POWERnews

The conversation around data center development has changed dramatically over the past few years. Earlier, when developers needed to evaluate a new facility, the questions were relatively straightforward. Is the market attractive? Can we secure the land? Can we obtain reliable power? Can we raise the necessary capital? All those questions still matter. But a […]

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s (WVDEP) Division of Air Quality (DAQ) has determined that Purcellville, Virginia-based Fundamental Data satisfied the site-control requirements associated with its August 2025 air quality permit for the Ridgeline Facility—a gas turbine power plant that Fundamental Data is planning as the first phase of a project intended to include […]

Mesa Power Solutions has opened a new $70 million manufacturing and administrative campus in Evansville, Wyoming, consolidating 300 employees and expanding the company’s capacity to produce natural gas power generation equipment for utilities, data centers, and other commercial and industrial customers. The 220,000-square-foot facility at One Mesa Way (Figure 1) will serve as a hub […]

Blue Energy and GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GVH) have signed an agreement to launch the next phase of their collaboration on a planned 2.5-GW gas-plus-nuclear power project in Victoria, Texas, moving the closely watched data-center power concept from an announced collaboration to engineering, licensing, and safety analysis. The Aug. 13-announced agreement will advance project definition for […]

A California-based fusion energy company announced it has reached an industry milestone. Fuse Energy Technologies Corp. on August 10 published a report noting the company set a record for the highest fusion neutron yield—1.27×10¹² in a single shot—by any commercial fusion company.

When federal emergency powers become routine operating procedure, the system is not holding up. It is operating at its ceiling. And the customers who kept their lights on paid triple for the privilege, which means the event that operations survived is one that affordability did not.

A growing group of data center operators—including Dallas-based Skybox Datacenters, Austin-headquartered bitcoin miner and hyperscale developer Mara, and global colocation giant Digital Realty—have publicly committed to comply with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s data center standards and the state’s active audit of projects in the Texas grid operator’s interconnection queue. They join QTS Data Centers, Blackstone’s […]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Aug. 3 order pausing all new data center connections to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid until a comprehensive audit is complete could delay 49.8 GW of new data center electricity demand from advancing on the ERCOT system—nearly 20% of the U.S. development pipeline—BloombergNEF (BNEF) said in an Aug. 5 […]

Ruggedly engineered and manufactured switchgear provides safe, redundant power while also delivering the resilience and continuous operation expected in large-scale data center environments. As demand for cloud services, large-scale data processing, and artificial intelligence continues to grow, hyperscale data centers have expanded dramatically in size. It is now typical for a single campus to encompass […]

Three companies at the forefront of nuclear energy technology have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to evaluate fuel technologies to support advancement of next-generation nuclear power.

A New York-headquartered group that pursues investments in North American power and energy infrastructure said it has a deal to acquire a natural gas-fired power plant near Houston, Texas.

California-based Deep Fission said the DOE signed off on the Nuclear Safety Design Agreement (NSDA) for its Gravity Nuclear Reactor. The group called it a major regulatory milestone that confirms Deep Fission’s reactor design warrants advancement under the DOE Reactor Pilot Program.

Oklo’s Groves Isotope Test Reactor in Lockhart, Texas, has become the fifth reactor to achieve criticality under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program (RPP), and the first under the program to do so on private land. The low-power test reactor reached criticality at 9:19 p.m. ET Aug. 5, achieving a controlled, self-sustaining nuclear […]

NRG Energy on Aug. 4 unveiled its first Bring Your Own Power (BYOP) project, a 1.2-GW combined-cycle plant in Texas supported by a 15-year contract with an investment-grade “leading global cloud and artificial-intelligence hyperscaler.” The $3.2 billion facility, backed by a customer parent guarantee, is targeted for commercial operation in late 2029 and could be […]

Growth in artificial intelligence (AI) is outpacing the world’s ability to generate enough power to sustain it. As AI adoption accelerates worldwide, it’s colliding with a power system that wasn’t built for its level of demand. Vittorio Pierangeli, senior vice president PowerGen at Rolls-Royce Power Systems (Figure 1), explains why electricity, not chips or algorithms, […]

Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) marked the start of construction on Princeton Road Station with a groundbreaking ceremony the morning of July 17, drawing state and local officials, community stakeholders, and NPPD staff to the site just north of Hallam, Nebraska. The 694-MW dual-fuel facility will be the largest natural gas generation plant in NPPD’s […]

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to conduct a comprehensive audit of every data center advancing through the state’s interconnection queue, warning that projects that fail to disclose ownership, financial, water, and community-impact information could be denied grid access. The […]

The global energy landscape is experiencing increased uncertainty. Recent geopolitical tensions have created volatility in oil and gas markets, highlighted vulnerabilities in global supply chains, and renewed attention on energy security. While these events often dominate headlines, the effects extend far beyond energy producers and governments. For businesses that depend upon reliable power to keep […]

The transition to sustainable energy infrastructure has been experiencing steady progress in recent years across the globe, while simultaneously undergoing constant fluctuation. Actual progress is influenced by a wide variety of factors, such as the drivers behind participants’ motivations and the technologies enabling the transition, as well as the status of supply chains and geopolitical […]

For most of the last two decades, the anxiety in power planning was about demand: would consumption grow fast enough to justify new capacity, and how would an aging fleet keep pace? That question has inverted. Demand is no longer the uncertain variable—it is the one thing forecasters are confident about. The uncertainty now sits […]

For power generation operators navigating the complex landscape of North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) compliance, two critical questions frequently arise: when does a generation control facility become a Low Impact BES (Bulk Electric System) Control Center, and when does it escalate to Medium Impact status? Understanding these thresholds is essential for proper planning and […]

Critical infrastructure operators should view recent incidents where artificial intelligence (AI) agents escaped containment from test environments and executed successful cyberattacks on a relatively sophisticated production infrastructure as near-misses. This challenge is urgent precisely because AI moves fast and infrastructure moves slow. All indications suggest these were not malicious uses of AI for targeted attacks. […]

As utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) scale from megawatts to gigawatts, the engineering complexity grows exponentially. Higher-voltage architectures and denser rack configurations are pushing the limits of conventional component design and exposing gaps that can compromise system performance and site safety. For the electrical engineers and systems integrators building these projects, the cells, fire […]

Government officials in China have given the green light for construction of eight new nuclear reactors, as the country looks to add more electricity to meet growing demand for power.

Advanced nuclear firm Aalo Atomics has formed a strategic partnership with energy-first AI infrastructure company Crusoe to develop a nuclear-powered “AI Factory” data center in a project that will combine Aalo’s advanced reactor development program at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) with Crusoe’s modular AI data center platform. The companies said on July 30 that under […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved the License Termination Plan (LTP) for the Oyster Creek Generating Station in New Jersey, a regulatory milestone that clears the final phase of decommissioning and sets the stage for Holtec International to pursue construction of four SMR-300 small modular reactor units at the Lacey Township, New Jersey, […]

A varied group of investors has provided Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) with another $1 billion in equity financing, with the company on July 30 saying the funding supports the group’s continuing work toward operating a commercial fusion energy power plant.

What is the best mix of power generation to build and use in the years ahead? For U.S. integrated electric utilities balancing reliability, affordability, and state and federal policy, resource plans are the answer. But like with any model, these plans are only as robust as the information that is fed into them. Investors are […]

A coalition led by Brookfield and NextEra Energy has unveiled plans to build a $100 billion, privately funded artificial intelligence (AI) data center campus at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Paducah Site in Western Kentucky, paired with up to 4.6 GW of dedicated new power generation that will be built and paid for solely to serve […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) has selected Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Idaho as initial contenders to host Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses—voluntary federal–state partnerships designed to co-locate fuel fabrication, enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing, and waste disposition within integrated, full‑cycle nuclear ecosystems. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright signed non-binding memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with the […]