/ Energy News

The owners of a Colorado power unit say the Department of Energy violated their Constitutional rights when it ordered them to continue running a coal-fired generator they had been planning for years to retire at the end of 2025.

By mandating the generator’s availability to operate, the order “constitutes both a physical taking and a regulatory taking” of property by the government without just compensation or due process, in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and federal law, the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the Platte River Power Authority said in a Jan. 29 request for clarification and rehearing.

During this week’s frigid temperatures, the PJM Interconnection could tap backup generators at data centers and other large loads through transmission owners across its 13-state footprint, the grid operator said in a notice issued Thursday.

PJM, however, doesn’t anticipate calling on those backup generators. “We expect that we will be able to continue operating the bulk electric system reliably through these recent challenging weather conditions without having to implement this new back-up generation procedure, but we also want to have every tool at our disposal to avoid power outages if conditions get significantly worse,” PJM said.

Electric utility Commonwealth Edison has asked regulators to review a $15.3 billion, four-year grid plan that it says will help meet growing energy demand and protect infrastructure from severe weather events.

The filing is part of the state’s grid planning process laid out in the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, a landmark decarbonization bill that passed in 2021. If the investments proposed are approved in full by the ICC, ComEd expects residential customers to see an increased average cost of between $2.50 to $3 per month starting in 2028.

Electric and gas utilities sought nearly $31 billion in rate increases last year, more than doubling what companies requested in 2024, according to a report released Wednesday.

Analyzingpublicly available rate case filings, a new report from PowerLinesfound 2025 rate increase requests were the largest on record — by far. While not all of those rate requests will be approved by regulators, their sheer volume reflects the growing needs of the electric grid and the resulting upward pressure on power bills.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she and David Eby agree on plans to further expand the Trans Mountain pipeline, and she pledged to keep the British Columbia Premier in the loop as she prepares to release a proposal for an entirely new pipeline in June.

The Premier made the comments after meeting with Mr. Eby and Prime Minister Mark Carney Wednesday on Parliament Hill. Mr. Carney has said expanding energy exports to Asian markets is an important way for Canada to diversify its trading relationships in response to higher tariffs from the United States.

The Department of Energy on Thursday confirmed the cancellation of a $1.8-billion clean energy loan commitment to Arizona Public Service, the largest investor-owned utility in that state.

The loan would have helped finance the utility’s “new or upgraded transmission projects, renewable power generation, and grid-integrated energy storage systems,” according to a DOE press release from last January.

“Additional de-obligations are in process but cannot be publicly disclosed until finalized. There are other projects de-obligated that were not made public.”

The Trump administration has overhauled a set of nuclear safety directives and shared them with the companies it is charged with regulating, without making the new rules available to the public, according to documents obtained exclusively by NPR.

The sweeping changes were made to accelerate development of a new generation of nuclear reactor designs. They occurred over the fall and winter at the Department of Energy, which is currently overseeing a program to build at least three new experimental commercial nuclear reactors by July 4 of this year.

NextEra Energy is considering ​expanding its nuclear fleet to deliver electricity to data centers, with the giant U.S. power provider ‌saying on Tuesday that it is in advanced discussions to power an additional 9 gigawatts of the server warehouses.

Last year, NextEra announced that it would restart its Duane Arnold nuclear power generating station in Iowa to serve ‌Google data centers. On a call with investors on Tuesday, said it has the ability ​to add 6 gigawatts of new nuclear technologies to serve data centers at its existing nuclear sites. It is also considering greenfield sites to build advanced nuclear power.

Canada is looking at boosting energy exports to India in a bid to diversify its customer base and cut dependence on supply to the United States, its Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said on Tuesday.

Hodgson told the Indian Energy Week conference that exporting 98 per cent of its energy to the United States was a “strategic blunder,” and saw an opportunity to work with India.

“The fastest growing demand for energy in the world will be in India,” Hodgson said, adding Canada could supply crude oil, liquefied natural gas and uranium to India.

Donald Trump is threatening to impose a 100 per cent tariff on Canada if it makes a trade deal with China, registering opposition to closer ties between Ottawa and Beijing under Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Since taking office in January, 2025, Mr. Trump has hit Canada with a slew of tariffs. The President has imposed a 50 per cent levy on steel and aluminum, 25 per cent on autos and 35 per cent on any goods traded outside the USMCA, with the exception of oil, gas and potash, at 10 per cent. His administration has also significantly hiked duties on Canadian softwood.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday upheld its decisions approving temporary fast-track generator interconnection processes for the Midcontinent Independent System Operator and the Southwest Power Pool.

MISO’s Expedited Resource Addition Study and SPP’s Expedited Resource Adequacy Study framework are designed to address growing resource needs in the grid operators’ footprints.

Natural-gas prices have jumped 63% this week in response to forecasts calling for some of the coldest, snowiest weather in years to freeze the country from the West Texas desert to the Great Lakes.

The forecasts have stoked fears of a repeat of the deadly winter storm that froze Texas in 2021 and left millions of people without electricity for days. Energy producers and utilities are preparing for the worst. The Energy Department late Thursday ordered grid operators to be prepared to take extraordinary steps to tap in to backup power generation.

Quebec is postponing its 2030 emission-cuts deadline by five years, citing threats to jobs and the economy.

The time to reach the goal has been extended to buffer the province in a time of uncertainty, the government said when it made the announcement on Thursday. It’s a “pragmatic approach” that does not sacrifice Quebec’s commitment to fighting climate change, Environment Minister Bernard Drainville said.

The Pennsylvania consumer advocate concluded that electric utility customers in that state are paying higher energy prices largely because of increased costs for bulk power grid services “driven by data center and artificial intelligence demand that is outstripping existing and forecasted supply, resulting in higher wholesale supply costs and expensive transmission grid expansion.”

The OCA’s concern centers on a 765-kV project proposed by NextEra and Exelon that would run about 221 miles in central Pennsylvania.

On her first day in office Tuesday, New Jersey Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed executive orders seeking to freeze electricity cost increases, issue ratepayer relief in the form of bill credits, and increase distributed energy resources, including utility-scale solar and battery storage.