Absolutely amazing: they've got so much solar in Australia that they need more people to use more of it, so the gov't has instructed energy retailers to offer *at least three hours of free power* during the middle of the day. Meanwhile fossil-addled US struggles with an energy-price crisis ...

A statistician and an engineer went hunting. The first shot went three feet to the right. The second shot missed three feet to the left. The statistician cries “we got it!”

Turns out that raising rates so that you can guarantee a profit on gas and coal plants is bad for consumers, Actually: www.ksdk.com/article/news...

Let us be clear: The President of the United States is levying war against American cities and American citizens—and we cannot rely on the other branches of government to save us. It’s up to us.

My town is on the map! I don’t care if the rest of the map is garbage, they got that part right

I think there’s pretty good evidence that the AI bubble has peaked, and will start a sharp downturn relatively soon. But I don’t see much to indicate that the Datacenter mania has peaked yet; I’m guessing another 6 months at least.

The world's first carbon border tax is about to go live, roiling — and possibly reshaping —global trade share.google/yTtxujzkAx8a... 🔌💡

The datacenters will not be built. The power demand will not materialize.

The AI bubble is probably better thought of as two distinct bubbles: LLMs in general (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.), and the associated datacenter buildout bubble. Useful to remember that the dot-com was actually two bubbles as well: the dot-coms, and the telecoms. Telecoms was much worse.

This is pretty funny, because it doesn’t take a lot of mathematical sophistication to know intuitively that this had to be true: no probabilistic system will ever be deterministically correct.

Marissa Gillett, possibly the best utility regulator in the country, resigned from the Connecticut PURA this morning. She was forced out by Connecticut’s investor-owned utilities, who finally won their years-long, scorching campaign to oust her. A thread here about Gillett:

“ I believe in the municipal ownership of these monopolies because if you do not own them they in turn will own you. They will rule your politics, corrupt your institutions and finally destroy your liberties.“ -Tom L Johnson #energysky

Just on a purely academic level, this is absolutely the coolest technology I’ve ever seen. 3 of these windows will run my fridge! #energysky

This is incredible, but (to me at least) it raises a big question: why now? #energysky ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

Ameren Missouri wants to build a 250-MW solar field by the Callaway Nuclear plant. A surprising request, tbh, considering they recently got approval for a 750MW gas plant. Still, I’m not complaining about a good thing: #energysky abc17news.com/news/top-sto...

One of the more surprising conclusions that I have been coming around to is that clean energy will eventually force a reckoning with our current economic superstructure. You just can’t run things the way we have when there isn’t a stranglehold on the energy supply _somewhere_

Holy crap, a 26 MW wind turbine! 185 meter hub height! 310 meter rotor diameter! electrek.co/2025/08/29/c...

It sure seems like all these demand-increasing forecasts that utilities are putting out are highly dependent on datacenter load that may or may not ever actually show up. But of course it's easy to gamble when you're playing with someone else's money: 🔌💡 www.hyaline.tech/the-datacent...

Shocking absolutely nobody: the 10 or so transmission companies that dominate MISO also own gas pipelines. Power markets do not serve everyone equally. 🔌💡

It is amazing to me how often people suggest shifting the risk of wholesale markets to the people least equipped to handle them. Price gouging is so much easier when your counterparty doesn’t understand what’s happening. #energysky pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/08/27/d...

"Solar panel imports will reduce fuel imports. The savings from avoiding diesel can repay the cost of a solar panel within six months in Nigeria, and even less in other countries." Fossil fuels are crushing costs for poor nations. Solar is cheap! #energysky ember-energy.org/app/uploads/...

This is sorta obvious if you have worked on rate design: The amount of distribution costs recovered through fixed charges likely determines the cost shift. Ironically, progressive rate designs probably see more cost shift. The solution is also sorta obvious: put solar panels on poor people's roofs.

Question for #energysky folks: Does anyone maintain a database/listing of actual proposed datacenters in the US(or other large loads)?

Mathematically speaking, exponential growth looks exactly like linear growth for values close to zero. #energysky about.bnef.com/insights/cle...

Again I say: all those projected datacenter power demand columns should be read _very_ skeptically. I do not believe the datacenters will be built.

During the June heat wave, PJM energy prices reached 400$/MWh. The bulk of that went to gas plants. Meanwhile, 34 GW of solar plants, that would have reduced prices significantly, are sitting on PJM's interconnection queue. Not a _great_ look. #energysky www.hyaline.tech/power-plants...

If this action succeeds, Duke Energy will be effectively immune from state regulation by North or South Carolina public services commissions.

It would be nice if someone were to ask him how they're going to find the power to run these data-centers. Are they going to build behind-the-meter power? Look for under-utilized capacity under the couch cushions? I suspect the reality is that the datacenters won't actually be built.

This report on large loads is really interesting. I haven’t read in detail yet, but at first glance this reads like “we need a lot more storage”. #energysky www.nerc.com/comm/RSTCRev...

I wonder what the anti-renewable argument will morph into once places like Germany start meeting their demand with renewables directly. At a certain point, the anti-renewable case is just factually incorrect, but somehow I suspect that it won't stop them from pushing for gas anyway.

The sheer flexibility of solar power is an underappreciated aspect to their future. A world with lots of solar isn't a world with a few enormous solar farms, it's a world with little solar panels _everywhere_. Each one generating a tiny amount, and all of them adding up. #energysky

During the June heat wave, PJM energy prices reached 400$/MWh. The bulk of that went to gas plants. Meanwhile, 34 GW of solar plants, that would have reduced prices significantly, are sitting on PJM's interconnection queue. Not a _great_ look. #energysky www.hyaline.tech/power-plants...

In MISO in 2024, 10 plants accounted for 116 million MWh worth of energy, and 20 plants accounted for 197 million MWh. MISO's annual baseload demand was 464 million MWh. These plants are owned by 12 companies. Incidentally, energy prices in MISO aren't going down www.hyaline.tech/power-market...

I haven’t been able to prove it, so haven’t written it up, but I strongly suspect that the true winners of the AI bubble in the U.S. are regulated utilities. The best possible outcome for the major power holding companies is forecasted demand that never materializes.

Back in May, Ameren Missouri got themselves a nice $400 million boost to their revenues from increased rates on Missouri Consumers. And at the same time, they made $450 million selling energy and transmission to MISO. #energysky www.hyaline.tech/ameren-makes...

The 5 largest companies active in MISO own 35% of its generating capacity, and every one is publicly traded (or a subsidiary of a publicly traded company). It boggles the mind to imagine that MISO does not act in the interests of these companies. #energysky

There are a lot of claims about the U.S. power market, the most popular being that they reduce prices. But they haven't. They might have reduced costs, but that just means higher profits for the major participants. #energysky www.hyaline.tech/power-market...

U.S. energy markets like MISO and NYISO are often touted as lowering energy prices. But the evidence is pretty scant; wholesale energy prices continue to climb even though markets are supposed to "encourage competition" www.hyaline.tech/power-market...