Impacted investor-owned electric companies, electric cooperatives, and public power utilities continue to work around the clock to restore power safely and as quickly as possible to customers and communities impacted by Hurricane Helene, which caused catastrophic damage across 10 states, impacting nearly 6 million electricity customers in total, the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council said on Oct. 1.

On Sept. 30, the Bonneville Power Administration made its annual payment to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for the 41st consecutive year on time and in full, bringing cumulative payments to approximately $35.4 billion over this period. The total payment for fiscal year 2024 was $792.3 million.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved a comprehensive series of reforms to the California Independent System Operator’s interconnection process, ruling that the changes will help “ensure that interconnection customers are able to interconnect to the transmission system in a reliable, efficient, transparent, and timely manner,” CAISO said on Oct. 1.

Power outages, wildfires, rooftop solar systems, and demand response programs create a need for utilities to communicate with customers quickly and clearly. Utilizing omnichannel communication systems can help ensure customers stay in the know and also help utilities respond to the many outage-related calls and emails from customers.

There is a “terrific opportunity for the U.S. utility industry to be intentional in how data center demand is met, setting an important precedent for handling future load growth in a way that better supports the grid,” a new report from CoBank said.

Wisconsin public power utility Manitowoc Public Utilities recently issued a request for proposals from developers to construct an aggregate generation project consisting of 30-megawatt solar generation and 10-MW battery storage system with minimum capability of four hours.