Hawaii Tribune Herald: Big Money at Stake for Power Executives

If the proposed merger between Hawaiian Electric Industries and NextEra Energy goes through, HEI executives stand to make a pretty penny -- $17.15 million, to be exact.

HEI shareholders on Wednesday approved both the merger agreement with NextEra and the compensation the company’s three top executives stand to make as a result.

Los Angeles Times: California's Private Utilities Charge Way More Than Public Utilities

In Sacramento, a family using 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity last October was charged $58. Customers in Los Angeles, also served by a public utility district, paid $79.

Pacific Gas & Electric charged $93 for the same amount of power. Southern California Edison billed customers $97. And San Diego Gas & Electric topped the Southern California Public Power Authority survey at $116 for 500 kilowatt-hours.

The comparison of rates charged by public and private electricity providers in California shows a notable discrepancy in the amounts customers pay for power, depending on where they live and which provider serves them.

Silicon Valley Business Journal: Tesla Snaps Up Former Solyndra Building in Huge Fremont Expansion

Tesla Motors Inc.’s Gigafactory under construction near Reno might get all the press, but the electric carmaker is also expanding closer to home, and in a big way.

Palo Alto-based Tesla this month signed a lease to occupy a capacious manufacturing building a few minutes away from its existing car plant in Fremont, the company confirmed to the Business Journal on Wednesday.

It also closes the book on a chapter in Silicon Valley tech history, absorbing the last remaining vacancy related to the implosion of solar-panel-maker Solyndra in 2011.

Vox: This Nevada Company Wanted to Break Up With Its Electric Utility. The Government Said No

There's a fight going on in Nevada that contains, in microcosm, all the struggles and challenges that face utilities in the 21st century.

It centers on a Las Vegas-based company called Switch, which runs power-hungry data centers in southern Nevada. Like many firms these days, Switch wants electricity that is cheaper and cleaner than what it can get through its local utility, NV Energy. In fact, Switch wants to go 100 percent renewable.

So it asked the Nevada public utility commission for permission to defect from the utility and procure its own power on the open market.

The Hill: Feds Eye Small Nuclear Reactors for Key Role in U.S. Energy Policy

Federal officials are preparing for a future in which small nuclear reactors are a key piece of the United States’ energy policy.

The technology, known as the small modular reactor, has attracted the attention of regulators, lawmakers, utilities, manufacturers and others.

The nuclear industry’s congressional supporters see a role for the federal government in enabling development of small reactors.