Panel urged to hold
solar-rate rehearing
Two electric utilities and a leading solar power development company are asking state regulators to hold another hearing regarding rate structures for solar customers.
On June 1, the Arkansas Public Service Commission ruled to uphold current rate structures for solar providers. The order also allowed existing agreements between net-metering customers and utilities to remain in place for 20 years. The ruling also allowed utilities to request installing grid charges for larger projects.
Entergy Arkansas, the state's largest electric utility, wants another hearing and contends the commission ruling does not align with the intent of legislators when they approved net-metering regulations last year. Entergy said a rehearing would help "ensure that many of our customers are not paying for some other customers to invest in private solar facilities."
Requests for rehearing also have been filed by the Arkansas attorney general, the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp., Scenic Hill Solar and the Arkansas Electric Energy Consumers Corp.
The commission has multiple options, ranging from ordering a new hearing to denying the requests.
-- Andrew Moreau
Disney+ downloads
soar with 'Hamilton'
Downloads of Walt Disney Co.'s new Disney+ streaming app surged over the weekend, fueled by the service's Friday premiere of a filmed version of the musical "Hamilton."
The $7-a-month Disney+ generated 513,323 new mobile downloads worldwide from Friday to Sunday, including 266,084 in the U.S., according to the market research firm Apptopia. The global numbers are 47% higher than the average weekend in June, while the domestic results were 72% greater.
Sensor Tower, another tracking service, put its estimate for Disney+ mobile downloads over the weekend at 1 million, a 79% increase from the previous weekend.
Disney paid a reported $75 million for the film, which was shot with the original cast in 2016. The musical, based on the life of the nation's first secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, has been a huge hit on Broadway. The company originally planned to release it in theaters next year, but put the film on its streaming service right before the July Fourth holiday in the U.S., a time when many people were stuck at home due to the coronavirus pandemic.
-- Bloomberg News
State index starts
week with 4.54 rise
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Monday at 384.03, up 4.54.
Shares of America's Car-Mart rose 2.9%. J.B. Hunt Transport shares rose 2.2%.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.