Aug 15, 2026 | Renewable Energy, Smartgrids
A peaker plant is a power station built to sit idle. It earns its keep by running a few hours a year, on the evenings when demand spikes and everything cheaper is already maxed out — and that scarcity is exactly why it produces the most expensive electricity on the...
Aug 14, 2026 | Home Electrification, Renewable Energy, Smartgrids
Green Mountain Power spent this July doing something no utility did a decade ago: it dispatched 90 MW of home batteries during a heat wave, avoided the most expensive hour on the wholesale market, and saved every customer on its system $6 million — not just the ones...
Aug 14, 2026 | Renewable Energy, Smartgrids, Wind
Build a 100 MW wind farm in PJM and the grid will pay you for about 34 MW of it. The turbines are real, the nameplate is real, and the other 66 MW is not a penalty or an accounting trick. It is the grid’s estimate of how much of your wind farm it can count on...
Aug 7, 2026 | Renewable Energy, Smartgrids
Gas did not win the AI power race. In 2026 the US grid will add a record 86 GW of capacity, and 6.3 GW of it is natural gas — 7% of the total, behind solar, batteries and wind. The turbine order books everyone points to are real, but the first slots GE Vernova is...
Aug 2, 2026 | Hydro, Renewable Energy, Smartgrids
Global pumped storage capacity passed 201 GW in 2025, the first time it has cleared 200, on a record 11.7 GW of additions. There is 243 GW more under construction. China accounts for 218 GW of it — 90% of everything being built on the planet. North America, by...
Aug 1, 2026 | Renewable Energy, Smartgrids, Wind
In PJM’s 2026/27 capacity auction, onshore wind was credited at 41% of its nameplate rating and a four-hour battery at 50%. In the 2028/29 auction held this July, wind was credited at 34% and the battery at 59%. Storage has overtaken wind on the one measure wind...
