Nov 5, 2026 | Policy & Regulations, Renewable Energy, Smartgrids
OpenAI’s promise to cut up to 1,000 MW from its Georgia data centre when the grid is strained is the right idea, published as half a number. A megawatt figure with no hours, no event count and no notice period tells a grid planner almost nothing. And the best...
Oct 21, 2026 | Policy & Regulations, Renewable Energy, Smartgrids
Load factor is your average electricity demand divided by your peak demand over a period — a number between zero and one. A 24/7 data centre runs about 0.88; a restaurant about 0.32. It is the single figure that predicts how much of an electricity bill is demand...
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...
Sep 24, 2026 | Policy & Regulations, Renewable Energy, Smartgrids
An energy-only market pays a power plant for one thing: the electricity it actually generates, priced moment to moment. A capacity market pays it twice — once for that energy, and again, years in advance, simply for promising to be available when demand peaks. That...
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...
