solar power

March 24, 2022 - Despite the urgency of the climate crisis, electric utilities across the South — including Duke Energy, Florida Power & Light, and Dominion Energy — are working in concert with fossil fuel interests to promote policies that discourage consumers from installing rooftop solar systems. Will regulators let them get away with it?

September 10, 2021 - Hurricane Ida's devastation of Louisiana's electric grid and the deadly power outages that resulted show the risk that highly centralized generation systems present in an era of increasingly destructive climate change-driven weather events. Yet Entergy — a Fortune 500 company that's the main power provider for the hard-hit southeastern part of the state, including New Orleans — has fought plans to move toward cleaner community-based generation. Will Ida mark a turning point?

July 26, 2018 - Vernon Haltom of West Virginia's Coal River Mountain Watch was among those who testified about coal's future before a congressional subcommittee this week. The testimony of Haltom — whose group is working to end mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia — details what boosting coal means for the communities where it's extracted.

November 10, 2016 - Voters in Virginia also rejected an anti-union amendment to the state constitution, though a similar amendment passed overwhelmingly in Alabama. Meanwhile, Georgia voters rejected a controversial ballot measure that would have allowed the state to take over troubled public schools.

October 27, 2016 - In this year's general election, voters in six states across the South will weigh in on ballot measures on issues including legalizing medical pot, adding anti-union provisions to state constitutions, protecting the power of electric utility monopolies, and allowing a state takeover of troubled public schools.

October 13, 2016 - Floridians will vote soon on Amendment 1, a ballot measure that's been billed as pro-solar but is actually an effort funded by big utility companies to protect their monopoly and slow the transition to rooftop generation.

April 18, 2016 - North Carolina regulators ruled against NC WARN after it installed solar panels on the roof of a church and sold it the electricity, saying the arrangement violates the state's private utility monopoly system. The nonprofit says it will take the case to court.