputed that statement in a phone interview Thursday.

    He said that some 200,000 families across Puerto Rico rely on solar power that generates close to 1.4 gigawatts of energy a day for the rest of the island.

    “That’s helping avoid blackouts,” he said, adding that the inverters of those systems also help regulate fluctuations across the grid.

    He said he was saddened by the cancellation of the solar projects. “It’s a tragedy, honestly,” he said. “These are funds for the most needy.”

    Earlier this month, the Energy Department canceled three programs, including one worth $400 million, that would have seen solar and battery storage systems installed in low-income homes and those with medical needs.

    In its email, the department said that on Jan. 9, it would reallocate up to $350 million from private distributed solar systems to support fixes to improve the generation of power in Puerto Rico. It wasn’t immediately clear if that funding has been allocated.

    One of those programs would have financed solar projects for 150 low-income households on the tiny Puerto Rican island of Culebra.

    “The people are really upset and angry,” said Dan Whittle, an associate vice president with the Environmental Defense Fund, which was overseeing that project. “They’re seeing other people keep the lights on during these power outages, and they’re not sure why they’re not included.”

    He noted that a privately funded project helped install solar panels and batteries on 45 homes a week before Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico in September 2022.

    Whittle said he was baffled by the federal government’s decision.

    “They are buying hook, line and sinker that solar is the problem. It could not be more wrong,” he said.

    The solar projects were part of an initial $1 billion fund created by U.S. Congress in 2022 under former President Joe Biden to help boost energy resilience in Puerto Rico, which is still trying to recover from Hurricane Maria.

    The Category 4 storm slammed into the island in September 2017, razing an electric grid already weakened by a lack of maintenance and investment. Outages have persisted since then, with massive blackouts hitting on New Year’s Eve in 2024 and during Holy Week last year.

    In recent years, residents and businesses that could afford to do so have embraced solar energy on an island of 3.2 million people with a more than 40% poverty rate.

    But more than 60% of energy on the island is still generated by petroleum-fired power plants, 24% by natural gas, 8% by coal and 7% by renewables, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

    The cancellation of the solar projects comes a month after the administration of Puerto Rico Gov. Jenniffer González sued Luma Energy, a private company overseeing the transmission and distribution of power on the island.

    At the time, González said that the electrical system “has not improved with the speed, consistency or effectiveness that Puerto Rico deserves.”

    The fragility of Puerto Rico’s energy system is further exacerbated by a struggle to restructure a more than $9 billion debt held by the island’s Electric Power Authority, which has failed to reach an agreement with creditors.

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  • Climate activist predicts high electricity prices and Trump’s attacks on green energy will hurt GOP

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    RIPTON, Vermont — At a time when the Trump administration rolled back numerous environmental regulations while global temperatures and U.S. carbon pollution spiked, longtime climate activist Bill McKibben finds hope in something that didn’t seem that strong on a recent single-digit-temperature day: the sun.

    That sun has provided him cheap power for 25 years, and this month he installed his fourth iteration of solar panels on his Vermont home. In an interview after he set up the new system, he said President Donald Trump’s stance against solar and other cheap green energy will hurt the GOP in this year’s elections as electricity bills rise.

    After the Biden and Obama administrations subsidized and championed solar, wind and other green power as answers to fight climate change, Trump has tried to dampen those and turn to older and dirtier fossil fuels. The Trump administration froze five big offshore wind projects last month but judges this week allowed three of the projects to resume. Federal clean energy tax incentives expired on Dec. 31 that include installing home solar panels.

    Meanwhile, electricity prices are rising in the United States, and McKibben is counting on that to trigger political change.

    “I think you’re starting to see that have a big political impact in the U.S. right now. My prediction would be that electric prices are going to be to the 2026 election what egg prices were to the 2024 election,” said McKibben, an author and founder of multiple environmental and activist groups. Everyday inflation hurt Democrats in the last presidential race, analysts said.

    The Trump administration and a bipartisan group of governors on Friday tried to step up pressure on the operator of the nation’s largest electric grid to take urgent steps to boost power supplies in the mid-Atlantic and keep electricity bills from rising even higher.

    “Ensuring the American people have reliable and affordable electricity is one of President Trump’s top priorities,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.

    Globally, the price of wind and solar power is plummeting to the point that they are cheaper than fossil fuels, the United Nations found. And China leads the world in renewable energy technology, with one of its electric car companies passing Tesla in annual sales.

    “We can’t economically compete in a world where China gets a lot of cheap energy and we have to pay for really expensive energy,” McKibben told The Associated Press, just after he installed a new type of solar panels that can hang on balconies with little fuss.

    When Trump took office in January 2025, the national average electricity cost was 15.94 cents per kilowatt-hour. By September it was up to 18.07 cents and then down slightly to 17.98 cents in October, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

    That’s a 12.8% increase in 10 months. It rose more in 10 months than the previous two years. People in Maryland, New Jersey and Maine have seen electricity prices rise at a rate three times higher than the national average since October 2024.

    At 900 kilowatt-hours per month, that means the average monthly electricity bill is about $18 more than in January 2025.

    This week, Democrats on Capitol Hill blamed rising electric bills on Trump and his dislike of renewable energy.

    “From his first day in office, he’s made it his mission to limit American’s access to cheap energy, all in the name of increasing profits for his friends in the fossil fuel industry. As a result, energy bills across the country have skyrocketed,” Illinois Rep. Sean Casten said at a Wednesday news conference.

    “Donald Trump is the first president to intentionally raise the price of something that we all need,” Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, also a Democrat, said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “Nobody should be enthused about paying more for electricity, and this national solar ban is making everybody pay more. Clean is cheap and cheap is clean.”

    McKibben has been sending excess electricity from his solar panels to the Vermont grid for years. Now he’s sending more.

    As his dog, Birke, stood watch, McKibben, who refers to his home nestled in the Green Mountains of Vermont as a “museum of solar technology” got his new panels up and running in about 10 minutes. This type of panel from the California-based firm Bright Saver is often referred to as plug-in solar. Though it’s not yet widely available in the U.S., McKibben pointed to the style’s popularity in Europe and Australia.

    “Americans spend three or four times as much money as Australians or Europeans to put solar panels on the roof. We have an absurdly overcomplicated permitting system that’s unlike anything else on the rest of the planet,” McKibben said.

    McKibben said Australians can obtain three hours of free electricity each day through a government program because the country has built so many solar panels.

    “And I’m almost certain that that’s an argument that every single person in America would understand,” he said. “I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t say: ‘I’d like three free hours of electricity.’”

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    Swinhart reported from Vermont. Borenstein reported from Washington. Matthew Daly contributed to this report from Washington.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • California wants to mix hydrogen with gas to cut climate pollution. Critics say that poses risks

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    Alma Figueroa began to worry when she learned that her gas provider wanted to test a controversial solution to curb global warming: blend hydrogen with natural gas to power her stove and other appliances. Figueroa, who has asthma and recently learned her lung cancer is back, worries about health risks.

    “I don’t want to be anyone’s experiment,” said Figueroa, 60, a resident of Orange Cove in California’s Central Valley.

    The Southern California Gas Co. wants to blend and inject hydrogen into the town’s gas infrastructure, after the state agency that regulates utilities directed them and other companies to launch pilot projects. Proponents see it as key to helping California reduce planet-warming pollution by curbing reliance on gas while integrating cleaner energy into existing infrastructure. It’s part of a statewide effort to create safety rules for hydrogen blending. But opponents say it poses unnecessary risks, and Orange Cove’s mostly Latino and low-income residents say processes are happening without transparency or their input. Projects in states such as Colorado and Oregon have also raised concerns.

    Interest in deploying hydrogen boomed during the Biden administration but has been hard hit with the Trump administration’s cancellation of billions of dollars for hydrogen technology and other clean energy projects, including $1.2 billion for a hydrogen hub in California.

    The Orange Cove project is one of five proposed in California to test how gas pipelines and the appliances they fuel hold up with different amounts of hydrogen. Hawaii has been blending for decades.

    Natural gas is mostly methane, a potent planet-warming gas that’s supercharging extreme weather worldwide, which often impacts low-income and communities of color the most.

    Supporters see green hydrogen as one way to cut emissions. It’s made with renewable energy sources such as solar or wind to power an electrolyzer, which splits water into oxygen and hydrogen, a carbon-free gas that can be used to generate electricity and complement intermittent renewable energy. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has touted it “an essential aspect of how we’ll power our future and cut pollution.”

    Some see the 18-month proposed project in Orange Cove as one step in that direction. A solar farm would power the technology and direct the mixture, up to 5% hydrogen, to businesses and the town’s roughly 10,000 residents. The estimated $64.3 million project would be paid for with ratepayer money.

    A Minneapolis utility company estimated a blend of up to 5% green hydrogen would reduce carbon pollution by about 1,200 tons annually, the equivalent of removing 254 gas-powered cars.

    Janice Lin of the Green Hydrogen Coalition said it’s important to test blending. The U.S. has a vast network of gas pipelines — about 3 million miles, according to the Department of Energy — which can be used to move clean hydrogen while reducing reliance on gas, she said. If scaled, it could be cost-competitive and help industries that can’t fully electrify pollute less.

    “The way to move us away and really clean our air and minimize our reliance on fossil fuels is by having a viable alternative,” she said.

    California needs to demonstrate that it can blend like other countries but there are still unknowns, said Alejandra Hormaza, who teaches renewable energy at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. The consensus is that up to 20% hydrogen by volume is safe, she said, but “we need more experimental work that uses real natural gas infrastructure to fully understand the impacts of hydrogen.”

    In 2022, several gas companies filed a joint application to pursue hydrogen blending. The California Public Utilities Commission is expected to make a decision this year.

    SoCalGas first proposed testing hydrogen blending in facilities at the University of California, Irvine, in an affluent community. But it scaled back and revised its proposal following protests. When Orange Cove leaders expressed interest, the gas company identified the city an ideal candidate — it has various pipeline materials, including steel and polyethylene, a type of plastic, and only one gas feed coming in, allowing them ample control of the blend.

    Orange Cove city leaders voted unanimously in support. They did not respond to multiple calls and emails seeking comment. But in an August public hearing, Mayor Diana Guerra Silva said the project would provide workforce opportunities for youth and boost business from visitors, according to a transcript.

    At the hearing, resident Angelica Martinez said the town could become a “pioneer” in hydrogen blending and “deserves the national recognition and attention for its willingness to implement such an innovative project.”

    Orange Cove is a citrus farming town home to mostly Spanish-speaking Latino immigrants, with 39% of the total population living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It’s an area with much pollution and the highest rate of asthma in Fresno County.

    Figueroa said the community historically hasn’t gotten involved in city politics, though they have launched a petition against the project and voiced concerns at public meetings. “I think the only reason they are wanting Orange Cove is because they don’t think there’s going to be pushback,” she said. Some residents said they’ve asked city officials to host a town hall about the pilot, but it has yet to happen.

    Research shows that burning hydrogen-blended gas into older appliances not designed for it can increase emissions of nitrogen oxides, pollutants that worsen asthma and are linked to other respiratory issues. It can deteriorate certain materials and leak more easily, increasing the risk of explosions because hydrogen is more flammable.

    Ryan Sinclair, an environmental microbiologist at Loma Linda University, said homes with older appliances are more vulnerable to these risks — in older infrastructure, a 5% mix can bump nitrogen oxides emissions an average of 8%. Residents can’t opt out unless they replace their gas appliances with electric ones, and Sinclair worries Orange Cove’s low-income residents don’t have the means to replace or maintain older ones. He said more health risk assessments are needed before starting hydrogen blending.

    Cal Poly’s Hormaza, who’s researched hydrogen leakage from gas systems for the last decade, said there’s insufficient research on whether hydrogen can increase leaks.

    There are also concerns about hydrogen’s potential to increase Earth’s warming. Research shows hydrogen can indirectly heat the planet by interacting with other gases.

    Environmental groups say hydrogen should only be used in high-energy industries such as aviation, cement or steel-making, which can’t easily be electrified. Others say that electrifying appliances, for example, are more efficient ways to reduce emissions.

    “To me, it’s just an absurd project. It’s (a) boondoggle” that exposes residents to unnecessary risks, said Michael Claiborne, directing attorney with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, an advocacy group representing residents.

    If the projects are approved, SoCalGas has said it will employ safety measures before, during and after the project, including with leak surveys and detection technology, backflow prevention to keep hydrogen within the controlled area, and developing emergency responses.

    Orange Cove resident Francisco Gonzalez has friends with asthma and siblings with respiratory issues, so he worries about the health risks. His community is not against change or clean energy, he said, “but we are against being left out of the conversation.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • Trump administration orders a Colorado coal-fired power generator to stay open

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    FORT COLLINS, Colo. — The Trump administration has told another coal-fired power facility to remain open, this time ordering the owners of a Colorado electricity generating unit to keep it running beyond its Wednesday retirement date.

    Compliance will cost Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the other owners of the Craig Station power plant in northwestern Colorado. The plant owners will need to fix a broken valve that put the power plant’s 446-megawatt Unit 1 out of operation on Dec. 19, Tri-State said in a statement.

    The order from Energy Secretary Chris Wright follows recent Department of Energy moves to keep coal-fired power stations open in Indiana, Washington state and Michigan despite efforts by their owners to close them.

    It’s part of President Donald Trump’s push to revive the U.S. coal industry at a time when many utilities are shifting to cheaper, less-polluting energy sources such as natural gas and renewables. The administration, meanwhile, has blocked renewable energy, including wind power.

    The 45-year-old generator in Colorado, one of three at Craig Station, had been scheduled to close at the end of 2025.

    “As a not-for-profit cooperative, our membership will bear the costs of compliance with this order unless we can identify a method to share costs with those in the region,” Tri-State CEO Duane Highley said in the statement.

    The power plant’s owners had been planning since 2016 to shut down Unit 1 for economic reasons and to comply with “numerous state and federal requirements.”

    Asked how much returning the unit to operation would cost and how long that would take, Tri-State spokesperson Amy Robertson said by email that the utility had no further information to share.

    The generator must remain operational to address a shortage of electricity and electrical generation in the northwestern U.S., Wright wrote in Tuesday’s emergency order keeping the unit operational.

    “The Trump Administration is committed to lowering energy costs and keeping American families safe,” Wright said in a release.

    Wade Gerber, who works at the power plant, said the announcement changes little for Colorado’s coal country, which is undergoing a long-term shift away from the fossil fuel as a pillar of the local economy.

    He sees Craig — a city of about 9,000 people — as caught in the middle of a dizzying political battle.

    “What does this administration get to do? What does the next administration get to do? Is it going to make (coal) any long-term thing? No, probably not,” Gerber said.

    Gerber recently opened a distillery that caters to the cocktail lounge his wife owns next door, with plans to begin distributing more widely in 2026.

    “I already told both my bosses, if that blows up even a little bit, I can tell you: ‘Here’s my two-week notice,’” Gerber said.

    Colorado officials criticized the Trump administration order as a disservice to electricity users.

    “It is unacceptable to burden ratepayers with these unnecessary costs,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said in a statement.

    The power plant was completed in 1980. Its No. 2 and No. 3 units have been scheduled to be retired in 2028. The plant’s fuel is mined at the nearby Trapper Mine, which is also scheduled to close.

    ____

    Brittany Peterson in Denver contributed to this report.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • Russian Drones Blast Ukraine’s Odesa and Injure 6, Including Children

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    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian drones blasted apartment buildings and the power grid in the southern Ukraine city of Odesa in an overnight attack that injured six people, including a toddler and two other children, officials said Wednesday.

    Four apartment buildings were damaged in the bombardment, according to regional military administration head Oleh Kiper. Power company DTEK said two of its energy facilities suffered significant damage. The company said that 10 substations that distribute electricity in the Odesa region were damaged in December alone.

    Russia has this year escalated its long-range attacks on urban areas of Ukraine. In recent months, as Russia’s invasion of its neighbor approaches its four-year milestone in February, it has also intensified its targeting of energy infrastructure, seeking to deny Ukrainians heat and running water in the bitter winter months.

    From January to November this year, more than 2,300 Ukrainian civilians were killed and more than 11,000 were injured, the United Nations said earlier this month. That was 26% higher than in the same period in 2024 and 70% higher than in 2023, it said.

    Russia’s sustained drone and missile attacks have taken place against backdrop of renewed diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting.

    U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Florida resort on Sunday and announced that a settlement is “closer than ever before.” The Ukrainian leader is due to hold talks next week with the heads of European governments supporting his efforts to secure acceptable terms.

    The ongoing attacks, meantime, are inflaming tensions.

    The overnight Odesa strikes “are further evidence of the enemy’s terror tactics, which deliberately target civilian infrastructure,” Kiper, the regional head, said.

    Moscow has alleged that Ukraine attempted to attack Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in northwestern Russia with 91 long-range drones late Saturday and early Sunday. Ukrainian officials deny the claim and say it’s a ruse to derail progress in the peace negotiations.

    Maj. Gen. Alexander Romanenkov of the Russian air force claimed Wednesday that the drones took off from Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernihiv regions.

    At a briefing, he presented a map showing the drone flight routes before they were downed by Russian air defenses over the Bryansk, Tver, Smolensk and Novgorod regions.

    It was not possible to independently verify the reports.

    Ukraine’s air force said Wednesday that Russia fired 127 drones at the country during the night, with 101 of them intercepted by air defenses.

    Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said that 86 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight over Russian regions, the Black Sea and the illegally annexed Crimea peninsula.

    The Ukrainian attack started a fire at an oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, but it was quickly put out, local authorities said.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – December 2025

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  • Georgia regulators approve 50% power capacity boost, betting that massive AI data center demand will eventually materialize | Fortune

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    Georgia’s only private electric utility plans to increase power capacity by 50% after state regulators on Friday agreed 5-0 that the plan is needed to meet projected demand from data centers.

    It would be one of the biggest build-outs in the U.S. to meet the insatiable electricity demand from developers of artificial intelligence. The construction cost would be $16.3 billion, but staff members say customers will pay $50 billion to $60 billion over coming decades, including interest costs and guaranteed profit for the monopoly utility.

    Georgia Power Co. and the Public Service Commission pledge large users will more than pay for their costs, and that spreading fixed costs over more customers, could help significantly cut residents’ power bills beginning in 2029.

    “Large energy users are paying more so families and small businesses can pay less, and that’s a great result for Georgians,” Georgia Power CEO Kim Greene said in a statement after the vote.

    But opponents say the five elected Republicans on the commission are greenlighting a risky bet by the utility to chase data center customers with existing ratepayers left holding the bag if demand doesn’t materialize.

    “The need for 10,000 megawatts of new capacity resources on the system in the next six years isn’t here,” said Bob Sherrier, a lawyer representing some opponents. “It just isn’t, and it may never be.”

    The approval came less than two months after voters rebuked GOP leadership, ousting two incumbent Republicans on the commission in favor of Democrats by overwhelming margins. Those two Democrats won in campaigns that centered on six Georgia Power rate increases commissioners have allowed in recent years, even though the company agreed to a three-year rate freeze in July.

    Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson — the Democrats who will take office Jan. 1 — opposed Friday’s vote. But current commissioners refused to delay.

    Electric bills have emerged as a potent political issue in Georgia and nationwide, with grassroots opposition to data centers partly based on fears that other customers will subsidize power demands of technology behemoths.

    Georgia Power is the largest unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. It says it needs 10,000 megawatts of new capacity — enough to power 4 million Georgia homes — with 80% of that flowing to data centers. The company has 2.7 million customers today, including homes, businesses and industries.

    Whether the company’s projections of a huge increase in demand will pan out has been the central argument. Georgia Power and commission staff agreed Dec. 9 to allow the company to build or acquire all the desired capacity, despite staff earlier saying the company’s forecast included too much speculative construction.

    In return, the company agreed that after the current rate freeze ends in 2028, it would use revenue from new customers to place “downward pressure” on rates through 2031. That would amount to at least $8.50 a month, or $102 a year, for a typical residential customer. That customer currently pays more than $175 a month, including taxes.

    “So we’re taking advantage of the upsides from this additional revenue, but allow it to shift the downside and the risk over to the company. And I’m real proud of that,” Commission Chairman Jason Shaw said after the vote.

    But “downward pressure” doesn’t guarantee a rate decrease.

    “It doesn’t mean your bills are going down,” said Liz Coyle, executive director of consumer group Georgia Watch. “It means that maybe they’re not going up as fast.”

    Existing customers would pay for part of the construction program that doesn’t serve data centers. More importantly, opponents fear Georgia Power’s pledge of rate relief can’t be enforced, or won’t hold up over the 40-plus years needed to pay off new natural-gas fired power plants.

    In a Monday news conference, Hubbard likened it to a mortgage “to build a massive addition to your home for a new roommate, big tech.”

    “If in 10 years, the AI bubble bursts or the data centers move to a cheaper state, then the roommate moves out, but the mortgage doesn’t go away,” he said.

    Staff members say the commission must watch demand closely and that if data centers don’t use as much power as projected, Georgia Power must drop agreements to purchase wholesale power, close its least efficient generating plants and seek additional customers.

    Many opponents oppose any new generation fueled by natural gas, warning carbon emissions will worsen climate change. Some opponents were escorted out of the commission meeting by police after they began chanting “Nay! Nay! Nay! The people say nay!”

    “Increased natural gas output for the sake of these silicon billionaire kings seems like a lose-lose,” opponent Zak Norton told commissioners Friday.

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  • Trump Media to merge with nuclear fusion company

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    Trump Media & Technology will merge with a fusion power company in an all-stock deal that the companies said Thursday is valued at more than $6 billion.

    Devin Nunes, the Republican congressman who resigned in 2021 to become the CEO of Trump Media, will be co-CEO of the new company with TAE Technologies CEO Michl Binderbauer.

    Shares of Trump Media & Technology, the parent company of President Donald Trump’s Truth Social media platform, have tumbled 70% this year but jumped 20% before the opening bell Thursday.

    TAE is a private company and the merger with Trump Media would create one of the first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies.

    “We’re taking a big step forward toward a revolutionary technology that will cement America’s global energy dominance for generations,” Nunes said in a prepared statement.

    TAE focuses on nuclear fusion, a technology that combines two light atomic nuclei to form a single heavier one. It releases enormous amount of energy, a process that occurs on the sun and other stars, according to the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

    TAE and Trump Media shareholders will each own approximately 50% of the combined company.

    The companies say the transaction values each TAE common stock at $53.89 per share.

    At closing, Trump Media & Technology Group will be the holding company for Truth Social and TAE, along with its subsidiaries TAE Power Solutions and TAE Life Sciences.

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  • Energy assistance funds released to states after government shutdown delay

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    Federal funding that millions of Americans use to help pay their heating bills in the winter is arriving weeks behind schedule due to disruptions from the government shutdown, which ended earlier this month. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association announced Friday that $3.6 billion in funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) has been released to states and tribes.“This release of LIHEAP funding is essential and long overdue,” said Mark Wolfe, Executive Director of NEADA. “Families can finally begin receiving the support they need to keep the heat on as winter begins.”Normally, states get this money at the beginning of November. Next, the money goes to heating vendors. Wolfe said in an email that the timeline will vary by state, but “most move pretty fast.” It can’t come soon enough. Wolfe said there were some utility shutoffs during the delay, and the lag affected many of the same families who rely on SNAP benefits for groceries, which were also disrupted by the government shutdown.Wolfe previously raised concerns that the funding delay could stretch into January, citing the Trump administration’s decision to lay off LIHEAP’s administrative staff earlier this year. The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees LIHEAP, previously said it would work “swiftly” to administer annual awards after the government reopened. As of Friday evening, HHS had not publicly announced the resumption of funding. The agency didn’t immediately return our request for comment. The longest government shutdown in American history started in October and ended after more than 40 days. For weeks, most Democrats refused to support a government funding extension while holding out for various healthcare demands. In the end, a handful of Democrats crossed the aisle to support a short-term funding deal in exchange for a future Senate vote on health policy, with no guaranteed outcome.Get more from the Washington Bureau here:

    WASHINGTON —

    Federal funding that millions of Americans use to help pay their heating bills in the winter is arriving weeks behind schedule due to disruptions from the government shutdown, which ended earlier this month.

    The National Energy Assistance Directors Association announced Friday that $3.6 billion in funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) has been released to states and tribes.

    “This release of LIHEAP funding is essential and long overdue,” said Mark Wolfe, Executive Director of NEADA. “Families can finally begin receiving the support they need to keep the heat on as winter begins.”

    Normally, states get this money at the beginning of November.

    Next, the money goes to heating vendors. Wolfe said in an email that the timeline will vary by state, but “most move pretty fast.”

    It can’t come soon enough. Wolfe said there were some utility shutoffs during the delay, and the lag affected many of the same families who rely on SNAP benefits for groceries, which were also disrupted by the government shutdown.

    Wolfe previously raised concerns that the funding delay could stretch into January, citing the Trump administration’s decision to lay off LIHEAP’s administrative staff earlier this year.

    The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees LIHEAP, previously said it would work “swiftly” to administer annual awards after the government reopened.

    As of Friday evening, HHS had not publicly announced the resumption of funding. The agency didn’t immediately return our request for comment.

    The longest government shutdown in American history started in October and ended after more than 40 days. For weeks, most Democrats refused to support a government funding extension while holding out for various healthcare demands. In the end, a handful of Democrats crossed the aisle to support a short-term funding deal in exchange for a future Senate vote on health policy, with no guaranteed outcome.

    Get more from the Washington Bureau here:

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  • New analysis shows more US consumers are falling behind on their utility bills

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    WASHINGTON — More people are falling behind on paying their bills to keep on the lights and heat their homes, according to a new analysis of consumer data — a warning sign for the U.S. economy and another political headache for President Donald Trump.

    Past due balances to utility companies jumped 9.7% annually to $789 between the April-June periods of 2024 and 2025, said The Century Foundation, a liberal think tank. The increase has overlapped with a 12% jump in monthly energy bills during the same period.

    Consumers usually prioritize their utility bills along with their mortgages and auto debt, said Julie Margetta Morgan, the foundation’s president. The increase in both energy costs and delinquencies may suggest that consumers are falling behind on other bills, too.

    “There’s a lot of information out there about rising utility costs, but here we can actually look at what that impact has been on families in terms of how they’re falling behind,” Margetta Morgan said.

    Troubles paying electricity and natural gas bills reflect something of an economic quandary for Trump, who is promoting the buildout of the artificial intelligence industry as a key part of an economic boom he has promised for America. But AI data centers are known for their massive use of electricity, and threaten to further increase utility bills for everyday Americans.

    These troubles also come as Trump faces political pressure from voters fed up with the high cost of living.

    Ever since Republicans saw their fortunes sag in off-year elections this month and affordability was identified as the top issue, Trump has been trying to convince the public that prices are falling. Fast-rising electricity bills could be an issue in some congressional battlegrounds in next year’s midterm elections.

    Trump has put a particular emphasis on prices at the pump. Gasoline accounts for about 3% of the consumer price index, slightly less than the share belonging to electricity and natural gas bills — meaning that possible savings on gasoline could be more than offset by higher utility bills.

    The president maintains that any troubling data on inflation is false and that Democrats are simply trying to hurt his administration’s reputation.

    “In fact, costs under the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION are tumbling down, helped greatly by gasoline and ENERGY,” Trump posted on social media Friday. “Affordability is a lie when used by the Dems,”

    Nearly 6 million households have utility debt “so severe” that it will soon be reported to collection agencies, according to the foundation’s analysis, drawn from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel.

    During Trump’s first six months in office, there was a 3.8% increase in households with severely overdue utility bills.

    “Voters are frustrated and families are hurting because these tech giants are cutting backroom deals with politicians, and it’s causing their power bills to go up,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of the advocacy group Protect Borrowers, which contributed to the analysis. “If the Trump administration doesn’t want to do its job and protect families and make life more affordable, I guess that’s its choice.”

    Both Margetta Morgan and Pierce previously worked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a government agency formed in part to track trends in household borrowing to prevent potential abuses. The Trump administration has essentially shut down the bureau.

    The administration has so far said it has no responsibility for any increases in electricity prices, since those are often regulated by state utility boards. The White House maintains that utility costs are higher in Democratic states that rely on renewable forms of energy.

    “Electricity prices are a state problem,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told ABC News this month. “There are things that the federal government can control. Local electricity prices are not one of them.”

    The Century Foundation analysis counters that the Trump administration is contributing to higher utility costs “by impeding renewable energy generation” including solar and wind power.

    While the new analysis is a warning sign, other economic analyses on consumers suggest their finances are stable despite some emerging pressures.

    The New York Federal Reserve has said delinquency rates of 90 days or more for mortgages, auto loans and student debt have each increased over the past 12 months, though it said mortgage delinquencies are “relatively low.” An analysis of debit and credit card spending by the Bank of America Institute showed that consumers’ “overall financial health looks sound.”

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  • As voters demand affordability, Stanford economist argues for ‘temporary, targeted price controls’ with supply-side reforms | Fortune

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    Price controls are literally a textbook example of a policy that creates market inefficiency, but an economist sees some merit in them as voters delivered victories to Democrats who promised to hold the line on the cost of living.

    Zohran Mamdani, who vowed to freeze rent, won the race for New York mayor, and Mikie Sherrill, who proposed freezing electricity rates, was elected to be New Jersey’s next governor.

    Given the affordability crisis many Americans face, more Democrats will run on price controls too, wrote Stanford economist Neale Mahoney and former White House economic advisor Bharat Ramamurti in a New York Times op-ed on Sunday.

    “This may terrify many economists, who have long dismissed price controls as failed policy. But, like it or not, voters are demanding short-term price relief, and temporary price controls may be the only viable way to provide it,” they said.

    To combat rising costs, standard policy tools often take longer than voters will tolerate or don’t work. For example, tax incentives or deregulation can increase supply but can take years to make an impact on prices.

    In addition, subsidies and tax credits can offer some short-term relief but also eventually push up prices as demand increases faster than supply can catch up.

    Mahoney and Ramamurti also acknowledge that price controls obscure market signals that encourage producers to expand output and lower costs, pointing to President Richard Nixon’s efforts to cap gasoline prices in the 1970s.

    “Yet sharply rising rents and utility bills wreak havoc on family budgets. That’s why there is a case for temporary, targeted price controls that hold down costs, paired with supply-side reforms that encourage new production,” they added, noting that Mamdani and Sherrill have proposed similar ideas.

    For housing, that could mean rent caps on existing units, plus government investment in new housing as well as zoning and permitting reforms.

    To be sure, policies initially billed as temporary often last longer than intended as they inevitably create constituencies that lobby for them to continue.

    Policymakers can use sunset clauses or target price control narrowly to mitigate such risks, according to Mahoney and Ramamurti. But they also admit “we may need to accept some trade-off between immediate relief and weaker long-run investment.”

    “In a cost-of-living crisis, the question isn’t whether to intervene, but how to do so in a way that delivers relief today without creating new problems tomorrow,” they said.

    While the annual rate of consumer inflation has cooled sharply since hitting a high of 9% in 2022, prices are still going up and President Donald Trump’s tariffs are not helping. In fact, headline inflation has remained sticky and ticked higher since he launched his trade war.

    The off-year elections this month that delivered stunning losses to Republicans brought the issue of affordability front and center. 

    Trump has already rolled back some of his signature tariffs to help lower grocery prices, and “there are discussions” on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies as Republicans scramble to address soaring healthcare costs.

    That’s as voters are demanding that overall affordability improve and want to see prices decline, not just rise at a slower pace.

    “People are angry about the loss of affordability, and are inclined to blame incumbent governments for this,” Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management, said in a note on Friday. “It is tempting to think of affordability as another version of the ‘cost of living crisis’—but affordability is subtly different, and may linger.”

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  • Future data centers are driving up forecasts for energy demand. States want proof they’ll get built

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    HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The forecasts are eye-popping: utilities saying they’ll need two or three times more electricity within a few years to power massive new data centers that are feeding a fast-growing AI economy.

    But the challenges — some say the impossibility — of building new power plants to meet that demand so quickly has set off alarm bells for lawmakers, policymakers and regulators who wonder if those utility forecasts can be trusted.

    One burning question is whether the forecasts are based on data center projects that may never get built — eliciting concern that regular ratepayers could be stuck with the bill to build unnecessary power plants and grid infrastructure at a cost of billions of dollars.

    The scrutiny comes as analysts warn of the risk of an artificial intelligence investment bubble that’s ballooned tech stock prices and could burst.

    Meanwhile, consumer advocates are finding that ratepayers in some areas — such as the mid-Atlantic electricity grid, which encompasses all or parts of 13 states stretching from New Jersey to Illinois, as well as Washington, D.C. — are already underwriting the cost to supply power to data centers, some of them built, some not.

    “There’s speculation in there,” said Joe Bowring, who heads Monitoring Analytics, the independent market watchdog in the mid-Atlantic grid territory. “Nobody really knows. Nobody has been looking carefully enough at the forecast to know what’s speculative, what’s double-counting, what’s real, what’s not.”

    Suspicions about skyrocketing demand

    There is no standard practice across grids or for utilities to vet such massive projects, and figuring out a solution has become a hot topic, utilities and grid operators say.

    Uncertainty around forecasts is typically traced to a couple of things.

    One concerns developers seeking a grid connection, but whose plans aren’t set in stone or lack the heft — clients, financing or otherwise — to bring the project to completion, industry and regulatory officials say.

    Another is data center developers submitting grid connection requests in various separate utility territories, PJM Interconnection, which operates the mid-Atlantic grid, and Texas lawmakers have found.

    Often, developers, for competitive reasons, won’t tell utilities if or where they’ve submitted other requests for electricity, PJM said. That means a single project could inflate the energy forecasts of multiple utilities.

    The effort to improve forecasts got a high-profile boost in September, when a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member asked the nation’s grid operators for information on how they determine that a project is not only viable, but will use the electricity it says it needs.

    “Better data, better decision-making, better and faster decisions mean we can get all these projects, all this infrastructure built,” the commissioner, David Rosner, said in an interview.

    The Edison Electric Institute, a trade association of for-profit electric utilities, said it welcomed efforts to improve demand forecasting.

    Real, speculative, or ‘somewhere in between’

    The Data Center Coalition, which represents tech giants like Google and Meta and data center developers, has urged regulators to request more information from utilities on their forecasts and to develop a set of best practices to determine the commercial viability of a data center project.

    The coalition’s vice president of energy, Aaron Tinjum, said improving the accuracy and transparency of forecasts is a “fundamental first step of really meeting this moment” of energy growth.

    “Wherever we go, the question is, ‘Is the (energy) growth real? How can we be so sure?’” Tinjum said. “And we really view commercial readiness verification as one of those important kind of low-hanging opportunities for us to be adopting at this moment.”

    Igal Feibush, the CEO of Pennsylvania Data Center Partners, a data center developer, said utilities are in a “fire drill” as they try to vet a deluge of data center projects all seeking electricity.

    The vast majority, he said, will fall off because many project backers are new to the concept and don’t know what it takes to get a data center built.

    States also are trying to do more to find out what’s in utility forecasts and weed out speculative or duplicative projects.

    In Texas, which is attracting large data center projects, lawmakers still haunted by a blackout during a deadly 2021 winter storm were shocked when told in 2024 by the grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, that its peak demand could nearly double by 2030.

    They found that state utility regulators lacked the tools to determine whether that was realistic.

    Texas state Sen. Phil King told a hearing earlier this year that the grid operator, utility regulators and utilities weren’t sure if the power requests “are real or just speculative or somewhere in between.”

    Lawmakers passed legislation sponsored by King, now law, that requires data center developers to disclose whether they have requests for electricity elsewhere in Texas and to set standards for developers to show that they have a substantial financial commitment to a site.

    Electricity bills are rising, too

    PPL Electric Utilities, which delivers power to 1.5 million customers across central and eastern Pennsylvania, projects that data centers will more than triple its peak electricity demand by 2030.

    Vincent Sorgi, president and CEO of PPL Corp., told analysts on an earnings call this month that the data center projects “are real, they are coming fast and furious” and that the “near-term risk of overbuilding generation simply does not exist.”

    The data center projects counted in the forecast are backed by contracts with financial commitments often reaching tens of millions of dollars, PPL said.

    Still, PPL’s projections helped spur a state lawmaker, Rep. Danilo Burgos, to introduce a bill to bolster the authority of state utility regulators to inspect how utilities assemble their energy demand forecasts.

    Ratepayers in Burgos’ Philadelphia district just absorbed an increase in their electricity bills — attributed by the utility, PECO, to the rising cost of wholesale electricity in the mid-Atlantic grid driven primarily by data center demand.

    That’s why ratepayers need more protection to ensure they are benefiting from the higher cost, Burgos said.

    “Once they make their buck, whatever company,” Burgos said, “you don’t see no empathy towards the ratepayers.”

    ___

    Follow Marc Levy at http://twitter.com/timelywriter.

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  • Future data centers are driving up forecasts for energy demand. States want proof they’ll get built

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    HARRISBURG, Pa. — The forecasts are eye-popping: utilities saying they’ll need two or three times more electricity within a few years to power massive new data centers that are feeding a fast-growing AI economy.

    But the challenges — some say the impossibility — of building new power plants to meet that demand so quickly has set off alarm bells for lawmakers, policymakers and regulators who wonder if those utility forecasts can be trusted.

    One burning question is whether the forecasts are based on data center projects that may never get built — eliciting concern that regular ratepayers could be stuck with the bill to build unnecessary power plants and grid infrastructure at a cost of billions of dollars.

    The scrutiny comes as analysts warn of the risk of an artificial intelligence investment bubble that’s ballooned tech stock prices and could burst.

    Meanwhile, consumer advocates are finding that ratepayers in some areas — such as the mid-Atlantic electricity grid, which encompasses all or parts of 13 states stretching from New Jersey to Illinois, as well as Washington, D.C. — are already underwriting the cost to supply power to data centers, some of them built, some not.

    “There’s speculation in there,” said Joe Bowring, who heads Monitoring Analytics, the independent market watchdog in the mid-Atlantic grid territory. “Nobody really knows. Nobody has been looking carefully enough at the forecast to know what’s speculative, what’s double-counting, what’s real, what’s not.”

    There is no standard practice across grids or for utilities to vet such massive projects, and figuring out a solution has become a hot topic, utilities and grid operators say.

    Uncertainty around forecasts is typically traced to a couple of things.

    One concerns developers seeking a grid connection, but whose plans aren’t set in stone or lack the heft — clients, financing or otherwise — to bring the project to completion, industry and regulatory officials say.

    Another is data center developers submitting grid connection requests in various separate utility territories, PJM Interconnection, which operates the mid-Atlantic grid, and Texas lawmakers have found.

    Often, developers, for competitive reasons, won’t tell utilities if or where they’ve submitted other requests for electricity, PJM said. That means a single project could inflate the energy forecasts of multiple utilities.

    The effort to improve forecasts got a high-profile boost in September, when a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member asked the nation’s grid operators for information on how they determine that a project is not only viable, but will use the electricity it says it needs.

    “Better data, better decision-making, better and faster decisions mean we can get all these projects, all this infrastructure built,” the commissioner, David Rosner, said in an interview.

    The Edison Electric Institute, a trade association of for-profit electric utilities, said it welcomed efforts to improve demand forecasting.

    The Data Center Coalition, which represents tech giants like Google and Meta and data center developers, has urged regulators to request more information from utilities on their forecasts and to develop a set of best practices to determine the commercial viability of a data center project.

    The coalition’s vice president of energy, Aaron Tinjum, said improving the accuracy and transparency of forecasts is a “fundamental first step of really meeting this moment” of energy growth.

    “Wherever we go, the question is, ‘Is the (energy) growth real? How can we be so sure?’” Tinjum said. “And we really view commercial readiness verification as one of those important kind of low-hanging opportunities for us to be adopting at this moment.”

    Igal Feibush, the CEO of Pennsylvania Data Center Partners, a data center developer, said utilities are in a “fire drill” as they try to vet a deluge of data center projects all seeking electricity.

    The vast majority, he said, will fall off because many project backers are new to the concept and don’t know what it takes to get a data center built.

    States also are trying to do more to find out what’s in utility forecasts and weed out speculative or duplicative projects.

    In Texas, which is attracting large data center projects, lawmakers still haunted by a blackout during a deadly 2021 winter storm were shocked when told in 2024 by the grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, that its peak demand could nearly double by 2030.

    They found that state utility regulators lacked the tools to determine whether that was realistic.

    Texas state Sen. Phil King told a hearing earlier this year that the grid operator, utility regulators and utilities weren’t sure if the power requests “are real or just speculative or somewhere in between.”

    Lawmakers passed legislation sponsored by King, now law, that requires data center developers to disclose whether they have requests for electricity elsewhere in Texas and to set standards for developers to show that they have a substantial financial commitment to a site.

    PPL Electric Utilities, which delivers power to 1.5 million customers across central and eastern Pennsylvania, projects that data centers will more than triple its peak electricity demand by 2030.

    Vincent Sorgi, president and CEO of PPL Corp., told analysts on an earnings call this month that the data center projects “are real, they are coming fast and furious” and that the “near-term risk of overbuilding generation simply does not exist.”

    The data center projects counted in the forecast are backed by contracts with financial commitments often reaching tens of millions of dollars, PPL said.

    Still, PPL’s projections helped spur a state lawmaker, Rep. Danilo Burgos, to introduce a bill to bolster the authority of state utility regulators to inspect how utilities assemble their energy demand forecasts.

    Ratepayers in Burgos’ Philadelphia district just absorbed an increase in their electricity bills — attributed by the utility, PECO, to the rising cost of wholesale electricity in the mid-Atlantic grid driven primarily by data center demand.

    That’s why ratepayers need more protection to ensure they are benefiting from the higher cost, Burgos said.

    “Once they make their buck, whatever company,” Burgos said, “you don’t see no empathy towards the ratepayers.”

    ___

    Follow Marc Levy at http://twitter.com/timelywriter.

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  • Voters’ anger at high electricity bills and data centers looms over 2026 midterms

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    Voter anger over the cost of living is hurtling forward into next year’s midterm elections, when pivotal contests will be decided by communities that are home to fast-rising electric bills or fights over who’s footing the bill to power Big Tech’s energy-hungry data centers.

    Electricity costs were a key issue in this week’s elections for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, a data center hotspot, and in Georgia, where Democrats ousted two Republican incumbents for seats on the state’s utility regulatory commission.

    Voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City all cited economic concerns as the top issue, as Democrats and Republicans gird for a debate over affordability in the intensifying midterm battle to control Congress.

    Already, President Donald Trump is signaling that he’ll focus on affordability next year as he and Republicans try to maintain their slim congressional majorities, while Democrats are blaming Trump for rising household costs.

    Front and center may be electricity bills, which in many places are increasing at a rate faster than U.S. inflation on average — although not everywhere.

    “There’s a lot of pressure on politicians to talk about affordability, and electricity prices are right now the most clear example of problems of affordability,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of politics and government and pollster at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.

    Rising electric costs aren’t expected to ease and many Americans could see an increase on their monthly bills in the middle of next year’s campaigns.

    Higher electric bills on the horizon

    Gas and electric utilities are seeking or already secured rate increases of more that $34 billion in the first three quarters of 2025, consumer advocacy organization PowerLines reported. That was more than double the same period last year.

    With some 80 million Americans struggling to pay their utility bills, “it’s a life or death and ‘eat or heat’ type decision that people have to make,” said Charles Hua, PowerLines’ founder.

    In Georgia, proposals to build data centers have roiled communities, while a victorious Democrat, Peter Hubbard, accused Republicans on the commission of “rubber-stamping” rate increases by Georgia Power, a subsidiary of power giant Southern Co.

    Monthly Georgia Power bills have risen six times over the past two years, now averaging $175 a month for a typical residential customer.

    Hubbard’s message seemed to resonate with voters. Rebecca Mekonnen, who lives in the Atlanta suburb of Stone Mountain, said she voted for the Democratic challengers, and wants to see “more affordable pricing. That’s the main thing. It’s running my pocket right now.”

    Now, Georgia Power is proposing to spend $15 billion to expand its power generating capacity, primarily to meet demand from data centers, and Hubbard is questioning whether data centers will pay their fair share — or share it with regular ratepayers.

    Midterm battlegrounds in hotspots

    Midterm elections will see congressional battlegrounds in states where fast-rising electric bills or data center hotspots — or both — are fomenting community uprisings.

    That includes California, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

    Analysts attribute rising electric bills to a combination of forces.

    That includes expensive projects to modernize the grid and harden poles, wires and substations against extreme weather and wildfires.

    Also playing a role is explosive demand from data centers, bitcoin miners and a drive to revive domestic manufacturing, as well as rising natural gas prices, analysts say.

    “The cost of utility service is the new ‘cost of eggs’ concern for a lot of consumers,” said Jennifer Bosco of the National Consumer Law Center.

    In some places, data centers are driving a big increase in demand, since a typical AI data center uses as much electricity as 100,000 homes, according to the International Energy Agency. Some could require more electricity than cities the size of Pittsburgh, Cleveland or New Orleans.

    While many states have sought to attract data centers as an economic boon, legislatures and utility commissions were also flooded with proposals to try to protect regular ratepayers from paying to connect data centers to the grid.

    Meanwhile, communities that don’t want to live next to one are pushing back.

    It’s on voters’ minds

    An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from October found that electricity bills are a “major” source of stress for 36% of U.S. adults.

    Now, as falls turns to winter, some states are warning that funding for low-income heating aid is being delayed because of the federal government shutdown.

    Still, the impact is still more uneven than other financial stressors like grocery costs, which just over half of U.S. adults said are a “major” source of stress.

    And electric rates vary widely by state or utility.

    For instance, federal data shows that for-profit utilities have been raising rates far faster than municipally owned utilities or cooperatives.

    In the 13-state mid-Atlantic grid from Illinois to New Jersey, analysts say ratepayers are paying billions of dollars for the cost to power data centers — including data centers not even built yet.

    Next June, electric bills across that region will absorb billions more dollars in higher wholesale electricity costs designed to lure new power plants to power data centers.

    That’s spurred governors from the region — including Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Illinois’ JB Pritzker and Maryland’s Wes Moore, all Democrats who are running for reelection — to pressure the grid operator PJM Interconnection to contain increases.

    High-rate states vs. lower-rate rates

    Drew Maloney, the CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, a trade association of for-profit electric utilities, suggested that only some states are the drivers of higher average electric bills.

    “If you set aside a few sates with higher rates, the rest of the country largely follows inflation on electricity rates,” Maloney said.

    Examples of states with faster-rising rates are California, where wildfires are driving grid upgrades, and those in New England, where natural gas is expensive because of strained pipeline capacity.

    Still, other states are feeling a pinch.

    In Indiana, a growing data center hotspot, the consumer advocacy group, Citizens Action Coalition, reported this year that residential customers of the state’s for-profit electric utilities were absorbing the most severe rate increases in at least two decades.

    Republican Gov. Mike Braun decried the hikes, saying “we can’t take it anymore.”

    ___

    Associated Press reporter Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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  • Large wind turbine blade detaches in Massachusetts, falls in cranberry bog

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    A large wind turbine blade detached and fell into a cranberry bog in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on Friday afternoon. Plymouth Fire Chief Neil Foley says they received a call from a concerned neighbor around 1:52 p.m. who noticed one of the three blades on the 300-foot-tall wind turbine was missing.Firefighters located the detached blade several hundred feet away from the base, resting in an open cranberry bog. Sister station WCVB’s Sky5 was over the scene of the broken blade, which is between 75 to 100 feet long. We did not see any additional detached blades in the area.There were no injuries, and there is no threat to the public.The maintenance company responsible for the wind turbine responded to the scene and said the turbine automatically entered a fail-safe mode, shutting down immediately after the blade detached.They’re still conducting inspections to determine the cause of the failure, according to fire officials.“We were fortunate that this turbine is located out in the middle of the cranberry bogs and not in a residential area,” said Chief Foley. “Thankfully, no one was hurt, and the turbine automatically shut itself down as designed. As we continue to investigate, MassDEP and Inspectional Services will now do their due diligence to ensure this incident is addressed appropriately and the impacted area is cleaned up safely.”The maintenance company has cordoned off the area and is arranging for contractors to clean up the scene.

    PLYMOUTH, Mass. —

    A large wind turbine blade detached and fell into a cranberry bog in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on Friday afternoon.

    Plymouth Fire Chief Neil Foley says they received a call from a concerned neighbor around 1:52 p.m. who noticed one of the three blades on the 300-foot-tall wind turbine was missing.

    Firefighters located the detached blade several hundred feet away from the base, resting in an open cranberry bog.

    Sister station WCVB’s Sky5 was over the scene of the broken blade, which is between 75 to 100 feet long. We did not see any additional detached blades in the area.

    There were no injuries, and there is no threat to the public.

    The maintenance company responsible for the wind turbine responded to the scene and said the turbine automatically entered a fail-safe mode, shutting down immediately after the blade detached.

    They’re still conducting inspections to determine the cause of the failure, according to fire officials.

    “We were fortunate that this turbine is located out in the middle of the cranberry bogs and not in a residential area,” said Chief Foley. “Thankfully, no one was hurt, and the turbine automatically shut itself down as designed. As we continue to investigate, MassDEP and Inspectional Services will now do their due diligence to ensure this incident is addressed appropriately and the impacted area is cleaned up safely.”

    The maintenance company has cordoned off the area and is arranging for contractors to clean up the scene.

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  • Japan-U.S. Outline Investment Plan; Trump Says Toyota to Invest $10 Billion in U.S. Auto Plants

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    TOKYO—President Trump said Japanese auto giant Toyota is poised to invest $10 billion in auto plants in the U.S., coming as Tokyo released some details about the over half a trillion dollars it has pledged to invest in America as part of a trade deal.

    Trump made the remark while addressing U.S. military personnel in Japan, saying that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told him of the carmaker’s plan.

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