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The BrightVolt Take: Storage’s GWh Record Hides a GW Stall

The BrightVolt Take: Storage’s GWh Record Hides a GW Stall

Oct 21, 2026 | Battery Technology, Renewable Energy, Smartgrids

The United States installed a record 18.9 gigawatt-hours of battery storage in the second quarter of 2026 — and 7% less power than it did a year earlier. Both figures come from the same Wood Mackenzie and American Clean Power report, and both are true, because they...
Must-Run Generation: the Fossil Floor That Spills Solar

Must-Run Generation: the Fossil Floor That Spills Solar

Oct 10, 2026 | Policy & Regulations, Renewable Energy, Smartgrids

A coal plant cannot switch off when the sun comes out. Below roughly a third of its rated output the boiler runs too cool to burn cleanly and the turbine starts to complain, so the plant holds a floor of generation through the brightest, lowest-demand hours of the...
The BrightVolt Take: The VPP Dispatch That Beat Our Forecast

The BrightVolt Take: The VPP Dispatch That Beat Our Forecast

Sep 26, 2026 | Battery Technology, Home Electrification, Renewable Energy, Smartgrids

On 9 September 2026, Sunrun and Tesla dispatched 580 megawatts from roughly 140,000 home batteries into California’s grid during a heat wave — the largest residential virtual-power-plant event on record, and enough to match a mid-sized gas peaker. A month...
Renewable Curtailment: Why Grids Throw Away Clean Power

Renewable Curtailment: Why Grids Throw Away Clean Power

Sep 24, 2026 | Renewable Energy, Smartgrids

Curtailment is a power grid deliberately throwing away electricity it could have used — almost always wind or solar, almost always free at the point of generation. In the first half of 2026, China alone spilled an estimated 360 terawatt-hours of clean power, more than...
The BrightVolt Take: How Texas Out-Built California on Batteries

The BrightVolt Take: How Texas Out-Built California on Batteries

Sep 21, 2026 | Battery Technology, Policy & Regulations, Renewable Energy, Smartgrids

Texas has built the largest grid-battery fleet in the United States — roughly 21 GW of operating capacity by mid-2026, against California’s 17 GW — and it did so with no storage mandate, no capacity market and no climate target. The lesson the rest of the...