Saturday, 4 July 2026

Wholesale power prices in Spain turned negative for 397 hours in the first quarter, up from 48 hours a year earlier and closing in on the 555 hours recorded across the whole of 2025, according to pv magazine.

The sharpest single stretch hit -EUR 58.60/MWh over the 12:00 to 12:45 CET window on February 21, with solar output at 15.6 GW against demand of 24.6 GW, according to pv magazine.

José Donoso, director general of the Spanish PV association UNEF, said the market is out of step with the current generation mix. "We have a pricing system that is ill-suited to a scenario of high renewable penetration and low demand," Donoso told pv magazine.

Granted demand connection capacity stands near 43 GW, while average system demand sits close to 35 GW, according to pv magazine. UNEF puts the timeline for new electricity-intensive demand to fully materialize at three to five years.

Generators also carry a fixed tax load. The IVPEE, set at 7% of electricity generation revenue, dates to 2013 and was designed to chip away at the power system's accumulated tariff deficit, according to pv magazine.

The February 21 episode shows the pressure on midday output: solar of 15.6 GW fed into demand that reached only 24.6 GW, pushing prices below zero, according to pv magazine. Donoso ties the recurring negative hours to a pricing framework that does not fit high renewable supply and thin demand, a mismatch UNEF expects to persist until new load arrives over its three-to-five-year window.

A USD 116 billion paper gain landed for Elon Musk after he exercised his full 2018 Tesla CEO pay package and picked up 303,960,630 shares, an SEC filing shows, as first reported by Electrek.

The options carried a split-adjusted strike of USD 23.34. With Tesla closing at USD 404.66 on the exercise day, each share opened a spread of USD 381.32 between what Musk paid and what the stock was worth.

Musk covered the exercise bill through net settlement instead of cash. Tesla held back 17,531,857 shares, valued near USD 7.1 billion at the closing price, to settle the cost. The move left him holding 286,428,773 net new shares, all restricted and locked until they vest on January 19, 2028 under a service-based condition.

Tesla lodged a Form 4 and a Schedule 13G amendment with the SEC on June 17, each logging the transaction as June 16, 2026. Behind the exercise sat an Implementation Agreement the board signed on April 21, 2026. Musk filed his exercise notice on June 9, which started a five-business-day clock that ran out on June 16.

Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick had struck down the 2018 award in 2024, finding the board conflicted and shareholders misled. That ruling did not hold: the Delaware Supreme Court overturned it in December 2025, judging full rescission too severe.

This award stands apart from the USD 1 trillion 2025 pay grant that shareholders backed in November, a package that vests in tranches stretching to 2035.

Musk paid more than USD 11 billion in taxes when he cashed in his separate 2012 award in 2021, a far smaller event than this one.