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Microsoft and Avangrid Sign PPA for Bluebird Solar Project in Washington State

LCG, May 27, 2026--Avangrid, Inc., a member of the Iberdrola Group, today announced the signing of a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Microsoft for the 140 MWdc (100 MWac) Bluebird Solar project in Klickitat County, Washington. Bluebird is located near four other energy projects owned and operated by Avangrid in Klickitat County and represents another $300 million investment in the community. The Bluebird Solar project is expected to achieve commercial operation in 2028.

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ERCOT Summer 2026: What’s Driving the Next Wave of Market Risk?

LCG, May 27, 2026--ERCOT enters Summer 2026 with healthy near-term reserve margins, but rapidly growing data center demand, persistent West Texas congestion, and the rollout of RTC+B are reshaping market dynamics faster than ever.

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Industry News

FERC Forced to Release Report on Williams and AES Communications

LCG, Nov. 15, 2002--Conversations transcribed in a Federal Energy Regualtory Commission report detail what appears to have been an agreement to keep a Southern California power plant from providing power, which allowed Williams to sell power at a higher-than-expected price to the California Independent System Operator.

Williams had hoped to avoid the release of the FERC report, which FERC had earlier warned it would release unless the company agreed to erase $8 million in charges to the CAISO, which contested them as unwarranted. Although Williams agreed not to pursue the charges, a public-records lawsuit brought by The Wall Street Journal against the FERC compelled the report's release. Representatives for Williams and AES responded to the report by characterizing their communications in May 2000 as well-known and not deserving of attention. Williams settled a lawsuit brought by California this week, rewriting long-term contracts with the state to avoid further legal action.

The conversations between the companies concerned the AES Alamitos plant, from which Williams was buying and marketing power. Any power that could not be delivered as planned would and did bring a price of $750 per megawatt-hour, rather than the price of $63 in the schedule. In this case, units within the same plant provided power because the units specified in the schedule were on outage for maintenance. The additional cost to the CAISO over a fifteen-day period was estimated at $10 million.

Rhonda Morgan of Williams was quoted as saying to an AES employee at the plant, "it wouldn't hurt Williams' feelings if the outage ran long." The president of Williams Energy Marketing & Trading, Bill Hobbs, said that the release of the information against the wishes of FERC "doesn't add anything to the dialogue...", and said that AES received no compensation based on the communications.
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