• The trial of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder is set to begin next week in Cincinnati. The Enquirer has published this look at U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Black, who will oversee the trial, which could last six weeks.
• Reports note that the public will soon learn how and why FirstEnergy paid $60 million to Generation Now, the non-profit that has been linked to Ohio’s House Bill 6 scandal.
• The Supreme Court of Ohio has agreed to take up an HB 6-related dispute over the freezing of $8 million in assets belonging to a former PUCO Chair Sam Randazzo.
• An ethics reform plan floated by a group of Ohio House Republicans would require PUCO nominees to disclose their income, previous business relationships, and ties to regulated entities.
• The U.S. Department of Energy is offering $52 million in funding for clean manufacturing R&D focused on three areas, including energy technology manufacturing.
• This infographic published by Visual Capitalist shows the largest source of electric generation in every state and Canadian province.
• Oil demand is looking http://vmore robust in 2023 than originally expected, due to higher demand from China as its economy reopens, reports say.
• Even with this week’s uptick, U.S. natural gas prices remain much lower than they were last year.
• PJM Interconnection says an “unacceptable” number of generation outages resulted in the loss of electricity just before Christmas as well as requests for conservation in several states, including Ohio.

Meanwhile, with more large companies like GM, Ford, and Google expressing interest in “virtual power plants,” Reuters has posted a short video explaining this technology that aims to help avoid electric power outages. 1/19/2023