Utility regulators from about 35 states are urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to sharply limit a 0.5% return on equity incentive the agency gives to utilities that join regional transmission organizations. “The time has come for the Commission to eliminate its policy of granting the RTO Participation Adder in perpetuity, if not to eliminate this incentive altogether,” the Organization of PJM States, the Organization of MISO States, the New England States Committee on Electricity and the Southwest Power Pool Regional State Committee said in a Friday letter to FERC. The state regulators and others contends the RTO incentive adds millions to ratepayer costs to encourage behavior — being an RTO member — that they would likely do anyway. In 2021, FERC proposed limiting its ROE adder to three years. FERC Chairman Mark Christie supports the proposal as well as limiting other incentives aimed at encouraging utilities to build transmission lines. However, it appears he has been unable to convince a majority of FERC commissioners to reduce those incentives. Christie’s term ends today, although he plans to stay at the agency until at least FERC’s next open meeting on July 24. Limiting the ROE incentive could reduce utility income. Public Service Enterprise Group, for example, estimates that removing the incentive would cut annual net income and cash inflows by about $40 million for its Public Service Electric & Gas subsidiary, according to a Feb. 25 filing at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The utility earned about $1.5 billion in 2024. Ending the incentive would reduce American Electric Power’s pretax income by $35 million to $50 million a year, the utility company said in its 2023 annual report with the SEC. In April, WIRES, a transmission-focused trade group, the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, and GridWise Alliance, a

Dive Brief: Keeping electricity affordable for consumers is a “formidable challenge” amid projections of declining generation capacity reserves and persistent uncertainty around the scale and pace of future load growth, ICF International Vice President of Energy Markets Maria Scheller said Thursday.  Meanwhile, broad policy uncertainty and an increasingly shaky regulatory environment give utilities and capital markets pause about expensive new infrastructure investments that could become stranded assets, Scheller said in a webinar on ICF’s “Powering the Future: Addressing Surging U.S. Electricity Demand” report. Policy conversations around import tariffs, federal energy tax credits and permitting reform are unfolding as the balance of electricity demand shifts from residential and business consumers to technology and industrial customers, which tend to require around-the-clock power, Scheller added. Dive Insight: The coming shift in U.S. electricity consumption represents less of a new paradigm than a return to the industrial-driven demand the country saw from the 1950s into the 1980s, after which deindustrialization and consumer-centric trends like the widespread adoption of air conditioning, electric resistance heating and personal computing shifted the balance toward the residential segment, Scheller said. The shift is important because unlike residential loads, which show considerable seasonal and intraday variation, industrial loads are flatter, less weather-dependent and more sensitive to voltage fluctuations, Scheller said. By 2035, ICF expects nearly 40% of total U.S. load will have a “flat, power-quality-sensitive profile,” and that overall load will grow faster than peak load, she said. In 2030, ICF projects more than 3% annual power consumption growth, compared with less than 2% annual peak load growth, according to a webinar slide. That’s not to say residential demand won’t also grow in the next few years as consumers electrify home heating and buy more electric vehicles — only that data centers and other industrial demand will “dwarf” it, Scheller

Edwin Lyman is director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. A White House executive order issued last month targeting the independence of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that oversees the safety and security of U.S. commercial nuclear facilities and materials, as well as the possibly illegal firing earlier this month of Commissioner Christopher Hanson by President Donald Trump, are raising serious concerns about the agency’s effectiveness as a regulator going forward. While I’ve often been a critic of the NRC for taking actions favoring the nuclear industry at the expense of public health and safety, preserving the NRC in its current form is the best hope for heading off a U.S. nuclear plant disaster like the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi reactor meltdowns in Japan. My long-standing beef with the NRC has primarily been with its political leadership, not with the rank-and-file staff of highly knowledgeable inspectors, analysts and researchers committed to helping ensure that nuclear power remains safe and secure. These professionals are well aware how quickly things can go south at a nuclear power plant without rigorous oversight. They know from experience what obscure corners to look in and what questions to ask. And they can tell — and are not afraid to push back — when they are getting sold snake oil by fly-by-night startups looking to make easy money by capitalizing on the current nuclear power craze. Technical rigor and expert judgment form the bedrock of this work. But when staff are compelled to sweep legitimate safety concerns under the rug in the interest of political expediency, many will leave rather than compromise their scientific integrity. So there is little wonder that a wave of experienced personnel is headed out the door in the wake of the executive order on NRC “reform,”

North America dropped six rigs week on week, according to Baker Hughes’ latest North America rotary rig count, which was released on June 27. Although the U.S. dropped seven rigs week on week, Canada added one rig during the same timeframe, taking the total North America rig count down to 687, comprising 547 rigs from the U.S. and 140 rigs from Canada, the count outlined. Of the total U.S. rig count of 547, 533 rigs are categorized as land rigs, 12 are categorized as offshore rigs, and two are categorized as inland water rigs. The total U.S. rig count is made up of 432 oil rigs, 109 gas rigs, and six miscellaneous rigs, according to Baker Hughes’ count, which revealed that the U.S. total comprises 496 horizontal rigs, 38 directional rigs, and 13 vertical rigs. Week on week, the U.S. land rig count reduced by five, its offshore rig count decreased by two, and its inland water rig count remained unchanged, the count highlighted. The country’s oil rig count dropped by six, its gas rig count dropped by two, and its miscellaneous rig count increased by one, week on week, the count showed. The U.S. horizontal rig count dropped by six, its directional rig count dropped by two, and its vertical rig count increased by one, week on week, the count revealed. A major state variances subcategory included in the rig count showed that, week on week, Wyoming dropped five rigs, and Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Colorado each dropped one rig. A major basin variances subcategory included in Baker Hughes’ rig count showed that, week on week, the Granite Wash basin dropped one rig and the Permian basin dropped one rig. Canada’s total rig count of 140 is made up of 94 oil rigs and 46 gas rigs, Baker Hughes pointed

Intensity Infrastructure Partners LLC has partnered with power producer Rainbow Energy Center LLC to construct a new pipeline to bring Bakken gas to eastern North Dakota. “The pipeline will provide expanded takeaway capacity for associated natural gas produced in the Williston Basin”, a joint statement said. “By enabling in-state processing and transportation of natural gas, the project will help reduce flaring, unlock new oil production, and generate increased tax revenues for the state of North Dakota”. The project is planned with two phases. Phase 1 would build a 136-mile, 36-inch pipeline with a capacity of about 1.1 million dekatherms a day (Dthd) from Watford City to Washburn. The second phase would extend the conduit 208 miles from Washburn to Casselton with a 30-inch line able to carry up to 430,000 Dthd, as well as multiple delivery points. The partners aim to put the pipeline into service July 2029, “though the timeline may be accelerated based on market demand and permitting progress”. “In anticipation of additional growth, the pipeline will reserve capacity for future, unannounced projects along the route”, the statement added. Intensity chief executive Joseph Griffin said, “The state has been seeking a project of this size with a customer like Rainbow for nearly a decade. We’re proud to be part of the solution to extend the longevity of the Bakken and create new opportunities for energy and agriculture across North Dakota”. Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Intensity has already built 2,000 miles of pipeline infrastructure in North Dakota alone, serving the Permian Basin, Bakken Shale, Powder River Basin and Mid-Continent plays, according to the company. North Dakota currently has two proposed pipelines, according to the North Dakota Pipeline Authority’s monthly press update for June. The other, by WBI Energy of MDU Resources Group Inc., is planned to transport up to 760,000 Dthd

After initially proposing a softened version of the Inflation Reduction Act cuts in the House’s proposed budget legislation, the Senate’s Republican leadership flip-flopped this weekend and proposed not only stiff IRA cuts but an outright excise tax on wind and solar projects. The bill now terminates the 45Y clean energy production tax credit and 48E clean energy manufacturing credit for wind and solar projects after 2027, and it levies a penalty against new wind and solar projects that come online after 2027 unless they can completely disentangle their supply chains from prohibited foreign entities like China. It would also end the 25E, 30D, and 45W electric vehicle credits after September and the 25D residential solar credit after this year. Former Trump senior adviser Elon Musk on Saturday said the Senate’s latest draft of the bill “will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!” “Utterly insane and destructive,” he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.” The legislation was released just after midnight on Friday and advanced in the Senate with a 51 to 49 vote late Saturday night. The two Republican holdouts were Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. ”When you rush a bill and you don’t think through the implementation, you don’t get it right,” Tillis said in a Senate floor speech on Sunday, warning that energy shortages could occur if the bill is passed in its current state. President Trump responded to Tillis’s defection with Saturday posts on Truth Social in which he vowed to meet with Tillis’s potential primary challengers and accused him of loving “China made windmills that will cost a fortune, ruin the landscape, and produce the most expensive