/ Energy News

TotalEnergies is partnering with several Japanese firms to develop the Live Oak project in Nebraska—a facility to produce electric natural gas (e-NG), synthetic gas produced from renewable hydrogen and CO2, the French supermajor said on Tuesday.

TotalEnergies has signed a Joint Development and Operating Agreement that grants Japanese energy firms Osaka Gas, Toho Gas, and ITOCHU a combined 33% stake in the project, which the French major is developing with TES, a Europe-based green energy company.

As ratepayers grow more exasperated with each hike of their utility bills, Maryland lawmakers are making plans to ease the pinch on their wallets during the 2026 legislative session through data center, utility company and grid regulation.

“People are frustrated — and frustrated at utilities, specifically — for driving up the cost of energy, both for the delivery of energy and for their role in delivering up the cost of transmission of energy and energy, itself,” said Emily Scarr, a senior advisor at Maryland PIRG.

MISO announced today the second cycle of projects to be evaluated under its Expedited Resource Addition Study (ERAS) process, reinforcing its commitment to accelerating the addition of critical generation resources across the region.

The second cycle includes 15 projects totalingapproximately 6,100 MW of proposed new capacity. These projects span a range of fuel sources — including solar, wind, natural gas, and battery storage and are located across MISO’s North, Central and South regions. The in-service dates range from December 1, 2027 to August 6, 2028.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney signed an agreement with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on Thursday aimed at spurring investment in the energy sector and encouraging the construction of a new oil pipeline to the West Coast. The agreement states the federal government will not implement an emissions cap on the oil and gas sector and gets rid of regulations for clean electricity in exchange for a commitment from Canada’s top oil-producing province to strengthen industrial carbon pricing and support a carbon capture and storage project.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday night asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to strike down stricter limits on fine particulate matter from vehicle exhaust pipes, power plants and factories that the Biden administration imposed last year.

National Ambient Air Quality Standards PM2.5, which set limits on fine particulates measuring less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, are “a cornerstone of the Clean Air Act,” according to an Environmental Defense Fund press release.

A Northern Indiana Public Service Co. affiliate — called NIPSCO Generation, or GenCo — plans to build up to 3 GW of gas-fired generation and battery storage to serve planned Amazon data centers, the companies said Monday. Combined with electric transmission to be built by NIPSCO, the companies expect to spend about $7 billion.

Under the arrangement, GenCoplans to build two 1.3-GW gas-fired power plants and a 400-MW, 4‐hour battery storage system to serve the data centers, according to filings at the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. In comparison, NIPSCO expects its non-data center load in 2028 will be about 2.3 GW.

Alabama Power intends to keep electricity rates steady for its customers for the next two years, according to a filing with the Alabama Public Service Commission.

In a notification last week by Alabama Power CFO Moses Feagin, the company said the decision came after conversations with the commission and the Alabama Attorney General’s Office.

To forego rate increases, the utility will rely on “internal cost containment measures,” Feagin said in a two-page letter.

Georgia Power’s pipeline of large load economic development projects shrank a net 6 GW from the second quarter to the third quarter to 50.9 GW due to projects that exited, the utility said in a Friday filing with the Georgia Public Service Commission.

Around 6.8 GW of new large load projects entered the pipeline, and projects in the pipeline increased their projected load by a total of 1.6 GW, while 14.3 GW of projects exited, Georgia Power said.

Georgia Power’s pipeline of near-term large load projects slated for winter of 2028 and 2029 decreased this quarter by 1.4 GW, to a total of 24.4 GW, the report said.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on Wednesday ordered three FirstEnergy utilities to pay $250.7 million for the H.B. 6 corruption scandal and other rule violations.

The utilities must refund $180 million to their customers over three billing cycles — triple the $60 million FirstEnergy used in a bribery scheme involving the passage of legislation in Ohio that in part aimed to prop up financially struggling nuclear power plants, according to the decision.

The Department of Energy unveiled a reorganization Thursday that rebrands key offices and relocates a 1970s renewable and efficiency office, the latest move by the Trump administration to boost fossil fuels, minerals and nuclear power.

The plan posted on DOE’s website no longer shows the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, the Office of State and Community Energy Programs, the Office of Federal Energy Management Program and the grid deployment office. It was not immediately clear whether the work of those offices is changing or is being rebranded.

The pitch for data centerflexibility is a relatively simple one: If artificial intelligence load can flex, AI growth can accelerate without overwhelming the grid. In the last year, startups and hyperscalersalike have begun pitching their vision of massive AI loads that ramp up and down, act like giant batteries, or disconnect from the grid entirely.

So when PJM’s independent market monitor poured cold water on the excitement — publishing a report last week that frames large-load flexibility as an expensive and unproven reliability gamble — the reaction was harsh and swift.

In separate lawsuits, public interest groups on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to overturn the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval of fast-track interconnection review programs proposed by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator and the Southwest Power Pool.

In part, the groups contend the fast-track interconnection processes give the reviewed projects an unfair advantage compared to projects in the grid operators’ standard interconnection queues. Also, the processes will improperly add to residential ratepayer costs, they say.

Geothermal energy from one of America’s most dangerous and active volcanoes will soon be harnessed to power homes.

According to The Washington Post, engineers are building the hottest geothermal power plant on Earth near Oregon’s Newberry Volcano and start selling electricity to nearby homes and businesses in 2026.

Enthusiasts say the development could usher in a new era of geothermal power, turning the energy source from a minor player to a major force in the world’s electricity systems.

The companies that provide the power to data centers are pushing regulators to approve massive spending increases for power plants and grid infrastructure. The electricity forecasts they're using to make their case have an inflation problem — and consumers could end up paying for power plants they may never need. 

Many utilities are citing sky-high estimates to justify new AI data centers from Georgia to Texas and up to Minnesota. The catch? Data centeroperators submit electricity requests in multiple jurisdictions, hoping that one might pan out. Constellation Energy CEO Joseph Dominguez compared it to fishing: "You put a bunch of lines in the water to try to catch fish," he said. "And the data center developers are doing exactly the same thing."

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday approved NRG Energy’s plan to buy 12.9 GW in gas-fired power plants, and a demand response company from LS Power in a roughly $12 billion deal, saying it wouldn’t hurt market competition.

FERC rejected calls by the PJM Interconnection’s market monitor to impose conditions on NRG designed to prevent it from exerting market power in PJM’s energy and capacity markets. Monitoring Analytics failed to show that NRG would be able to influence market prices after the deal is completed, FERC said.