Markets

  • 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 […]

  • Energea Launches Latin America Solar Portfolio with $100-Million Investment

    Global renewable energy developer and operator Energea said it has launched its LATAM Energy Portfolio, the company’s fourth and latest active investment strategy. The group on February 25 said it will invest in distributed solar power projects across South America, Central America, and the Caribbean.

  • Geothermal Groundbreakers: The Projects Redefining Renewable Power

    Sponsored by:
    Halliburton

    A handful of geothermal projects are crossing from experimentation into execution, testing whether drilling gains, reservoir control, and new market demand can turn subsurface risk into firm, contractable power. Since 2021, geothermal power’s proposition has been quietly shifting, driven primarily by encouraging policy, but also a new class of decisive buyers. In response to reliability […]

  • 160 Days to Fission: Nuclear Power’s Sprint to Execution

    Sponsored by:
    TerraPower

    For the first time in decades, a wave of nuclear projects across the U.S. is advancing in parallel—from test reactors to early construction. POWER examines how first movers are navigating execution risk, supply chain constraints, and the race to achieve criticality by 2026. For the first time since the 1970s, multiple nuclear projects are under […]

  • Xcel Energy Inks Dual Alliances with GE Vernova, NextEra to Support 6-GW Data Center Outlook, Generation Expansion

    Xcel Energy has moved to lock in supply and development capacity for what could become 6 GW of data center load through separate strategic agreements with GE Vernova and NextEra Energy, announced this week, that reserve five F-class gas turbines, multiple gigawatts of wind capacity, and joint development resources to support generation buildout into the […]

  • Natura, NGL Move to Pair Nuclear Molten Salt Reactors with Large-Scale Produced-Water Treatment in Permian

    Abilene-based Natura Resources, which won the first federal construction permit for a liquid-fueled molten-salt reactor in 2024, will work with NGL Water Solutions Permian to explore deploying its 100-MWe reactor design alongside thermal desalination systems to transform briny drilling waste into usable water—while powering data centers and other industrial loads hungry for around-the-clock electricity. The […]

  • Evolving Technologies, Outdated Regulations Impact Mid-Atlantic Generation Permitting

    Energy-generation permitting in the Mid-Atlantic continues to evolve in 2026 not through wholesale deregulation or uniform acceleration, but through procedural and permitting reform and the potential allocation of generation development authority to public utilities. States are enacting these changes to meet the reality of reliability concerns, transmission constraints, large load-growth, and to address frequent obstruction of energy projects by local government.

  • PJM Dials Back Near-Term Load Outlook but Maintains Steep Long-Term Growth Trajectory

    PJM Interconnection has trimmed its near-term peak-demand projections in its updated 20-year load forecast, citing tighter vetting of large-load adjustment requests and revised electric-vehicle (EV) and economic assumptions. The grid operator, however, reaffirmed expectations for significant long-term growth driven by data centers and broader electrification. In its 2026 Long-Term Load Forecast, issued on Jan. 14, PJM […]

  • Meta Locks In Up to 6.6 GW of Nuclear Power Through Deals with Vistra, Oklo, and TerraPower

    In-Depth: Meta’s suite of three landmark agreements is poised to provide the financial certainty to extend aging plants, accelerate first-of-a-kind advanced reactor deployments, and relieve PJM’s tightening capacity constraints while establishing the hyperscaler as an anchor customer for a 6.6-GW corporate-backed nuclear fleet. In a stunning move that reinforces Big Tech’s growing role in underwriting […]

  • Transformers in 2026: Shortage, Scramble, or Self-Inflicted Crisis?

    Analysts still see multi-year deficits in U.S. transformer supply, even as equipment manufacturers invest billions in new factories and advanced manufacturing processes. But some brokers suggest there is no

  • Despite Federal Support, Economic Forces Are Driving the Future of Coal

    The Trump administration during both its terms has prioritized its efforts on reviving the coal industry by introducing a series of policy changes and executive actions intended to boost coal leasing and production on federal lands. Yet, despite these political moves, coal’s trajectory in the U.S. energy market has followed a different path.