Winter risk is coming

December 7, 2025

Electricity demand in New England has been flat for the past 20 years, and peak demand in summer has been approximately 25% higher than in winter. However, New England’s grid operator forecasts winter peak demand to double over the next two decades, rising from 20 GW today to 40 GW in 2045. The major driver of this load growth is the electrification of transportation and heating. ISO-NE expects 70% of homes in the region (4.4 million) to use electric space heating by 2050. Winter blackouts are generally more dangerous than summer outages because homes can lose heat in a matter of hours, creating the risk of frozen pipes and even hypothermia. Source: ISO-NE.

The Shadow Fleet

November 30, 2025

Around the world, a large collection of ships evade regulatory oversight to move sanctioned oil. Often registered under shell companies to hide their true owners, these shadow fleet tankers mask their activities by manipulating Automatic Identification Systems and disguising cargo origins with ship-to-ship transfers. Previously made up largely of vessels carrying Iranian and Venezuelan oil, the shadow fleet has more than doubled in recent years as it now transports cargo from the world’s third-largest oil producer, Russia. In 2022, G7 countries created a price cap on Russian oil to stifle the Kremlin's largest source of income. To bypass sanctions, Russia bought oil tankers and re-routed trade to China and India, building a shadow fleet of more than 500 tankers. In addition to economic and political impacts, the shadow fleet creates severe environmental risks. Many of these vessels are aging, uninsured, and poorly maintained. They routinely pass through sensitive marine ecosystems where an oil spill would cause catastrophic damage. Source: S&P Global.

California's pelican curve

November 23, 2025

In 2013, the California Independent System Operator published a chart of net load—the total load on the system minus wind and solar generation. During the day, solar power floods the grid leading to a dip in net load. In the evening net load rises sharply as the sun sets and demand increases. Ten years ago, CAISO noticed that the net load curve resembled the profile of a duck, with a dipping belly and rising neck. Today, abundant solar generation in California has made the duck more closely resemble a pelican. On November 8, 2025 for example, between 9:30 am and 1:00 pm renewables produced more energy than consumers in the state demanded. While the pelican curve shows a solar success story, it also creates significant challenges for CAISO system operators. The system needs batteries and thermal generators to ramp up by over 20,000 megawatts—roughly equivalent to turning on 20 nuclear reactors—in a two-hour period. Source: CAISO.

New York City’s power concerns

November 16, 2025

The nation’s largest city could face electricity shortfalls as demand grows and aging gas turbines retire, according to a recent report by New York’s grid operator. To close future supply gaps, NYC is relying on multiple major projects, including the 1,250 MW Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line (expected spring 2026), the 800 MW Empire Wind 1 project (2027), and the Propel NY Energy transmission project (2030). However, supply chain uncertainty and political risks could delay these timelines. Even with these projects delivering power on schedule, NYISO still identifies a risk of power deficiency in the city starting in summer 2029. A temporary solution indicated in NYISO’s report is retaining aging peakers under special reliability exceptions. However, current state emissions regulations regardless of these reliability exemptions require many of these facilities to retire by May 1, 2029 unless they are upgraded to use cleaner technology. Source: NYISO.

The changing role of batteries on the grid

November 9, 2025

In September 2020, the U.S. had 1.4 GW of batteries connected to the grid. Five years later, that number has grown to 37.1 GW. For comparison, the entire country of Spain draws about 37 GW on a hot summer day. Over two-thirds of the nation’s battery capacity is in California and Texas, with 38% and 30% respectively. As battery installations grew over the past five years, battery owners have changed how they operate them. In Texas, batteries can earn revenue in two ways: providing grid services or trading energy. (In other electricity markets batteries can also make money by providing capacity or resource adequacy.) As battery capacity grew in Texas, their participation saturated the smaller ancillary service markets. This market saturation has pushed battery operators to participate in day-ahead and real-time energy markets, charging with cheap solar power and discharging to supply higher demand in the evening. In fact, by the start of 2025 batteries made more money from energy arbitrage than ancillary services. Data source: ERCOT via Modo Energy.

China outpaces the world on new nuclear power

November 2, 2025

Around the world, there are 65 nuclear power plants under construction today. 33 of them are in China, totalling 37.9 GW of capacity or enough power for approximately 30 million homes. China is building nuclear plants for a few reasons. Firstly, China seeks to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels—which they import mostly from the Middle East and Russia—to protect their energy supply from disruption by geopolitical conflicts or trade tensions. Secondly, nuclear projects match Beijing’s ambitions to dominate high-tech sectors and advance the country’s industrial capabilities. Unlike China, the U.S. and E.U. have zero nuclear plants under construction today. The latest U.S. facility, Plant Vogtle in Georgia, came online seven years behind schedule and $17 billion over budget. High costs, complex regulations, and long construction times make nuclear unappealing in the U.S. and Europe, particularly compared to cheap gas and renewables. Data source: World Nuclear Association.

Sunsetting bad incentives

October 26, 2025

In April 2023, the California Public Utilities Commission changed the state’s net-metering policy for rooftop solar. Prior to the change, every kilowatt-hour (kWh) generated by a customer’s solar panels reduced what they would pay their utility by one kWh. In effect, instead of buying power at the wholesale rate (roughly 2 to 6 cents per kWh), utilities were buying power from their customers at the full residential rate (33 cents per kWh). Utilities need to charge this higher rate to cover their transmission and distribution costs, including fixed costs such as grid hardening for wildfires. The former net-metering policies shift an estimated $6.5 billion per year onto households without solar panels. The new policy, often called Net Energy Metering 3.0, aimed to reduce this cost shift. When first implemented, applications for rooftop solar dropped and the share of homes installing batteries alongside solar panels rose significantly. While rooftop solar is still critically important, we need incentives for the technology to accurately reflect the value it provides to the electricity system. Data source: California Energy Commission.

What’s driving up your electricity bill?

October 19, 2025

A recent regression analysis by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab studied the factors that have increased U.S. electricity rates over the past five years. Rates have gone up in regions with rooftop solar installments, declining system load, or state-led Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS). However, the largest driver of higher bills is simply living in California, as wildfire damage and grid hardening efforts have created significant transmission and distribution costs for ratepayers in the state. Notably, utility-scale wind and solar buildout, outside of the 25% attributable to RPS policies, has not exerted upward pressure on prices. Full study: LBNL.

P.S. In next week's graph we'll take a look at how rooftop solar policies can be improved to avoid regressive cost shifts.

The road to low-carbon heavy transport

October 12, 2025

In 2024, Delta Airlines had a 7.6% pre-tax profit margin; 17% of their company spending was fuel, almost all of which was fossil-derived (point B). Switching to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF, point G) as priced now, not factoring in subsidies, would make them unprofitable. Experts say we need breakthrough technology companies to decarbonize these industries, and those companies need subsidies to get to scale. The U.S. has several useful subsidies: Renewable Identification Numbers (RINS) under the renewable fuel standard (RFS); the lower carbon fuel standard (LCFS) present in California and other west-coast states; 45Z (clean fuels federal tax credit); and 45Q (a highly bipartisan carbon capture tax credit). The Trump administration has published plans to continue to expand the Renewable Volumes Obligations (RVOs) which dictate the amount of biofuel big oil companies must subsidize under the RFS.

Oil and gas employment sinks after two years of hiring

October 5, 2025

U.S. oil and gas companies have reduced their workforce by over 3% since the start of 2025. Continued output hikes by OPEC+, paired with lukewarm demand from the world’s largest economies, have weakened oil prices. Crude prices have fallen to $60.53 per barrel, down from the year's high of $78.71 in January. With tighter margins, oil majors such as Chevron and ExxonMobil are cutting headcount to contain costs. In an extreme move, upstream company ConocoPhillips announced plans in September to lay off 20–25% of its global workforce, with some employees receiving layoff notifications earlier this week. Source: ​Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Windy days in Germany push prices negative

September 28, 2025

For twelve hours on September 16, day-ahead electricity prices in Germany dropped below zero. Strong winds along the country’s coast and mountain regions, as well as ample solar energy during the day, created more supply of electricity than the country needed. With a surplus of energy, suppliers need to pay buyers to take it. Generators continue to produce when prices are negative for two main reasons. Thermal generators often have start-up and shut-down costs making it expensive and time consuming to turn off. Wind and solar can be curtailed, but the government subsides they receive for producing energy outweigh the negative prices. Source: Energy Charts.

Puerto Rico see 10x more power outages than the states

September 21, 2025

Over the past four years, residents in Puerto Rico went without power for 81 hours on average. If we exclude major events such as hurricane Fiona in 2022 and hurricane Ernesto in 2024, residents saw 28 hours of interruption on average. By contrast, the yearly outages for customers in the 50 states total to seven hours, and without major events this number drops to two hours. Aging infrastructure and decades from underinvestment from Puerto Rico’s financially challenged utility created an unreliable electricity system on the island. Severe weather events with inadequate repairs have also compromised the system. While Puerto Rico’s government has taken legislative steps to improve reliability, significant investment is still needed. Data source: EIA.

Crypto’s curtailment

September 14, 2025

Cryptocurrency mining in Texas accounts for roughly 5% of the state’s electricity demand. On summer evenings however, when the grid faces the most strain, these facilities often shut off. This graph overlays the energy demand from cryptocurrency mining during each day in June and July this year. On around 40% of evenings, when wholesale prices are highest, facilities reduce their load by 90-95%. Electricity costs make or break the profitability of a crypto mine. By curtailing operations, crypto miners not only save money on energy charges (MWh), but also can greatly reduce demand charges (MW). Transmission utilities levy demand charges using ERCOT’s Four Coincident Peak (4CP) methodology. They charge industrial customers based on their load during four system-wide peaks, the highest aggregate demand in June, July, August, and September. By predicting when these peaks might occur, and cutting off power during them, crypto miners can sink their next year’s demand charges to near $0, saving 10-20% on annual energy costs. Source: ERCOT.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems: A timeline

September 7, 2025

MIT spin-off Commonwealth Fusion Systems plans to harness the power of stars on earth. While they haven’t fused any atoms yet, they have harnessed pocketbooks. CFS has already raised nearly $3 billion to date, accounting for one-third of all capital invested in nuclear fusion. In the end of June 2025, Google signed the first fusion power purchase agreement for 200 MW of CFS’s planned 400 MW ARC reactor in Chesterfield County, Virginia. CFS plans to begin operating ARC in the early 2030s. Before electrons will flow to the grid, however, CFS must first demonstrate that their systems can generate a self-sustaining, net-positive energy fusion reaction. The company hopes to do so in 2027 using their SPARC demonstration reactor, currently under construction in Devens, Massachusetts. Source: CFS.

Global oil glut tamps downs prices at the pump

August 31, 2025

From January 2022 through July 2025, the price of goods in the U.S. increased by 14.6% as measured by the core consumer price index. Over the same period, the nationwide average price of gasoline fell by 4.1%. Gasoline prices are much more volatile than inflation and driven in large part by global supply and demand of crude oil. Lower prices in recent months are partly due to OPEC+ output hikes, including the coalition’s announcement that they will increase production by 548,000 barrels per day in September 2025. Simultaneously, sluggish economic activity, particularly in Europe and China, has led the IEA to downgrade their estimate of global oil demand multiple times this year. Data sources: EIA and FRED.

Cooking fuels around the world

August 24, 2025

Cooking practices around the world have a significant impact on indoor air pollution and human health. In 1990, around half of the world’s population relied of dirty fuels, including charcoal, kerosene, coal, and biomass (wood, dung, crop residue). While that fraction has decreased, today over 2 billion people still rely on unsafe cooking methods, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and developing Asia. The International Energy Agency attributes 3.7 million premature deaths each year to household air pollution, mostly from cooking smoke. Data source: WHO.

600 million people in Africa lack electricity access

August 17, 2025

Over 40% of Africa’s population, roughly 600 million people on the continent, have no connection to electricity. Access to electricity can facilitate education and economic growth through better technologies and connectivity. It is important for health and safety by powering devices like water pumps and purifiers, clean cooking appliances, and safe lighting. In an effort to expand electricity access, the World Bank and the African Development Bank are spearheading Mission 300, a collaboration between governments and the private sector to get 300 million more people in Africa connected to power by 2030. Data source: World Bank.

Fewer wildfires, bigger burns

August 10, 2025

Over the past forty years, the number of wildfires in the U.S. has declined slightly, while the number of acres burned each year has risen. From 1985 to 1995, fires burned an average of 3.0 million acres per year. From 2012 to 2022, that average jumped to 7.2 million acres per year. Warmer temperatures have dried vegetation leading to longer fire seasons and larger burns. The strength of fires has increased despite additional suppression efforts: In the 1990s, the federal government spent $453 million per year on firefighting efforts. In the 2010s that spending rose to an average of $1.91 billion per year, a 2.5x increase (inflation adjusted). Data source: nifc.gov.

DOE cancels $4.9 billion loan for transmission line

August 3, 2025

On July 23, the Department of Energy terminated a $4.9 billion conditional commitment to Invenergy's Grain Belt Express transmission line. The planned 804-mile, direct current line is designed to carry wind energy from Kansas to load centers in the East. Interregional transmission lines like the Grain Belt Express can help the country interconnect more clean resources and meet rising electricity demand. The loan cancellation comes after politicians including Missouri Senator Josh Hawley pushed back against the project, claiming the funding was rushed out the door by the Biden administration. Source: Invenergy.

PJM capacity auction hits price cap

July 27, 2025

To ensure its system has adequate resources to meet demand in future years, a grid operator typically administers a competitive capacity market. Last year, capacity prices in PJM spiked from $28.92/MW-day to $269.92/MW-day. The 9x increase came from a combination of rising data center load growth, generator retirements, and changes to PJM’s capacity accreditation methods. In part responding to a complaint by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, PJM and FERC approved a two year “price collar” in the capacity market. This year, prices rose again and hit the price cap at $329.17. The price collar reduces volatility and protects consumers from cost spikes. However, it also distorts market signals in a region where supply is already falling behind rising demand. Source: PJM.

Demand response helps Mid-Atlantic grid weather heatwave

July 20, 2025

During the heatwave in June, the Mid-Atlantic power grid hit its third highest peak demand of all time. To keep electricity flowing to 67 million people, the grid operator called on contracted demand response resources. By participating in demand response, industrial, commercial, and residential customers receive payments for reducing their consumption during peak hours. Economic demand response occurs when electricity prices cross thresholds agreed upon with customers. Load management demand response occurs when the grid operator calls on contracted resources during an emergency. In the evening of June 24, demand response contributed 4.3 gigawatts of power to the system, roughly equal to adding four nuclear reactors. Data Source: PJM.

Federal budget law cuts short support for wind, solar, and EVs

July 13, 2025

On July 4, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law, bringing an earlier end to tax credits for wind, solar, and EVs. In 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act expanded federal support for advanced energy technologies, including a $7,500 credit for electric vehicles and larger investment and production tax credits for renewables. The new Act ends the EV credit at the end of September 2025, seven years before the previous deadline. Additionally, for new wind and solar plants to qualify for the investment tax credit or production tax credit, their construction must begin before July 4, 2026, or they must enter into service before the end of 2027. The new Act did spare some clean energy technologies, leaving support for energy storage and clean baseload power (including geothermal and nuclear) unchanged from the existing timeline. Source: L&W.

Electricity rates by state

July 6, 2025

In March 2025, the average residential rate for electricity across the nation was 17.11 cents per kilowatt-hour. However, households in different regions paid different rates: Idaho residents paid an average of 11.56 cents/kWh, while those in Connecticut paid 32.55 cents/kWh—nearly three times as much. The retail rate reflects the cost of generation, transmission, and distribution, each of which is impacted by different factors. For example, California’s wildfire mitigation and grid hardening efforts raise the costs of transmission and distribution. In states with higher wages, taxes, or clean energy standards, utilities may charge higher rates to cover related costs as well. Data source: EIA.

Tech’s nuclear power plays

June 29, 2025

Tech giants have a growing hunger for electricity to power their AI and cloud computing data centers. At the same time, Google, Microsoft, and Meta aim to achieve net zero emissions by 2030. To secure one source of continuous, carbon-free power, they have made large deals with nuclear energy companies. With multi-decade agreements, tech companies have revitalized economically troubled plants such as Three Mile Island. They have also invested billions of dollars into small modular reactors (SMRs), a new generation of fission reactors with the potential to be cheaper and easier to build. Most SMRs however are not expected to come online for another decade. If executed, these eight projects above will total to over 15,000 MW, enough power for roughly 12 million homes yet only a fraction of forecasted data center demand in the coming decades. Data sources: Company press releases.

Global surface temperature

June 22, 2025

The past ten years have been the ten hottest years on record. In 2024, the average global surface temperature was 2.79 °F (1.55 °C) above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900). Over the past decade, greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have reached concentrations in the atmosphere unmatched in hundreds of thousands of years, trapping in heat. Data source: 2 Degrees Institute. (Temperatures before 1880 are estimated using ice cores and ocean sediments.)

Swapping out coal for natural gas

June 15, 2025

In 2004, the U.S. generated 53% of its electricity from coal-fired power plants and 19% from natural gas plants. In 2024, coal’s share of production has dropped to 15% while the share from natural gas has risen to 43%. Since the start of the “shale revolution” in the early 2000s, natural gas has fallen in price and forced coal plants to close largely for economic reasons. In addition to using cheaper fuel, natural gas plants are more flexible and emit less CO2 than coal plants. Lower gas prices have limited the growth of nuclear energy as well and forced some reactors to close. Of any technology, wind and solar have grown the most over the past two decades, rising in their share of electricity production from less than 1% to over 17%. Data source: EIA.

Solar growth and curtailment in the Golden State

June 8, 2025

California continues to rapidly grow its utility-scale solar capacity. Total solar generation in the state increased by 47% from 2021 to 2024. Sometimes during the day, solar production exceeds the amount that the current transmission system can support, requiring the grid operator to shut off some of the supply. Most of this curtailment occurs during the spring, when there is ample sun but lower demand due to moderate temperatures. In March 2025, for example, the California ISO shut off 18% of total solar generation for the month. To reduce curtailment, California is expanding its transmission infrastructure and promoting additional flexible resources such as batteries. Data source: CAISO via Grid Status.

Electric vehicle adoption around the world

June 1, 2025

Global electric vehicle sales continue to grow, with more than one EV for every five cars sold in 2024. Last year, EVs accounted for 10% of car sales in the United States, 22% in Europe, and 48% in China. Norway leads the world in EV adoption, with 89% of all new cars being fully battery powered. The Scandinavian country has significant government incentives for EVs and has built an extensive charging network. Domestically, Norway is moving towards its climate goals, with an electricity grid powered by 97% renewables. However, oil and gas account for two-thirds of the country’s exports. Data source: IEA.

Mapping battery storage buildout

May 25, 2025

Over the past five years, utility-scale lithium-ion battery capacity in the U.S. has grown from 1.0 GW in January 2020 to 28.5 GW in March 2025. By the end of 2025, an additional 18.2 GW is planned to come online, as shown in orange. California leads the charge with 12.1 GW installed, followed by Texas with 7.9 GW and Arizona with 2.5 GW. Together, these three states account for 79% of the nation's battery capacity. Each battery can supply its maximum power for a set duration, which typically falls between 1 and 4 hours. Data source: EIA.

A new era of electricity demand growth

May 18, 2025

Grid operators across the country expect an increase in annual peak demand, the highest electricity load over any hour in a given year, for the first time in two decades. The electrification of industries, homes, and transportation as well as new data centers are driving up forecasts of demand. Texas, with a growing economy and population, expects peak load to rise from 85 GW in 2024 to 154 GW in 2035, an 80% increase. In the Mid-Atlantic region, PJM, the operator of the nation's largest grid, anticipates a 38% rise in peak power demand this decade, from 151 GW to 209 GW. The New England system operator expects winter peak demand in the region to grow from 20 GW to 28 GW by 2035, largely due to the electrification of heating and transportation. Data sources: ERCOT, PJM, and ISO-NE.

E.U. continues to cut flows of Russian gas

May 11, 2025

In the three years since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, countries in the European Union have reduced their combined imports of Russian natural gas by 75%. The decrease has been partially offset by a tripling in U.S. liquefied natural gas imports since the start of 2022. Overall gas imports to Europe have fallen 19% in this three-year period. This decline is in part due to a reduction in consumption by industries in response to record high prices as well as a continued shift to renewables and energy efficiency. On May 5, 2025, the European Commission shared plans to stop all imports of Russian gas by the end of 2027. Data source: Bruegel.

California's changing resource mix

May 4, 2025

Snapshots of California's generation mix on May 1, 2020 and May 1, 2025. Over the past five years, solar has expanded its share, while electricity imports from other western states have declined. Batteries, shown in purple, have become a significant part of the mix in recent years. At 8 pm on May 1, 2025, for example, batteries were supplying 34% of the state's electricity. Data source: California ISO via Grid Status.