Energy

Bloomberg Top US energy regulators declined to endorse the notion that power grids face a national emergency during a Senate hearing, tacitly rebuffing President Donald Trump’s argument to prop up struggling coal and nuclear plants. The five members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission were testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee when asked by New Mexico Democrat …

Bloomberg Despite tariffs that President Trump imposed on imported panels, the US installed more solar energy than any other source of electricity in the first quarter. Developers installed 2.5 gigawatts of solar in the first quarter, up 13 percent from a year earlier, according to a report on Tuesday from the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research. That accounted …

Bloomberg The European Union’s vision of a single energy market will move a step closer on Tuesday with the start of a joint market for electricity delivered on the same day. The project, which requires close cooperation between rival exchanges and grid operators, will link 14 national markets from Latvia to Germany and Portugal. Most other European countries are scheduled …

Bloomberg As the UK government works to exit the European Union, the nation’s electric utilities are working to get closer. Power already flows between the UK, France, Ireland and Northern Ireland through four interconnector cables, and work is under way to more than quadruple the capacity of those links. The cables will establish a stronger physical tie with the continent …

Bloomberg Massive offshore wind turbines keep getting bigger, and that’s helping make the power cheaper — to the point where developers say new projects in US waters can compete with natural gas. The price “is going to be a real eye-opener,” said Bryan Martin, chairman of Deepwater Wind LLC, which won an auction in May to build a 400-megawatt wind …

Bloomberg With financial backing from the US government, solar developer Gigawatt Global Cooperatief UA signed a deal with the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States to build $1 billion of renewable energy projects in the region. The US is supporting the project through its Power Africa initiative set up in 2013 under President Barack Obama’s administration, a program that …

Bloomberg India may be the biggest beneficiary of solar industry reforms in China that are poised to reduce prices for photovoltaic panels. China announced last week it was halting approvals of some new solar projects this year and cutting subsidies to developers to ease its pace of expansion. That’s expected to slow demand in the world’s biggest market, weakening prices, …

Bloomberg President Donald Trump wanted more US solar manufacturing — and now he’s getting it. Hanwha Q Cells Korea said it will build a factory in Georgia. JinkoSolar Holding Co. of China is planning one in Florida. And US companies SunPower Corp. and First Solar Inc. say they’ll boost production in Oregon and Ohio. The expansion underscores how immediate the …

Bloomberg South Africa plans to invite bidders for additional renewable power projects that may amount to as much as 50 billion rand ($4 billion) of investment and help stimulate local and black-owned business. The fifth bid window for 1,800 megawatts of renewable projects under the government’s independent power producers program will start in November, according to a copy of Energy …

Bloomberg US natural gas futures are having their best May rally since 2010 as hot weather boosts demand for the power plant fuel, slowing efforts to refill depleted inventories. Prices rose to a four-month high after the Energy Information Administration reported inventories rose by 96 billion cubic feet last week to 1.725 trillion. The median estimate by analysts predicted a …