Revolution Wind cancellation could cost consumers $500 million per year

This roundup of energy news headlines comes from our Northeast Energy News newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.

WIND

• Electricity costs for New England customers could go up $500 million per year if Revolution Wind is not allowed to complete construction and send power to the grid, Connecticut officials say. (CT Mirror)

• Maine and Massachusetts scramble to find alternative ways to meet their renewable energy needs in the face of the Trump administration’s attacks on offshore wind. (E&E News)

• Republican state legislators in Maine ask the federal government to revoke existing offshore wind leases in the Gulf of Maine, saying the floating wind turbines that would be developed there are ​“too experimental, too costly, and too disruptive.” (Maine Morning Star)

• The U.S. Department of Energy withdraws a $716 million loan commitment that would have funded transmission upgrades allowing offshore wind to connect to the grid in New Jersey. (RTO Insider)

SOLAR

• Maine utility regulators say the Passamaquoddy Tribe can go ahead with plans to install solar panels on 200 roofs in a tribal township, ruling against a local utility that argued the plan violated net-metering regulations. (Maine Public)

• Researchers at Cornell University try to determine which crops grow best in fields shared by solar panels. Radishes are out, but strawberries and zucchini are looking ​“promising.” (WAMC)

• Maine, Massachusetts, and New York are among the states with the most community solar capacity, a new report finds. (PV Magazine)

NUCLEAR

• The company in charge of dismantling New York’s 2 GW Indian Point nuclear plant says the facility could be restarted with enough time, money, and regulatory approvals. (E&E News)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Both environmental advocates and the coal terminal’s operator object to a ruling by Maryland regulators that the facility must build a giant windscreen to protect neighboring communities from coal dust, with advocates saying the measures aren’t stringent enough and the company saying they’re unnecessary. (Baltimore Banner)

• Pennsylvania’s state energy secretary asks the Trump administration not to eliminate mine safety research jobs, in the interest of protecting the state’s roughly 3,000 miners. (Pennsylvania Capital-Star)

PUBLIC HEALTH

• Two Pennsylvania communities seek state and federal funding to replace wells producing water ​“not fit for human consumption” because they have been contaminated by chemicals from nearby fracking operations. (Inside Climate News)

• American steel production is on the rise and environmental regulation is on the decline, a combination that worries some who live near production facilities, such as U.S. Steel’s coal-based furnace near Pittsburgh. (E&E News)

DATA CENTERS

• Delaware utility regulators vote to create new, higher electricity rates for ​“large-load” customers such as data centers. (Spotlight Delaware)

GEOTHERMAL

• A New Hampshire-based company unveils new water-jet drilling technology that could cut the cost of drilling geothermal boreholes by up to 80% and help accelerate adoption of ground-source heating and cooling, its creators say. (TechCrunch)

STORAGE

• Municipal planners in Syracuse, New York give preliminary approval to plans to build two 5-megawatt battery systems, the city’s first. (Syracuse.com)

NEW FROM CANARY 

• Tesla just launched the Megablock, a big, easy-to-deploy grid battery — Julian Spector

• Will this startup be the first to successfully scale up ocean power? — Julian Spector

• California’s first solar-covered canal is now fully online — Maria Gallucci

• This startup says it can halve the cost of a heat pump — here’s how — Alison F. Takemura

• North Carolina families see lower bills with new Duke Energy program — Elizabeth Ouzts