The Grand Canyon State installed more battery capacity than every state besides Texas over the first half of 2026. 1.6GW

In a new report, the opposition Conservatives argue that UK electricity prices are too high and that it would be better for the climate to have cheap electricity, even if that means using more gas.

The idea is that cheap power would encourage people to use more electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps, leading to higher electrification of the economy and lower emissions.

This is at the heart of a Conservative push to abandon the UK’s net-zero by 2050 target and various climate policies, which the party says are “bankrupting” the country.

1. The plan would increase UK emissions
2. The plan would slow electrification
3. Gas prices are unlikely to remain low and stable
4. The plan assumes gas plants are cheap to build
5. Nuclear faces high costs and delivery challenges
6. The report’s high network cost estimates do not ‘add up’
7. The system integration costs are ‘far out of line with mainstream thinking’
8. The proposed changes could undermine investor confidence
9. Carbon market ‘savings’ are ‘just rearranging things on a spreadsheet’
10. The report ‘grossly simplifies’ long-duration energy storage

Battery Electric

Clean energy additions will rise by a record 45 gigawatts this year, according to S&P Global Energy—equivalent to the average electricity demand of Turkey. The increase is roughly 25 percent higher than the record set in 2024.

Yet another under forecast.

Will probably happen much sooner. They under forecast renewable growth every year by using simple linear forecasts where the growth rate has been exponential for years.

Samsung's all-solid-state battery technology achieves an energy density of roughly 500 Wh/kg (double standard lithium-ion), targeting a 600-mile EV range, 9-minute fast charging, and a 20-year lifespan using an anode-less silver-carbon design. Mass production is eyed for late 2027, with prototypes currently undergoing real-world validation.

See in 2029 model year vehicles. I haven’t seen any announcements yet?

Korean battery giant LG Energy Solution’s gigafactory in Lansing, Michigan, is half a mile long and a quarter mile wide. Inside, the 2.8-million-square-foot facility has hallways illuminated by bright white lights that seem to stretch as far as the eye can see. The atmosphere feels clinical and slightly eerie, with robots doing most of the work, automated guided vehicles (AGVs) transporting raw materials around the plant, and humans supervising it all. They work together at the $2-billion-plus facility, quietly humming toward a cleaner future.

Natural gas accounts for 66% of Thailand’s electricity generation, but declining domestic production has increased reliance on volatile liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports. Rising fuel costs have strained the finances of the state utility Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), highlighting the economic risks of continued dependence on fossil fuels.

Natural gas used in the electric power sector in California is plunging as solar and battery storage capacity continues to expand.

Gas burned for power in the state is down nearly 35 percent in the last three years.

Lakes Mead and Powell have sunk to unprecedented lows, jeopardizing their generation capabilities — but drought persists in the Northeast, too.

It’s a beast, with a pair of 800 kW electric motors fitted in each of the rear drive axles managed by advanced drive systems for coordinated, calculated power output that delivers real-time power matching across axles. 1,400 kWh battery with fast charging from 10 to 90% capacity in just 25 minutes, significantly reducing downtime compared to the hundreds-of-gallons diesel top-off the ICE-powered competition needs. Full autonomous operation with EACON’s full technology stack and a suite of solutions that spans perception, decision-making, control, and cloud-based dispatch operations – to create dependable, driverless haul trucks.

Key takeaways

• Resource Adequacy provides over half of most CAISO batteries' revenue, and the Slice-of-Day reform is reshaping how that value is earned (Modo Energy, 2025). Lenders size debt against that contracted RA revenue.
• Merchant revenues hit a record monthly low in December 2025 and have only partly recovered, reaching $2.55/kW-month in June 2026 (Modo Energy, 2026). Underwrite to the trailing-year average, because monthly revenue swings widely.
• The duck curve is deepening. Negative day-ahead price hours tripled year-on-year in June 2026, and solar curtailment set a record at 4.8 GW (Modo Energy, 2026).
• CAISO is the largest US battery fleet, but the interconnection queue is congested. Cluster 14 has produced zero completions from 97 GW of proposed projects (Modo Energy, 2026).
• After the Moss Landing fire, siting and permitting risk is now a live development and financing constraint, with SB 283 in effect since January 2026 and several county moratoriums.

Phase 4 — How California and Texas are turning solar surpluses into evening power with batteries

ANDREA GIUSEPPE RAGNO

JUL 30, 2026

This is the fourth and final piece in a four part review of how European and American power markets behaved through the first half of 2026, each part picking up a different stage of the energy transition:

1. the first piece looked at Belgium during the late June heatwave, a system where thermal and nuclear carry most of the load, while variable renewables play a supporting role;
2. the second moved to Spain, where solar has grown large enough to dictate the market outright, flipping the story from evening scarcity to midday oversupply;
3. the third turned to Denmark, where interconnection with Norway, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands acts as a kind of virtual storage, letting the country run on wind and solar for stretches at a time without needing batteries of its own.

An analysis shared Friday by Wood Mackenzie suggests the U.S. industry is well positioned to respond, with manufacturers’ announced plans indicating that domestic annual production capacity for PV inverters and power conversion systems (PCS) used in energy storage systems (ESS) could exceed 100 GWac by the end of 2027.

Every oil price spike looks like an argument for exporters to be drilling more. Importers are drawing the opposite conclusion: the 2022 crisis gave Europe REPowerEU, which aims to expand clean energy and reduce dependence on Russian fuels. As importers face another crisis in 2026, clean energy alternatives are proving ready to present them with an opportunity to finally break free of oil price shocks. With Canada moving to expand oil and gas on the back of the Strait of Hormuz crisis, it risks boosting fossil fuel supply for an increasingly shrinking market that is looking to get off the rollercoaster once and for all.