DevelopOhio

A project to rehabilitate The Broadway Building in Lorain will be eligible for a state energy direct loan, after Council members recently approved the creation of an energy special improvement district (ESID), The Chronicle reports. Developer Ariel on Broadway will be able to obtain a PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) loan of $1.6 million for energy improvements, a “crucial piece of financing,” according to Port Authority Director Tom Brown. Brown and attorney Caleb Bell of Bricker & Eckler LLP explained the ESID agreement to members of Council in a Committee of the Whole session. Bell explained that the $8 million project “will not have full financing” without the PACE loan. For more, read the full article. 

A “wave of change” in how consumers and businesses use electricity is coming, and the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) is helping utilities prepare with its recently released report, “PowerForward: A Roadmap to Ohio’s Electricity Future,” The Columbus Dispatch reports. PUCO Chairman Asim Haque said, “[t]he grid has to be modernized, its infrastructure and method of delivery are many, many decades old,” according to the article. Columbus Business First reports Haque said that utilities must “undertake modernizations that take into account new technologies, renewable energy, electric vehicles, home interfaces like smart thermostats as well as big-picture security issues like emergent cybersecurity threats.” PUCO will use the report “as a framework as it regulates energy infrastructure investment in the coming years,” according to Columbus Business First. For more, read the full Columbus Dispatch and Columbus Business First articles. 

The City of Canton, the Stark Community Foundation, and Cleveland-based nonprofit JumpStart Inc. will provide a total of $266,000 in yearly funding to the city’s innovation district, CantonRep.com reports. The innovation district, which was created last year, “requires high-speed internet connectivity and allows for tax abatements that can be used to support technology businesses,” according to the article. The city will provide $75,000, the Stark Community Foundation $40,000, and JumpStart “will provide $52,000 and $99,000 through the state’s Third Frontier network.” For more, read the full article.

The State of Ohio has certified the Seneca Wind project “as a qualified energy project, establishing a fixed payment in lieu of taxes” throughout its operational life, The Adviser-Tribune reports. Seneca Wind will “consist of up to 85 wind turbines on about 25,000 acres” in Scipio, Reed, Eden, Venice and Bloom townships, “providing energy to power almost 60,000 homes each year,” according to the article. The project’s proposed 212 megawatts of capacity over the expected 30-year lifespan of the project “would result in $56 million of revenue” from developer and owner sPower, “to be divided among schools, townships and Seneca County.” For more, read the full article. 

Beginning next year, Dayton Power & Light (DP&L) “will dedicate up to $1 million to building charging equipment for electric vehicles, according to an agreement the utility has with staff of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO),” the Dayton Daily News reports. The capital investment will “fund distribution grid investments necessary to support installation of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure in the DP&L service territory,” the article reports. Sharon Schroder, DP&L’s director of regulatory affairs, said the utility will “work with the Ohio EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) in charging station host applicants within its service territory to facilitate the installation of the fast chargers.” For more, read the full article.

The parent company of a local insurance startup tops Columbus Business First’s list of state tax incentive recipients, ranked by the number of proposed new jobs each deal could help create, according to a recent article in that publication. IBOD Co. Inc., parent company of Root Insurance, received a “10-year, 2.38 percent job creation tax credit, potentially valued at more than $8 million,” in return for 463 new jobs. The other companies in the top five are Macy’s with 410 new jobs, Le Tote Inc. with 400, Aetna Resources LLC with 350, and FacilitySource, 272. The “total estimated proposed value of the 25 largest incentives approved from July 2017 to June 2018 is $65.05 million, which includes two data center sales tax exemptions as well as job creation tax credits,” Columbus Business First reports. For more, read the full article (subscription required).

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) recently opened a docket to review Ohio Adm. Code Chapter 4901:1-22, which contains the rules for interconnecting distributed generation to the electric distribution system. The PUCO’s review of the interconnection rules comes shortly after the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) released updates and revisions to the IEEE 1547 standard regarding the requirements for interconnecting distributed energy resources (DERs) with the electric distribution system. It also comes shortly after the PUCO’s release of “PowerForward: A Roadmap to Ohio’s Electricity Future,” which sets forth certain policy positions and outlines principles and objectives for Ohio’s grid modernization efforts. 

On September 11, 2018, the PUCO held a stakeholder workshop to solicit feedback on potential revisions to the rules. For more, read the full publication.

Investment by Japanese companies has created 77,000 jobs in Ohio, and those numbers are expected to grow, as Japan “is looking to do even more business with Ohio and the U.S.,” The Columbus Dispatch reports. There are “484 Japanese facilities in Ohio,” many of which are tied to the auto industry; Honda of America alone employs 14,500 people in the state. Japan’s minister of economy, trade and industry, Hiroshige Seko, “said Japanese companies are looking to make further investments in the state,” according to the article. Seko was recently in Columbus to speak at an event sponsored by the Japan External Trade Organization, the Japan-American Society of Central Ohio, JobsOhio and Columbus 2020. Kenny McDonald, CEO of Columbus 2020, said his group is focused on “maintaining, accelerating and evolving our relationship with the Japanese business community and our many Japanese partners for the coming decades.” For more, read the full article.

Leading solar provider Third Sun Solar, based in Athens, Ohio, was ranked first in Ohio solar providers by Solar Power World’s 2018 Top 500 Solar Contractor’s List, The Athens News reports. Nationwide, Third Sun Solar was ranked 28th “among firms offering engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services to commercial clients,” according to the article. Solar Power World developed the annual list “to recognize the work completed by solar contractors across the United States.” Rankings for the list were determined “by the number of kilowatts (DC) a company was involved with installing in 2017 in the United States only.” For more, read the full article.

The City of Monroe has gained millions in investment dollars and almost 1,500 jobs over the past five years, which were generated by several large companies that received tax credits from the state. The Ohio Tax Credit Authority has approved state tax credits for companies including Amazon.com, Bed Bath & Beyond and others over that time, and those projects have brought investment “of nearly $107 million” and have created 1,492 new jobs in Monroe, the Journal-News reports. The latest project, an 827,080-square-foot Bed Bath & Beyond distribution center, will “create approximately 900 full-time jobs generating $26.6 million in new annual payroll,” according to the article. The Ohio Tax Credit Authority approved a 1.467 percent, 10-year Job Creation Tax Credit for that project. For more, read the full article.