CLEAN ENERGY: Georgia has received $23 billion in clean energy factory investment since the passage of a landmark federal climate package, supercharging communities like the one that hosts Qcells’ solar panel factory. (Canary Media)

ALSO: A Virginia commission formed to distribute funding from a 1998 tobacco settlement considers energy-related grant requests for a $12 million fund set aside as part of a legislative mandate. (Virginia Mercury)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: 

SOLAR: A Virginia county board rejects a company’s proposal to build an 80 MW solar farm despite pleas from a town that would have received $500,000 as part of the project. (Mecklenburg Sun)

OIL & GAS: 

EFFICIENCY: Two North Carolina school districts will receive $300,000 each in federal funds to boost their energy efficiency, with one district qualifying for an additional $7.5 million for upgrades. (WUNC)

GRID: 

CLIMATE: 

UTILITIES: West Virginia regulators hear testimony questioning Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power’s decision to purchase power from the PJM grid instead of generating their own from three coal-fired power plants in the state as they consider the utilities’ request for a $20.4 million rate increase. (Parkersburg News and Sentinel, Charleston Gazette-Mail)

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Mason has worked as a journalist since 2001, covering Appalachian communities and the issues that affect them. He compiles the Southeast Energy News digest. Mason previously worked as a wildlife biologist before moving into journalism by freelancing at Coast Weekly in Monterey, California, before taking an internship in 2001 at High Country News. He wrote for the Enterprise Mountaineer in western North Carolina and the Roanoke Times in western Virginia before going freelance in 2012. His work has appeared in Southerly, Daily Yonder, Mother Jones, Huffington Post, WVPB’s Inside Appalachia and elsewhere. Mason was born and raised in Clifton Forge, Virginia, and now lives with his family and a small herd of goats in Floyd County, Virginia.