By Beth Trask
This piece was originally published in Hydrogen Insight.
When the global energy industry gathers at CERAWeek in Houston next week, they’ll be reacting to a fast-changing energy landscape. But what hasn’t changed is the global demand for cleaner energy — including clean hydrogen.
By Casey Horan
Projected electric load demand is increasing at a rate not seen for decades, creating new and unique challenges for utilities. While most headlines focus on the demand from data centers, electric vehicles and electrified buildings are also driving grid upgrade needs — especially at the distribution level. To accommodate load growth quickly and cost-effectively, some utilities are beginning to design and implement flexible interconnection programs. These programs allow customers to connect to the grid in a manner that balances existing infrastructure capacity with new energy demands. Flexible interconnections help utilities manage grid stress by limiting customers’ peak load, offering partial service temporarily or long-term when full interconnection is not yet feasible.
Update: Texas lawmakers have filed three bills to advance the key policies we laid out earlier in session. HB 1846 creates an electric truck advisory council, HB 4519 would consolidate state TERP grants for clean trucks, and HB 4841 creates a third-party scrappage program to help find pre-2009 vehicles companies can secure to apply for grants. For more on each of the bills, read their one-pagers here:
• HB 1846 – Electric Truck Advisory Council
• HB 4519 – TERP Consolidation
• HB 4841 – Third Party Scrappage Program
In the last two years, Texas has made over $100 million available in incentives for zero-emission trucks and buses. With incentive programs at the federal level uncertain, Texas has quietly but confidently become a leader in the clean truck industry. Texas’ light-touch approach to regulation allows it to move at the industry’s pace, focusing on incentives and policies that support Texas businesses and drive forward new ideas that bolster the state’s diverse economy.
The European Union’s methane regulation, set to begin reporting requirements this May, is a landmark step in climate policy. By targeting methane — a potent greenhouse gas responsible for a third of global warming – these rules reinforce Europe’s climate commitments and set a global standard for methane emissions reductions.
For a dozen years, study after scientific study has documented the vast amount of methane released to the atmosphere by oil and gas operations worldwide. Faced with mounting data, both producers and regulators have slowly but steadily ramped up efforts to cut these emissions, which are both a waste of natural resources and a powerful climate pollutant.
Until now, emphasis has largely been on chasing down large emissions sources, sometimes called super-emitters. After all, why not go after the biggest fish first? What’s more, big leaks are easier to find. But a new study led by EDF scientists builds an integrated analysis of measurement-based data spanning a range of emitting facilities across multiple US oil and gas basins calls this assumption into question.
