Markets

  • FERC Orders Mandatory NERC Reliability Standards for Data Center and Other Computational Loads

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has directed the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) to file one or more new or modified mandatory reliability standards governing the integration of computational loads—a category defined broadly enough to cover generative-AI data centers, cryptocurrency mines, and other information-technology facilities—by Dec. 31, 2026. FERC’s order, issued on July […]

  • The New Power Build Cycle for AI Data Centers

    AI-driven load growth is putting significant strain on the grid, intensifying pressure on utilities and developers to secure firm capacity and meet increasingly compressed delivery timelines. While tools such as transmission optimization can deliver incremental gains, they do not address the core issue: the pace of AI data center expansion is forcing a shift from […]

  • First Year in Operation: Performance Lessons From a 100-MW/400-MWh CAISO Battery

    Battery energy storage promises fast response, grid flexibility, and predictable output, yet most discussions rely on modeled projections rather than actual operating data. This article presents first year performance results from Caballero, a 100-MW/400-MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) active in the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) grid since early 2025. It also examines a […]

  • Centrus Signs $900M DOE Contract, Pivots Sole U.S. HALEU Cascade to Commercial Operation

    Centrus Energy has finalized a $900 million task order with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that clears the way for the company to transition its pioneering high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) cascade in Piketon, Ohio, from a government-funded demonstration to private commercial operation. The Bethesda, Maryland-headquartered firm on July 1 announced that its wholly owned subsidiary American […]

  • Why a Calmer Summer Outlook Hasn’t Settled the Capacity Question

    A milder reliability assessment, 58 GW of new resources, and softening load forecasts have eased the near-term mood. Analysts and executives warn the breathing room is borrowed time. For the first time in

  • A Republican and a Democrat Walk Into EEI—and Agree on Data Centers

    Brian Kemp is a Republican. Katie Hobbs is a Democrat. The governor of Georgia campaigns on tax cuts and a growth agenda; the governor of Arizona calls herself a social worker who came to the job from a

  • Geothermal Has Its Own Ghawar Fields—Nobody Is Looking for Them Yet

    The global hunt for clean, always-on power is intensifying. Data centers powering artificial intelligence (AI) are signing long-term energy contracts at extraordinary speed. Against this backdrop, geothermal energy—carbon-free and available around the clock—is attracting serious capital for the first time in a generation.

  • FERC Orders All Six Regional Grid Operators to Justify or Rewrite Large-Load Tariffs

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has voted unanimously to issue tailored show-cause orders under Section 206 of the Federal Power Act to each of the six regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) under its jurisdiction, directing them to either defend or reform tariff rules governing how data centers, manufacturing facilities, and […]

  • MiCo Acquires Global HRSG Leader NEM Energy

    MiCo Co. Ltd. announced that its subsidiary, Hyundai Heavy Industries Power Systems Co. Ltd. (HPS), has signed a share purchase agreement (SPA) to acquire a 100% stake in Netherlands-based NEM Energy B.V. from Mutares SE & Co. KGaA, a German-listed investment firm. The transaction, which includes NEM Energy’s German subsidiary NEM Balcke-Dürr GmbH, is scheduled […]

  • From Tail Risk to Design Baseline: How the Grid Is Adapting to Extreme Heat

    System planners and grid operators are treating extreme heat as an assumed operating condition given new pressures, including drought, demand growth, and fuel concerns. Will it be enough? For decades, the U.S. power system treated extreme heat as a tail risk, managed through seasonal readiness—something for which to prepare. But hotter conditions are now arriving […]

  • How Solar PV Yield Risk Shapes Project Design, Investment, and Bankability

    Expected annual energy yield (PVout) is a fundamental number for every utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) project. It informs the design, shapes the budget, feeds the financial model, and influences what investors and lenders are willing to accept. Behind every expected yield estimate, however, is a range of uncertainty. Part of it comes from the solar resource […]

  • NextEra Will Buy Dominion Energy in Largest-Ever Electric Utility Deal

    Florida-headquartered NextEra Energy, one of the largest U.S. power utilities, is set to buy Virginia-based Dominion Energy in an all-stock deal valued at about $67 billion.

  • Duke Energy’s Nuclear Playbook: Three Horizons, One Strategy

    Duke Energy’s 11-unit nuclear fleet finished 2025 with a capacity factor greater than 97%—its best result on record. For Steven Capps, Duke’s senior vice president and Chief Nuclear Officer, that number is the foundation everything else has to sit on. “2025 was the best year we have had in terms of overall capacity factor for […]

  • State of the Nuclear Industry 2026: Korsnick Says the Real Test Is Now Scale

    Within a single week last month, Kairos Power broke ground on its Hermes 2 reactor in Tennessee, and days later TerraPower and Bechtel began construction on the Natrium reactor in Wyoming. Maria Korsnick, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), told industry leaders in Washington, D.C., at the Nuclear Energy Policy Forum on […]

  • Fast Power for a Constrained Grid: Wet Compression Applications in Gas Turbines

    There has never been a time when so much power was needed so fast. Driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, more data center capacity is in development or under construction now than has been built in all of history. According to analyst firm Industrial Info Resources (IIR), each month of 2025 saw at least […]

  • The Many Shapes of Nuclear Power’s Revival

    After decades of stagnation, nuclear power is firmly back in the energy discussion. Surging electricity demand, hyperscale data centers hunting for firm round-the-clock power, and growing pressure to decarbonize industrial heat have converged to revive interest in both new reactor construction and lifetime extensions of the existing fleet. The resurgence is broader than a single […]

  • Fusion Energy: The $50/MWh Target

    Fusion’s first challenge is scientific: can we make it work at scale? Its second, far tougher test is economic: can we make it cheap enough to matter? Global private investment has passed $10 billion, governments are launching new programs, and regulators are beginning to streamline pathways for advanced fusion machines.​ But one question will determine whether […]

  • China Restarting Massive Coal-to-Gas Project After Decade-Long Pause

    Chinese officials have said they will revive a multibillion-dollar coal gasification project, in part due to global gas supply disruptions caused by the U.S. and Isreal’s war with Iran.

  • Renewables Reenvisioned: How Linea Energy Built a 7-GW Renewable Pipeline in Under Two Years

    Cassidy DeLine has spent more than 16 years developing renewable power plants. Now, as the founder and CEO of Linea Energy, she’s building an independent power producer that she believes can do the work better, not by tearing up the playbook, but by running every play better. As a guest on The Power Podcast, DeLine […]

  • DOE’s Section 202(c) Emergency Orders Since May 2025: 43 and Counting

    Since May 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued more than 40 emergency orders and extensions under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act—more than in any comparable period in the past two decades. The orders have fallen into two broad categories: retirement deferrals, which compel utilities and grid operators to keep specific generating […]

  • Full Throttle: Five Trends Reshaping the Gas Power Boom

    A once-predictable industry is moving at hyperscale speed. Here are five trends defining the biggest gas power buildout in a generation. Natural gas power is in the middle of its biggest buildout in a

  • Investing in Energy’s ‘Anti-Fragile’ Future

    With federal tax credits under threat and regulatory stability in short supply, Bala Nagarajan, managing director of the energy investments team at S2G Investments, explained what he looks for in a company. “Is the product or the solution sold by this business cheaper, faster, better than the incumbent solution?” he asked. If so, it’s worth […]

  • The Frog Is Dead: North America’s Power Grid Faces Its Biggest Reckoning in a Generation

    For much of the 21st century, the North American power sector drifted along on near-zero demand growth. Utilities retired aging coal plants, developers filled interconnection queues with wind and solar, and investors looked elsewhere for excitement. Then came the data center boom—and seemingly overnight, the industry found itself in a full-blown supply crisis. In a […]

  • Resource Plans Drive Clean Energy Value Creation for Investors

    Electric utilities have a significant opportunity to create long‑term value by building new clean energy infrastructure—an approach Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway utilities have followed quietly but effectively for decades. Xcel Energy calls its version of this strategy “Steel for Fuel.”

  • Solar Adds 43 GW in 2025; Fifth Straight Year as Top New Generation Source

    A new report from a leading solar industry group and a top energy data analytics firm said about 43 GW of new solar power generation capacity was added across the U.S. last year.

  • FERC: Small QFs Lose FPA Exemptions When Certifications Become Inaccurate

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the Commission) on February 19 of this year issued an Order on Rehearing and Clarification ruling that qualifying facilities (QFs) that are 20 MW or smaller cannot rely on their exemption from Federal Power Act (FPA) Sections 205 and 206 during periods when their Form No. 556 certifications are outdated due to any material changes from the original certification, such as changes in upstream ownership.

  • EQT, GIP Move to Take AES Private in $33B Bet on Data Center Power Demand

    A private equity–led consortium has agreed to take AES Corp. private in a $33.4 billion deal that—if completed—will shift one of the largest U.S.-listed power companies and a major data‑center renewables supplier into private ownership. AES’s board says the move, which comes as load growth and capital needs are rising across the sector, is designed […]

  • THE BIG PICTURE (Infographic): Blackouts in 2025

    Major power outage events in 2025 reveal a broad spectrum of reliability risks, spanning voltage instability and protection failures to extreme weather and heat-related transmission stress. Compared with recent years, which were largely characterized by weather-driven disruptions and resource-adequacy events, 2025 incidents more clearly highlight vulnerabilities in interconnected system operations, including voltage management, reactive power […]

  • How America’s Power Regions Chose Their Futures and How That Has Played Out

    On April 24, 1996, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued Order 888, requiring all public utilities owning or operating interstate transmission facilities to file open-access

  • Romania’s Coal-to-NuScale SMR Conversion Secures FID, Moves Into Implementation with Caveats

    Romania’s state nuclear utility Nuclearelectrica has approved a final investment decision (FID) for a 462‑MWe six-module NuScale module small modular reactor (SMR) project at the former Doicești coal plant. The decision by Nuclearelectrica’s shareholders on Feb. 12 to approve the FID effectively opens a pathway for the Doicești project—Europe’s most advanced SMR deployment—from an “analysis […]