Der neu unter Druck gesetzte Abschnitt von Deutschlands Wasserstoff-Backbone ohne Lieferanten und ohne Abnehmer wird oft als klarer Bruch mit der Vergangenheit beschrieben, als notwendige frühe Investition in eine künftige Wasserstoffwirtschaft. Der Stahl erzählt eine andere Geschichte. Trasse, Durchmesser, Alter und Wirtschaftlichkeit der Pipeline verweisen zurück auf russisches Erdgas, nicht ... [continued]
In Short : At India Energy Week 2026, policymakers and industry leaders highlighted how policy certainty, declining renewable energy costs, and rapid technology adoption are accelerating India’s hydrogen and clean fuel ecosystem. The discussions underscored strong government support, increasing private investment, and growing infrastructure development, positioning green hydrogen, biofuels, and alternative fuels as key pillars of India’s energy transition and long-term decarbonisation strategy.
In Detail : Leadership Spotlight session examines investment readiness, demand creation and global partnerships
India’s green hydrogen goals are moving decisively from ambition to execution, driven by competitive pricing, long-term demand creation and sectoral integration, Abhay Bakre, Mission Director, National Green Hydrogen Mission, said at the Leadership Spotlight Session on the third day of India Energy Week 2026.
Speaking on the Resilience Stage at the session titled Scaling Green Ammonia: Value Chain Synergies and the Hydrogen Ecosystem, Bakre said India’s target of producing 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030 has found impetus through successful price discovery, enabling projects to advance toward final investment decisions.
“These three years—2025, 2026 and 2027—are very important for the ecosystem to actually act as a launchpad”, said Bakre. He added that green hydrogen and ammonia prices are increasingly approaching parity with conventional alternatives, a crucial development towards large-scale domestic adoption and exports.
From a technology and industry perspective, Gary Godwin, Vice President, Sustainable Technology Solutions and Global Lead, Critical Minerals, KBR said that green ammonia technologies are now commercially viable and capable of operating at global scale. He noted that the next priority is building robust supply chains and long-term offtake arrangements to unlock deployment across power, shipping and heavy industry.
Speaking on market development, Dr. R K Malhotra, President, Hydrogen Association of India, emphasised that India’s competitive renewable energy prices and emerging electrolyser manufacturing base are creating a strong foundation for green hydrogen and ammonia scale-up.
Offering an international policy perspective, Han Feenstra, Senior Policy Advisor, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, Kingdom of the Netherlands said that European hydrogen markets are shifting toward demand mandates and import frameworks. He added that the development is opening long-term opportunities for reliable partners like India, whose cost competitiveness and policy clarity make it a natural contributor to Europe’s decarbonisation ambitions.
About India Energy Week
India Energy Week is the country’s flagship global energy platform, bringing together government leaders, industry executives and innovators to accelerate progress toward a secure, sustainable and affordable energy future. As a neutral international forum, IEW drives investment, policy alignment and technological collaboration shaping the global energy landscape.
Alberta’s January 2026 Order in Council authorizing expanded powers and funding for the province’s petroleum marketing agency shouldn’t exist, and if it had, it should have been a bill. Authorizing up to $900 million across borrowing, advances or investments by the Minister of Finance and provincial debt with broad powers ... [continued]
Der Vergleich zwischen Deutschlands Wasserstoff-Backbone von nirgendwo nach nirgendwo und Chinas angeblich über 1.000 km langer Wasserstoffpipeline taucht immer wieder auf und wird oft als Beleg dafür gerahmt, dass Deutschland lediglich früh dran sei und nicht falsch liege. Das ist eine berechtigte Frage, denn aus der Distanz wirken beide Projekte ... [continued]
Even demand in advanced economies is rising again after years of declines, with rapid growth of electricity worldwide driving up consumption of renewables, gas, coal and nuclear Global energy demand grew at a faster-than-average pace in 2024 as the consumption of electricity rose around the world – with increased supply of renewables and natural gas … Continue reading IEA-Growth in global energy demand surged in 2024 to almost twice its recent average→
Acquires 10% stake from Carbon Catalyst Poseidon to store 40 mil mt/year from 2029 Estimated total storage capacity 1 billion mt German oil and gas producer Wintershall Dea has joined the Poseidon car
Hyundai Oilbank to ship over 3.6 mil barrels to US next year Selling prices unknown Refiner likely to raise crude throughout in 2024 South Korea's smallest oil refiner Hyundai Oilbank will export more
July Sep crude output drops 2% on year to 5.25 mil mt Sees production decline from matured, marginal fields Signs crude sales agreements with MRPL, HPCL following marketing freedom India's state run O
The idea that heavy freight would be the last redoubt of diesel has been repeated for decades, often with confidence and rarely with evidence. In December 2025, that idea finally collapsed. Battery-electric heavy duty trucks crossed 50% of new sales in China, a segment that had long been treated as ... [continued]
Yotta 2026 is officially open for registration, returning Sept. 28–30 to Las Vegas with a larger footprint, a new venue and an expanded platform designed to meet the accelerating demands of AI-driven infrastructure. Now hosted at Caesars Forum, Yotta 2026 reflects both the rapid growth of the event and the unprecedented pace at which AI is reshaping compute, power and digital infrastructure worldwide.
As AI workloads scale faster than existing systems were designed to handle, infrastructure leaders are facing mounting challenges around power availability, capital deployment, resilience and integration across traditionally siloed industries. Yotta 2026 is built to convene the full ecosystem grappling with these realities, bringing together operators, hyperscalers, enterprise leaders, energy executives, investors, builders, policymakers and technology partners in one place.
Rebecca Sausner, CEO of Yotta, emphasizes that the event is designed for practical progress, not theoretical discussion. From chips and racks to networks, cooling, power and community engagement, AI is transforming every layer of digital infrastructure. Yotta 2026 aims to move conversations beyond vision and into real-world solutions that address scale, reliability and investment risk in an AI-first era.
A defining feature of Yotta 2026 is its advisory board-led approach to programming. The conference agenda is being developed in collaboration with the newly announced Yotta Advisory Board, which includes senior leaders from organizations spanning AI, cloud, energy, finance and infrastructure, including OpenAI, Oracle, Schneider Electric, KKR, Xcel Energy, GEICO and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). This cross-sector guidance ensures the program reflects how the industry actually operates, as an interconnected system where decisions around power, compute, capital, design and policy are inseparable.
The 2026 agenda will focus on the most urgent challenges shaping the AI infrastructure era. Key themes include AI infrastructure and compute density, power generation and grid interconnection, capital formation and investment risk, design and operational resilience, and policy and public-private alignment. Together, these topics offer a market-driven view of how digital infrastructure must be designed, financed and operated to support AI at scale.
With an anticipated 6,000+ AI and digital infrastructure leaders in attendance, Yotta 2026 will feature a significantly expanded indoor and outdoor expo hall, curated conference programming and immersive networking experiences. Hosted at Caesars Forum, the event is designed to support both strategic planning and hands-on execution, creating space for collaboration across the entire infrastructure value chain.
Early registration is now open, with passes starting at $795 and discounted rates available for early registrants. As AI continues to drive unprecedented infrastructure demand, Yotta 2026 positions itself as a critical forum for the conversations and decisions shaping the future of compute, power and digital infrastructure.
With explosive load growth projected from data centers, manufacturing and electrification, grid operators are warning of looming capacity shortfalls. At the same time, generators are facing mounting pressure to adapt to evolving market structures, seasonal reliability risks, and shifting regulatory expectations.
At the Tuesday afternoon Keynote at POWERGEN 2026, hosted in San Antonio, Texas, energy executives shared how their regions are responding to these challenges: Implementing market reforms, rethinking capacity accreditation and rebalancing risk across market players, while also exploring what these changes mean for utilities and IPPs seeking to stay competitive and reliable in a grid under strain.
The session was moderated by Hari Gopalakrishnan, Manager, Market Strategy – Mitsubishi Power Americas and featured Keith Collins, Vice President of Commercial Operations – ERCOT; and Casey Cathey, Vice President, Engineering – Southwest Power Pool (SPP).
‘What is the alternative?’
The early aughts were a period of heavy gas development – but recent deployments, including a much bigger share of renewables, have put that growth to shame. However, as the modern resource mix begins to take shape, gaps and bottlenecks have begun to emerge.
In ERCOT, the shift toward solar in particular has created a unique problem: what we have typically thought of as the period of most stress has changed. Peak demand is still occurs around the late afternoon, but a significant amount of solar generation is operating during this period – including charging battery storage. Instead, the greatest period of need on the system in terms of system stress has shifted to later in the day – around eight or nine in the evening – resulting in higher prices.
In Collins’ eyes, this issue has opened up opportunities for new technologies to help allow the grid to adapt to this new reality, including synthetic inertia or gid-forming technologies. But another issue remains: winter.
“The challenge is during the winter months, and ultimately, the average storage duration in ERCOT is about one and a half hours,” Collins said. “And when you think of a cold winter spell, it can, can require not just a single peak during the day, but a double peak during the day. And the challenge there is having the storage capable of meeting a morning peak period as well as an evening peak period.”
New transmission will be an inevitable necessity to help ease some grid strain, Cathey argued.
“This is an investment – transmission is not cheap,” Cathey said. “But the question is, what is the alternative? We are maxed out on our transmission system, and we need to be able to build transmission to complement necessary supply. We, quite frankly, need both. We need generation and transmission to be able to support the future.”
‘We could have a problem’
ERCOT’s system peaks at 85 GW, but is staring down the barrel of over 230 GW of new demand. Unsurprisingly, most of that demand is coming from large load data centers.
“If we start connecting all the large loads, and you look at the growth of resources we have in our system, we could have a problem in the next few years,” Collins said.
As recently as seven years ago, SPP was excited to see 1.2% year over year load growth. Now, it’s seeing upwards of 5% year over year growth, which Cathey said he hasn’t seen in his whole career. The SPP system currently peaks at 56 GW, but at least 110 GW are waiting in the interconnection queue.
SPP has been undertaking a wholesale changing of its fuel mix – swapping out old coal plants and replacing them with wind and solar. But the hefty amount of new generation waiting to interconnect to replace aging generation has also caused delays.
“At one point in time, the [generator interconnection] process worked, but it was never designed for a wholesale fuel mix change and swapping out the entire supply of multi state region,” Cathey said.
At SPP, a new performance-based accreditation process will go into effect next cycle, which is meant to ensure generation shows up when it’s called on. But it’s difficult to accurately plan for the future without leaving gaps or overcompensating.
“We have 64 load responsible entities, utilities that meet these resource adequacy requirements,” Cathey said. “One of the challenges we’re seeing is the nature of the system is changing so fast, even if we set a planning reserve margin four years in advance, it’s hard to have a reliable number to give them for a particular resource.”
To help alleviate this, SPP recently filed what it calls a consolidated planning process with FERC which essentially adds the generation interconnection process into SPP’s regional transmission plan. Generators would have an upfront cost to connect under this process.
“There’s no games around, playing chicken with another developer, trying to withdraw from a queue and then seeing what the results are, seeing if you don’t induce certain electric or extra high voltage facilities, and being hit with hundreds of millions of dollars of cost,” Cathey said.
Short-term plans
Some technologies like geothermal and next-generation nuclear could help ease much of the strain on the grid. The problem, however, is that they’re just not mature enough yet. Collins hopes this will change in the next five to 10 years, but what about in the meantime?
Natural gas has been a no-brainer for getting generation online quickly, but with that supply chain facing backlogs, it could take years to get a turbine. Power producers could pay to take someone else’s spot in the turbine queue, but this isn’t sustainable for the industry as a whole.
So for the short term, we’re left with the relatively quick deployments of solar and storage – with solar taking around 24 months and storage taking between 12-18 months to come online. But recent policy shifts at the federal level have raised questions about this solution as well.
“Obviously, federal policy has changed in terms of tax incentives for new renewable resources, and we haven’t seen how that’s going to change the equation,” Collins said. “In the short run, there are phases that we’re likely to see changes, and part of that is a result of policy, part of that as a result of supply chain technologies. So I think over the next five to 10 years, we’re going to see a significant shift.”
“We’ve got to move though,” Cathey said. “I think that’s one problem that we’ve had as an energy industry: We spend a lot of time. I think we spent four years on a demand response policy. We can’t do that anymore.”
POWERGEN 2026 continues through Jan. 22 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, with a week of executive dialogue, technical sessions and networking for the power generation community.
With the U.S. energy sector in the middle of unprecedented load growth driven by data centers and industrialization, it would likely be unwise to turn your nose up at any specific generation source. But with everything changing so fast, and with remaining uncertainty about how much actual load growth we will experience, how can utilities know they’re adequately preparing without taking on unnecessary costs?
Those were the sentiments at POWERGEN 2026’s Opening Keynote, which brought together leaders from utilities, engineering firms, technology providers and the research community to examine how the industry is responding to rapid change.
‘We’ve got to have it all’
The opening keynote began with a session between Rudy Garza, President & CEO – CPS Energy; and Victor Suchodolski, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer – Sargent & Lundy; moderated by Ahsan Yousufzai, Global Director Energy – NVIDIA. The trio discussed the unforeseen changes in the power industry that AI has stirred up; how to plan for uncertain projected load growth; how nuclear’s role will evolve in Texas; and pesky bottlenecks that can bring entire projects to a halt.
“The industry’s changing at a pace quicker than I think any any of us ever thought,” Garza said. “The pressure is exponentially changing on us in a way that is requiring us to really stretch every part of our business.”
There’s still plenty of uncertainty in the air surrounding the projected load growth the U.S. could experience. It’s currently unclear if all of the gigawatts of projected load growth will actually come to fruition, but utilities need to be prepared anyway, Garza argued. Otherwise, they may be blindsided by the lack of generation, transmission, and all of the components of these systems that can have large lead times.
“You’re going to have to teach an old dog new tricks, and the old dog is the utility industry,” Garza said. “We’re not used to changing the way we think about things. And if we don’t, the industry is going to go around us, and that’s not good for anybody.”
With so much on the line, the power industry doesn’t have much room to be picky. Nearly every existing form of generation will have a seat at the table – something Texas is already plenty familiar with: the state currently leads the nation in renewable and battery deployments.
“We’ve got to have it all,” Garza said. “And, you know, we don’t spend a lot of time here in San Antonio arguing over which resource is the right resource or the wrong resource.”
At Sargent & Lundy, Suchodolski is seeing firsthand how the markets are responding positively to more certainty – even gas and nuclear are both showing growth, when they have historically always run opposite to each other.
“With respect to bulk gas generation, regulatory and permitting are less of a driver now, and that’s primarily due to the longer lead time, so you can run in parallel with the permits,” Suchodolski said. “You also have partnerships with OEMs, and you can see there that there’s synergies with knowing what your air missions are going to look like, or what kind of designs you’re going to get. And you can design these projects a little bit more on the front end, you can buy equipment more on the front end.”
However, as some bottlenecks ease up, others become more prominent. Now, delays are being caused by power delivery center components, circuit breakers, and even emergency diesel generators, Suchodolski noted.
“This is really a power generation conference, but the grid is out there too,” Suchodolski said. “We are seeing transmission still having some issues with respect to the permitting process and getting things done as quickly as we want them. So it still takes time. There have been some strides here, but the transmission line projects are not going as quickly as we would hope that hope they would.”
Future nuclear deployments are going to look much different than what the U.S. saw in the 20th century. Garza argued that without state or federal incentives, new, large baseload nuclear generators like we built in the 70s will remain a relic of the past: there’s currently just too much risk and cost involved for that to be feasible. But next-gen nuclear reactors like SMRs, which have a much smaller footprint, could have a very promising future, especially for large loads like data centers, which are now required in Texas to have the ability to go off-grid on their own power sources if the grid gets squeezed.
At least one thing is clear though: the U.S. is going to have to build a lot of new generation, especially as older generating units are retiring. Many of those old units are on their last limbs already, being kept running now only out of necessity.
“ERCOT put one of our older units that we were trying to retire into what they call a reliability must run status, and it’s cost us millions of dollars trying to give that unit another three years of life,” Garza said. “So is that the most efficient, you know, use of our of our limited capital, or do we just need to build new stuff?”
How can AI help speed up new nuclear deployments?
In the next panel of Tuesday morning’s opening keynote, Raiford Smith, Global Market Lead for Power and Energy – Google Cloud; and Lou Martinez Sancho, CTO – Westinghouse Electric Company discussed a collaboration between Google and Westinghouse to create a custom AI-powered platform meant to assist and speed up reactor construction.
Westinghouse plans to have 10 of its AP1000 reactors under construction by 2030, and this platform is a key part of getting that plan into motion. The nuclear industry is notoriously heavily regulated, which can cause projects to take longer than some would like.
“We started this journey and needed to downsize basically the time to deliver new nuclear into market,” Sancho said. “But we needed also to utilize it to improve the way we are operating the current plants, [so] we can understand better how to do super power upgrades to deliver more.”
AI’s ability to learn and retain information has made it attractive to users like Westinghouse. The days of simple “if, then” statements may soon be behind us, Smith argued.
“Better yet, this is a solution that we collectively worked on for a work management problem for nuclear, but work management problems can be addressed using the same capabilities, as long as you have the foundational data and the frameworks – they can also be addressed the same way,” Smith said. “So the technology isn’t a one-off. The technology is not so bespoke that it cannot be applicable elsewhere.”
Details matter
In the final portion of Tuesday’s opening keynote, Mike Caravaggio, Vice President, Energy Supply, Fleet Reliability – EPRI painted a picture of the current moment the industry has unexpectedly found itself in, and what the coming years could look like.
Caravaggio echoed previous panelist arguments that each and every form of generation will have its own role to play, even though all gigawatts aren’t created equal.
“A gigawatt is not a gigawatt, is not a gigawatt,” Caravaggio said. “Our different technologies will fill this load growth void in different ways. A solar plant can’t do what a nuclear plant can can do. A gas turbine can move a lot faster than a combined cycle. We need to balance these technologies to meet the needs of these data centers.”
But that variance applies to the load side as well. Depending on their purpose, data centers can have vastly different load profiles from each other.
“These details are really going to matter,” Caravaggio said.
POWERGEN 2026 continues through Jan. 22 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, building on Monday’s technical foundation with a week of executive dialogue, technical sessions and networking for the power generation community.
Talen Energy Corporation announced it has signed definitive agreements to add approximately 2.6 GW of natural gas generation capacity to Talen’s portfolio through the acquisition of the Waterford Energy Center and Darby Generating Station in Ohio, and the Lawrenceburg Power Plant in Indiana from Energy Capital Partners (ECP).
Talen said the acquisition will “substantially expand” its presence in the western PJM market and add additional efficient baseload generation assets to its fleet.
The acquisition price is $3.45 billion and consists of approximately $2.55 billion in cash and approximately $900 million in Talen stock. The transaction is expected to provide immediate and significant adjusted free cash flow per share accretion in excess of 15% annually through 2030E. Additionally, these assets are expected to achieve an approximately 85% unlevered free cash flow conversion rate before recognition of any tax benefits.
“When this transaction is complete, Talen will have approximately doubled its expected annual generation output inside of two years, meaningfully diversified our fleet, and materially increased our free cash flow per share,” said Terry Nutt, Talen President. “We are also excited to welcome ECP as a significant Talen shareholder.”
The 1,218-MW Lawrenceburg and 869-MW Waterford facilities have an average heat rate of approximately 7,000 Btu/kWh and capacity factors greater than 80%. The 480-megawatt Darby facility also operates as a peaking unit. Talen argues that the addition of the facilities to its portfolio enhances the company’s ability to offer low-carbon capacity to hyperscale data centers and large commercial off-takers.
Talen expects to issue new debt to fund the cash portion of the purchase price.
The transaction is expected to close early in the second half of 2026 and is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission and other regulatory agencies.
OLYMPIA, Washington — On January 22, 2026, the Washington State Supreme Court heard oral arguments centering on the legality of I-2066, centering on how the initiative’s title misled voters by its ballot title and instead silently amended existing climate and clean air laws and programs across multiple state agencies, utilities, ... [continued]
ATLANTA — Yesterday, environmental groups pushed back on Georgia Power’s defense of its plan to build the most expensive gas plants in the nation. The Sierra Club, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and the Southern Environmental Law Center filed a response to Georgia Power and the Georgia Public Service Commission’s reply ... [continued]
Germany’s hydrogen backbone now exists as steel in the ground and pressurized pipe, but the more important infrastructure was laid long before any trench was dug. That infrastructure was intellectual. A long sequence of studies, models, and policy-facing analyses created the impression that large scale hydrogen for energy use was ... [continued]
The idea that heavy freight would be the last redoubt of diesel has been repeated for decades, often with confidence and rarely with evidence. In December 2025, that idea finally collapsed. Battery-electric heavy duty trucks crossed 50% of new sales in China, a segment that had long been treated as ... [continued]
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