State House Energy Committee Gutted

All bills stripped from committee’s jurisdiction

A contentious session on July 24th in the Michigan House, which included the absence of House Energy Committee Chair Rep. Pauline Wendzel (R-Watervliet), resulted in House Speaker Matt Hall (R- Richland Township) moving to strip all of the bills assigned to that committee and refer them to the Government Operations Committee. Speaker Hall had intentions of passing a few priority bills through the House that day, but with Wendzel and two other Republican members absent, there weren’t 56 GOP votes in the chamber. Democrat House members saw the GOP vote deficit, closed ranks, and offered no votes to get any bills approved.

Hall’s particular retribution for Wendzel not attending session is unprecedented. It remains to be seen if the inter-party rift will be repaired and the bills get re-referred to the House Energy Committee.  

Microgrid Bill Introduced in State Senate

SB 477 will allow grid resiliency tool 

Senator Darrin Camilleri (D-Trenton) has introduced Senate Bill 477 that would allow for building “microgrid” systems. A microgrid connects a group of customers in a localized electricity network that can be temporarily separated from the larger grid and provide energy from distributed energy resources within that network.  

Microgrids can be a resiliency tool for critical institutions like hospitals and first responder facilities or securing energy resources for key industrial and commercial functions. The bill has been referred to the Senate Energy & Environment Committee, but with opposition to the bill from the large utilities, its future movement is uncertain at best.

New Commissioner Appointed

Governor Gretchen Whitmer decided against re-appointing Public Service Commissioner Allesandra Carreon to a full term after completing the term of Commissioner Tremain Philips, who resigned two years ago. In appointing long-time Democrat policy advisor Shaquila Myers, the Commission will have its third commissioner in this seat in the past three years.

While the governor gave no public explanation for moving on from Carreon, in private circles the word is that the state's large monopoly utilities didn’t find Carreon sympathetic enough to their perspective on rates for customers and rates of return for company shareholders. How Commissioner Myers will navigate those competing interests could have big financial impacts on energy costs. 

New Transmission Lines Approved

The first phase (“Tranche 1”) of a three-phase, multiyear plan by the Midwest region’s grid operator (MISO) to build two segments of transmission lines was approved by the MPSC on July 10th. However, commissioners expressed their displeasure with the company [seeking to build the lines] for its conduct working with landowners affected by the new lines.

Using terms like “cavalier,” “lazy,” and “completely unacceptable,” commissioners also issued an order directing staff to develop standards for best practices for working with landowners on the routing of transmission lines. Those standards are expected to come into play when routing for the much more extensive Tranches 2 and 3 are considered by the Commission. 

Palisades Clear for Refueling

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given a crucial approval to the Palisades nuclear plant as it remains on course to repower in October of this year. The NRC has said Holtec can proceed with the process of fueling the 800 mega-watt plant and preparing it to start operations.

As the company continues with the first-of-its-kind nuclear plant restart, it is also aggressively moving toward bringing two small modular reactors to the Palisades location, which will add another 600 mega-watts of capacity. Holtec has not provided a specific time frame for when the SMRs would come online.

Kairos breaks ground on first SMR project

Concrete is being poured for the first small modular reactor in the U.S.. Kairos, a comparatively small start-up firm in the nuclear industry, is building what is considered a "demonstration" Generation IV SMR in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. 

The company signed an agreement in 2024 with Google to supply energy for data centers. One challenge that the project faces is its design reliance on high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) for fuel, which is primarily available only from Russia. That supply chain has been questionable since the war in Ukraine began.