In the News
Xcel plan to idle coal plants could save millions, slash carbon emissions; could Wisconsin utilities do the same?
January 11, 2020 Wisconsin State Journal Chris Hubbuch Minnesota’s Xcel Energy says it can save ratepayers up to $30 million a year and eliminate millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions by idling two coal plants six months a year and changing the way they operate in the others. Environmental groups are hailing the plan…
Utilities Have Big Plans to Cut Emissions, But They’re Struggling to Shed Fossil Fuels
January 6, 2020 Inside Climate News Dan Gearino Even a renewable energy leader like Xcel, one of the first to pledge net zero emissions by mid-century, is finding it hard to end coal without adding natural gas. As major U.S. utilities began making pledges this past year to cut their greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero,…
Enviros, States Question Coal Self-commitment
RTO Insider, December 3, 2019 Tom Leckner SAN ANTONIO — Two environmental groups that say regulated utilities’ practice of self-committing coal plants is costing ratepayers have a point, RTO officials said Monday, even as they challenged the groups’ estimates. The issue is also attracting scrutiny from state regulators. The Sierra Club released a study last month…
Non-profit study sees ‘self-committed coal’ distorting MISO market signals
S&P Global, November 20, 2019 Maya Weber San Antonio — If all generation were dispatched economically in Midcontinent Independent System Operator, average wholesale power prices would rise 3%, but production costs would drop 11%, lowering consumer costs, according to a preliminary analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists presented Tuesday. The group, along with the Sierra…
Climate column: Citizens’ Utility Board comes to Two Harbors
Virtually every utility today has goals to move to renewables Lake County News Chronicle, November 16, 2019 Katya Gordan As the cost of wind and solar power drops, and as technology races to capture renewable energies to provide the same (or better) reliability than coal, oil and gas, renewable energy appears to be a clear…