WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Thursday, readers! In today’s edition of Daily on Energy, Callie and Maydeen take a look at the start of Oregon’s special session, where state lawmakers will discuss how to pay for emergency wildfire funding, following a record-breaking wildfire season that burned nearly 2 million acres in the state.
The newsletter also looks at a new policy agenda unveiled by the U.S. solar industry for the incoming Trump administration and Congress. Meanwhile, we take a look at a new report that shows the U.S. had enormous growth for grid-scale storage technologies in the third quarter.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner energy and environment writers Callie Patteson (@CalliePatteson) and Maydeen Merino (@MaydeenMerino). Email cpatteson@washingtonexaminer dot com or mmerino@washingtonexaminer dot com for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
OREGON LEGISLATORS HOLD SPECIAL SESSION ON WILDFIRE FUNDING: Oregon lawmakers will begin a special session today to negotiate funding to pay for the state’s historic 2024 wildfire season.
This year, the state suffered wildfires that burned 1.9 million acres, far surpassing the state’s 10-year average of 640,000 acres per season, the governor’s office said. The wildfires have cost the state over $350 million.
Gov. Tina Kotek last month called for a special session, stating that although the federal government will pay for over half of the disaster relief, the state needs to quickly pay its own bills.
“The unprecedented 2024 wildfire season required all of us to work together to protect life, land, and property, and that spirit of cooperation must continue in order to meet our fiscal responsibilities,” Kotek said in a press release.
Kotek is asking legislators to provide a total of $218 million to the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Oregon Department of the State Fire Marshal to address all costs for the season.
State House Speaker Julie Fahey said, “Now, as we approach the end of the year and the holiday season, we need to make good on our commitments and pay our bills so that the contractors who fought fires in Oregon can be made whole.”
“Convening now will enable us to do so, and to chart a bipartisan path forward to address our state’s most pressing needs,” Fahey added.
SOLAR INDUSTRY UNVEILS POLICY AGENDA FOR TRUMP AND CONGRESS: The Solar Energy Industries Association released a policy agenda today for the incoming Trump administration and next Congress with the goal of ensuring U.S. dominance over China in the industry.
The details: The roadmap details 10 top priorities for the solar energy industry, revolving around low costs for Americans, boosting domestic manufacturing, protecting property rights, increasing jobs, eliminating permitting hurdles, meeting energy demand, and reducing dependence on foreign nations like China.
SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper insisted that supporting the agenda proposed would push the U.S. to the top of the global solar supply chain, boosting economic growth.
Hopper said that the roadmap would help “the Trump administration and Congress to capitalize on strong federal solar and storage policies and achieve their vision of a dominant American energy sector.”
Some background: The newly unveiled agenda comes when various renewable energy projects are at risk under the incoming administration. While President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to walk back subsidies for electric vehicles and pull back federal funding for offshore wind, the solar industry remains confident there is space to grow. SEIA has said that the industry grew by around 128% under Trump during his first administration, hitting 100 gigawatts of total capacity – equivalent to enough energy to power more than 17 million homes.
DEMOCRATS SEEK INVESTIGATION INTO ALLEGED EXXON HACKING OPERATIONS: Two Democrat senators are calling for an investigation into the potential hacking by Exxon Mobil’s consultants, the DCI group, Reuters reports.
The details: According to a report in November by Reuters, between 2015 and 2018 hackers targeted email accounts belonging to climate groups to help Exxon disrupt climate investigations and lawsuits. The DCI group, a longtime consultant of Exxon, was then investigated by the FBI over the potentially hack-and-leak efforts.
At the time, Exxon denied its involvement.
This week, Exxon told Reuters “if there was any hacking involved, we condemn it in the strongest possible terms.” DCI also said in a statement that it “has not been involved in nor commissioned others to hack or to obtain information unlawfully.”
Call for investigation: However, Democrat lawmakers told Reuters there should be an investigation into Exxon. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse called on the Department of Justice to “take a good, long look at Exxon and its fellow fossil fuel flunkies.”
Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, who did not name a specific company, called for repercussions for “corporations and billionaires who pay for hack-and-leak operations against their critics.” Meanwhile, Rep. Ro Khanna called the allegations “deeply concerning.”
U.S. SEES RECORD GROWTH FOR ENERGY STORAGE: A new report released by data and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie today reveals the U.S. had enormous growth for grid-scale storage technologies in the third quarter.
The details: The market has seen a huge jump in both installations (3,806 megawatts worth) and deployments (9,931 megawatt-hours) of grid-scale energy storage. In total, this was around an 80% and 58% increase respectively when compared to the same time last year. The overwhelming majority of this increase was driven by projects in Texas and California.
At this rate, storage installations are expected to grow by just under 30% throughout 2024 and will continue to see an annual average growth rate of around 10% between 2025 and 2028. This is primarily due to early-stage development constraints, including projected hurdles from the incoming Trump administration as the president-elect has promised increased tariffs on China, which dominates the battery and storage industry.
“Any major shifts in tax incentives or increased tariffs could outweigh benefits and have an impact on new project development,” Wood Mackenzie global head of storage Allison Weis told Reuters.
NORWAY WEIGHS CUTTING ENERGY TIES TO EUROPE: Norwegian officials are reportedly considering cutting power links to the United Kingdom, Germany, and Denmark as the Scandinavian country has seen electricity prices jump to record levels.
The details: Members of Norway’s ruling Labour Party, and its junior coalition partner the Centre Party, are looking to negotiate the country’s power connections to Europe in an effort to curb prices, according to a Financial Times report.
As of Thursday, electricity prices in southern Norway reportedly hit NKr13.16 (around $1.18) per kilowatt hour – the highest since 2009. While a shortfall of wind in the North Sea can be directly connected to the jump in costs, the interconnecting lines to Europe are facing much of the blame. Now, members of the Labour and Centre parties are looking to reevaluate these links, only sending electricity generated by hydropower when prices are lowered within the country. Interconnection to Denmark is up for renewal as early as 2026.
“It’s an absolutely shit situation,” Norwegian energy minister Terje Aasland told the outlet.
Reaction: EU officials have grown concerned about the risk to imports and exports from the interconnectors between Europe and Norway – particularly as Norway remains western Europe’s largest producer of petroleum.
“This is a crunch moment for EU-Norway relations,” an unnamed EU ambassador in Oslo told the Financial Times. “Reducing power connections to Europe will not be well received.”
ICYMI – ACTIVISTS CHALLENGE BAN ON GAS STOVE BANS IN WASHINGTON STATE: More than a month after residents of Washington state threw their support behind natural gas by voting to block bans on gas stoves, environmental activists are fighting back.
Some background: Last month, voters in Washington state broke from its Democratic leadership by casting their ballots for natural gas policies measure Initiative 2066. The initiative was written to bar the state’s building code council from blocking, discouraging, or penalizing the use of natural gas. It also is meant to ban state and local governments from restricting access to natural gas for purposes such as heating or cooking with a natural gas stove. While current state building code encourages and incentivizes buildings to opt for electrification, such as through heat pumps, it does not mandate utilities or buildings to choose the greener options.
The details: Climate advocacy groups Climate Solutions, Washington Conservation Action, Washington Solar Energy Industries, and Front and Centered, as well as local officials with the city of Seattle and King County, filed a lawsuit yesterday against the ban, claiming voters were unaware of the impact the measure would broadly have, according to Heatmap News.
“I don’t think voters would have been aware of that broad of an impact when they looked at the ballot title and they heard the campaign messaging,” Kai Smith, a lawyer with Pacifica Law Group, which is representing the activists, told the outlet.
The lawsuit claims the initiative “jeopardizes” the ability of local governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and set green standards, while also threatening the state’s clean energy transition. The lawsuit alleges the initiative violated state law concerning “single subject” and “subject-in-title” rules, due to its apparent broad impact on state building code, pollution regulations and requirements for utilities. By focusing the campaign for the measure on a “gas ban,” the lawsuit reportedly claims, the messaging misled voters.
CLIMATE ACTIVISTS PROTEST OUTSIDE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY: Today, more than a dozen climate activists engaged in a protest outside the Department of Energy’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., resulting in the arrest of at least 13 protestors.
The details: On Thursday morning, protestors with climate advocacy group Climate Defiance blocked vehicular entrances to the DOE by sitting on the ground, holding signs, and shouting chants. In a series of posts to X, the group said the protest was to demand the agency halt all “fracked gas exports.”
“The least the President could do to salvage whatever shreds remain of his legacy is to cancel ALL fracked gas export facilities that are right now under consideration,” Climate Defiance said in a post.
They condemned the arrests of the protestors, claiming they were detained in a “freezing cold van” after being taken into custody. The group later launched a fundraiser to support the detained individuals for the costs of any lawyers and legal fees.
“It’s the fossil fuel CEOs and politicians who should be in behind bars. Not us!” The group wrote. In late November, Climate Defiance founder Michael Greenberg told E&E News the protest was part of a “week of actions” to call on President Joe Biden to limit any expansion of liquid natural gas exports.
EU WON’T WEAKEN VEHICLE CARBON RULE DESPITE PUSHBACK: The European People’s Party (EPP) launched a campaign earlier this week to weaken the European Union’s carbon vehicle rule, but the European Union’s climate policy chief told Reuters they would not change it.
The EU in 2023 approved a rule that would ban the sale of new carbon-emitting cars after 2035. The EPP said the rule should support plug-in hybrid vehicles and demanded that automakers are protected from stricter carbon limits next year. The EPP is the largest party in the European Commission.
Reuters asked EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra if he would now consider changing the rule. “No,” he said. “The answer is no.” The rule is meant to help the EU reach its climate neutrality goal by 2050.
RUNDOWN
Washington Post How video games are going green without turning off gamers
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