/ Energy News

Solar output in Europe’s largest power market will average about 16.5 gigawatts from April to September, up roughly 31% from a year earlier, according to BloombergNEFdata.

That will reduce gas demand for power generation by about 29% over the same period — the equivalent of about nine LNG cargoes, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Oracle Corp. agreed to purchase as much as 2.8 gigawatts of fuel-cell power from Bloom Energy Corp. to supply data centers for artificial intelligence work.

An initial 1.2 gigawatts of capacity has already been contracted and will be used this year and in 2027 at Oracle projects in the US, the companies said Monday in a statement.

Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) has approved 12 solar projects with a combined capacity of 915.1 MW through the province’s Long-Term 2 (LT2) Energy Window 1 procurement exercise.

It has also agreed on two new wind projects totaling 400 MW, marking the first major competitive procurement of new wind and solar resources in over a decade within the Canadian province.

Terra-Gen agreed to pay $5.6 million to settle allegations that it manipulated the California Independent System Operator’s market, according to a settlement agreement the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved on Tuesday.

The agency’s enforcement office alleged Terra-Gen told CAISO a battery system wasn’t working on certain days so it wouldn’t have to buy high-priced power on those days.

PJM Interconnection LLC is seeking 15 gigawatts of new power supplies in an emergency proposal to address potential electricity shortages stemming from the boom in artificial intelligence.

The operator of the 13-state eastern US grid would match proposed data centers with new power plants, PJM said on its website Friday.

The escalating cost of wildfires now adds $41 to the average monthly power bill for residential customers of California’s largest utility, according to a government report that calls for a systemic overhaul of how the state responds to conflagrations as climate change-driven disasters threaten its economy.

That surcharge accounts for 19% of the average Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. bill, and along with spiking homeowners' insurance premiums, is another way Californians are paying the price for more destructive and frequent wildfires.

Entergy, Xcel Energy and seven other utility and transmission companies want the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to halt the practice of putting regional transmission projects out to bid in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator and Southwest Power Pool regions.

Requiring competitive bidding for certain transmission projects — instead of giving them to incumbent utilities — slows transmission development by 16 to 20 months on average, the utilities said in an April 7 complaint filed at FERC.

A pending Virginia law will require the state’s two major vertically integrated utilities to provide detailed distribution grid utilization data to state regulators this year and propose initiatives to use more existing capacity.

The data must include the ratio of peak system load to capacity, the ratio of delivered load to total potential deliverable load, distribution losses by percentage, an analysis of constrained distribution circuits and an evaluation of the system performance during peak periods.

New statistics from the province’s private power utility show that commercial players grew their capacity to generate solar energy by 82 per cent last year.

Energy consultant David Brushett says that’s partly because legislative changes a few years ago have allowed companies to sell 10 times more energy to Nova Scotia Power than before.

Pricing for U.S. utility-scale and distribution-scale energy storage systems diverged in the first quarter of 2026, Anza Renewables said in its latest quarterly market report.

The divergence appears driven by suppliers focused on supporting larger projects for data center and independent power producer clients while treating the distribution-scale segment — at least for now — as an “afterthought,” Anza said.

The utility said its proposal, if approved by the Maryland Public Service Commission, would connect customer-owned devices — like home battery storage, electric vehicles and other smart devices — to create what's known as virtual power plants to help balance the grid during high-demand periods.

Under the proposal, BGE said customers would be able to join a program to earn incentives for allowing the utility to temporarily adjust how the devices use electricity during times of high energy use. BGE said the strategy would help keep the grid running smoothly and lower energy costs.

The Nevada Public Utilities Commission on Friday approved a plan by NV Energy’s utilities — Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific Power — to join the Extended Day-Ahead Market, or EDAM, being set up by the California Independent System Operator.

NV Energy’s plan to join EDAM in the fall of 2028 will allow the Las Vegas-based utility company to benefit from a broad, well-connected and diverse footprint while helping distributed energy resources participate in the wholesale market, the PUC said.

The White House said on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s revised national security tariffs on steel, aluminum and copper will apply a 15 per cent tariff on certain metal-intensive industrial and electrical grid equipment through 2027, down from 50 per cent previously.

Federal regulators approved an operating license extension for California's last-standing nuclear ​power plant, allowing it to run for another 20 years ‌if it also gets state legislative approval, the governor of the most populous U.S. state said on Thursday.

PG&E's Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant on California's central ​coast was scheduled to shut in 2025, but the ​plant that contributes about 10% of the state's total electricity ⁠has remained online in the face of rising demand and ​swelling power bills.

Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy Office opened applications to increase advanced nuclear construction, strengthen nuclear manufacturing capacity and lead America's nuclear renaissance in the state of Texas.

Under TANDF, those advanced nuclear projects that build advanced reactors, strengthen the nuclear manufacturing capacity, and rebuild a domestic fuel cycle supply chain in Texas are eligible to apply for the Project Development and Supply Chain Reimbursement Program and the Advanced Nuclear Construction Reimbursement Program.