EUCI Blog

Energize Weekly, May 15, 2019 As the soybean market is roiled by trade disputes between the U.S. and China, the domestic biodiesel fuel industry is taking an increasing share of the country’s soybean oil production, according to federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. Biodiesel production absorbed 30 percent of domestic soybean oil, or 7.1 billion…

Energize Weekly, May 8, 2019 Renewable energy generation in April and May will put more electricity on the gird than coal-fired power plants, according to the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA). It is the first time on record that renewable power sources—hydro, biomass, wind, solar and geothermal—have surpassed coal-fired generation, the Institute for Energy Economics…

Energize Weekly, May 8, 2019 The Texas Renewable Energy Co-op (TREC) has received wholesale electricity bids for less than 3 cents a kilowatt-hour on 12-year contracts for its public non-profit participants, such as municipal and state agencies. The bidding process was managed by the Texas Energy Aggregation (TEA), which was created in 2002 to improve…

Energize Weekly, May 8, 2019 Last-minute efforts to bail out the Colstrip coal-fired power plant and keep it running stalled in the Montana legislature as the session ended April 26. The Colstrip bill was defeated in the Montana House of Representatives April 16 on a 60-to-37 vote. The Republican sponsors then tried to find a…

Energize Weekly, May 8, 2019 MidAmerican Energy hit a one-day record for wind generation in April, producing enough electricity to serve 100 percent of its retail customers’ needs with renewable energy. The Des Moines-based utility—which serves 783,000 electric customers in Iowa, South Dakota and Illinois—generated 11,500 megawatt-hours (MWh) on April 10, 8.5 percent better than…

Energize Weekly, May 1, 2019 Massachusetts’s first offshore in project, two 400-megawatt (MW) installations in an area south of Martha’s Vineyard, has been given a green light by state regulators. The project by Vineyard Wind, which will sell its electricity to four distribution utilities, was approved by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU). The…

Energize Weekly, May 1, 2019 The battle over coal-fired power plants and renewable energy is moving west, according to analyses by BTU Analytics, a Lakewood, Colo.-based energy consultant. About 81 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity has been closed at 696 units at 360 plants since 2008. In the early years, most of the closures were in…

Energize Weekly, May 1, 2019 Small wind turbines—at homes, farms and businesses—have increasingly been plugging into the grid and getting paid for the electricity they put on the wires—with the fastest growth in the Northeast. Net metering, which enables homeowners and commercial customers to be credited for electricity they put on the gird, has been…

Energize Weekly, May 1, 2019 U.S. fuel ethanol exports rose 23 percent year-on-year to 112,000 barrels a day in 2018—an all-time record, according to the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA). At the same time, U.S. fuel ethanol imports were down 30 percent to less than 4,000 barrels a day in 2018, leaving the U.S. a…

Energize Weekly, May 1, 2019 A push for clean electricity is sweeping western states with a burst of activity last week as Washington and Nevada adopted new standards and Colorado moved closer to approving a 100 percent net-zero-carbon target for 2050. California last September set a net-zero-carbon target by 2045. In March, New Mexico Gov.…

Energize Weekly, April 24, 2019 A total of 5,944 megawatts (MW) of wind turbines were installed in the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2018, the third highest quarter on record, bringing total installed capacity for the year to 96,488 MW, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). A big driver was corporate and…

Energize Weekly, April 24, 2019 The average summer retail price for regular-grade gasoline in the U.S. will be about 3 percent lower in 2019 than in 2018 at $2.76 a gallon, according to the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) Summer Fuels Outlook. The cost of gasoline is primarily driven by the cost of crude oil…