Top News
After Hurricane Irma, Fla. utilities want more authority to trim disputed trees
Disputed vegetation that downed power lines and distribution poles represents the biggest obstacle to faster restorations after Hurricane Irma, Florida's investor-owned utilities said.
Shift in crowdfunding brings retail investors to fledgling energy tech ventures
With the 2018 debut of an energy technology company looking to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in seed capital through a crowdfunding site, retail investors now have the opportunity to get early stakes in energy tech and oilfield services startups.
As exports boom, US coal producers eye creative solutions for local customers
While export markets are providing an outlet for U.S. coal producers, maintaining a core base of domestic utility customers may require some creative contracting in today's market.
Power
* The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants its science advisers to provide information on the economic and energy impacts of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards even though it cannot consider those impacts to determine if a standard should be modified.
* The Trump administration plans to cancel a multibillion-dollar project that would convert plutonium from nuclear bombs and burn it to produce electricity, Reuters reported. The U.S. Department of Energy said the Mixed Oxide project in South Carolina is expected to cost about $48 billion more than the $7.6 billion already invested in it.
* The Vermont Supreme Court dismissed a case that sought to overturn price protections that are unfavorable to wind developments and other large renewable power projects related to a March 2017 request for proposals.
* EDP - Energias de Portugal SA shares rose more than 9% after China Three Gorges Corp. proposed to acquire the 76.7% stake in EDP that it does not own for €9 billion, The Financial Times reported.
* Indian utility Tata Power Co. Ltd. plans to invest about $5 billion to increase its renewable capacity four times over to 12,000 MW by 2028, Bloomberg reported.
* The EPA appointed 14 members to its Local Government Advisory Committee to help develop stronger relationships with local governments. The committee now consists of 33 members.
* The North Carolina Supreme Court upheld a prior court decision, siding with regulators, which found that clean-energy advocacy group NC WARN infringed on Duke Energy Corp.'s rights as a utility when the group sold solar power to a church, The Associated Press reported.
* The New Hampshire Supreme Court cleared the way for Antrim Wind Energy LLC to move forward with its 28.8-MW Antrim Wind Energy Project, upholding the N.H. Site Evaluation Committee's December 2016 approval and rejecting a challenge to that decision.
* SaskPower and the First Nations Power Authority announced an agreement to source 20 MW of flare gas power generation projects, which is expected to generate approximately $300 million in potential revenues over 20 years.
* Rocky Mountain Power Inc. customers in Utah will see savings after state regulators approved the utility to pass along savings from the federal tax bill in the form of bill credits. An average customer is expected to see a drop of 3.45%, or about $32, in their total annual bills, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
* The old, rarely employed statutes the Energy Department is contemplating using to throw a lifeline to struggling coal-fired and nuclear power plants are "perhaps not the most obvious fit" for addressing baseload generation's resilience and national security contributions to the grid, FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre said May 10.
Natural gas/Oil
* A growth and value fund with no record of shareholder activism said it will vote against Appalachian shale gas driller Range Resources Corp.'s entire slate of directors and against the company's 2018 executive pay plan at Range's May 16 annual meeting in hopes of shaking up a company whose stock has been in decline for years.
* Investor Carl Icahn nominated two more directors to SandRidge Energy Inc.'s board and urged fellow stockholders to back the appointment of Jonathan Christodoro and Nancy Dunlap, NewsOK reported. SandRidge Energy on May 7 agreed to increase its board to seven members to allow two of Icahn's nominees to join the board. Icahn rejected the plan, saying, "[W]e believe that it is in the best interest of the company to elect all seven of our nominees and reaffirm our recommendation."
* A court in Curacao authorized ConocoPhillips to take control of $636 million of local assets owned by Venezuela's oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela SA. Conoco is trying to recover $2 billion after a disagreement over the expropriation of its oil projects in Venezuela, the Associated Press reported.
Coal
* At a coal conference in Florida, a top EPA official laid out a six-point priority list for rolling back air regulations and tried to tamp down reports of internal strife hampering the agency.
* A bipartisan bill aimed at advancing carbon capture research and development was introduced in U.S. House of Representatives on May 10.
* Emera Inc. is considering converting a unit to natural gas at its coal-fired Big Bend plant in Tampa, Fla., to increase efficiency and provide a backstop for expected solar installations.
Commodities
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New from RRA
* Connecticut Water Service Inc. on May 7 filed for approval of its "merger of equals" transaction with SJW Group with the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority and the Maine Public Utilities Commission.
* In a joint rate case application filed May 9 in Case No. 18-0646-E-42T, American Electric Power Co. Inc. subsidiaries Appalachian Power Co. and Wheeling Power Co. proposed to implement an aggregate $114.6 million, or 7.85%, electric base rate increase premised on a 10.22% return on equity (50.16% of capital) and a 7.52% return on an average rate base valued at $4.119 billion for a calendar 2017 test year.
* The South Carolina Senate on May 10 unanimously passed an amended version of House Bill 4375, legislation that would significantly impact the state's Base Load Review Act. The BLRA, which was enacted in 2007, governs the ratemaking associated with V.C. Summer units 2 and 3, two nuclear units that were abandoned in July 2017.
Quoted
"There's one way you can do it, but you're still always going to be back trimming that tree. So we're trying to figure out a way to engineer this out once and for all," Bryan Olnick, Florida Power & Light Co.'s vice president of distribution operations, said about Florida utilities' request for more authority to trim trees.
The day ahead
* The following companies will hold their earnings conference calls: Atlantica Yield PLC and RGS Energy at 4:30 p.m. ET and Itron Inc. at 5 p.m. ET.
* Early morning futures indicators pointed to a higher opening for the U.S. equity markets. To view more SNL equity market indexes, click here. To view more SNL Energy commodities prices, click here.
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