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Sunday, 5 July 2026

11 briefs so farlast update 18:51 UTC

Key points

  • TYNDP 2026 draft sees European power demand climbing about 20% this decade.
  • Wood Mackenzie sees US wind adding 46 GW through 2029 as data center load surges.
  • NESO Opens Industry Input on Redesigning Great Britain's Wholesale Power Market.
  • Bruce Unit 3 Back in Service Seven Months Early After Refurbishment.
All sectionsPolicy & GeopoliticsRenewablesGrid & StorageGeneration

Policy & Geopolitics

Alabama Governor Names Four PSC Commissioners, Including State's First Black Appointees

Four new members joined the Alabama Public Service Commission (PSC) under appointments Governor Kay Ivey made on Wednesday, and two will take office in January as the first Black commissioners the body has ever seated. In its 145-year run, the PSC has never had a Black commissioner, Inside Climate News reported.

Those appointments precede a larger overhaul. A law passed this year grows the commission from three seats to seven starting in 2027, and future members will win their seats by congressional district instead of statewide ballots.

The same law hands the next governor power to name Alabama's first secretary of energy, a cabinet-level post that will set the PSC agenda. Reversing that secretary on questions currently held by commissioners will demand a vote of five of the seven members.

Both sitting commissioners, Jeremy Oden and Chris Beeker III, cleared the way for the shift after losing their reelection bids in Republican primaries this year.

Alabama Power anchors the docket the reshaped commission will inherit. Residential customers of the utility carry the highest total electric bills among the country's 100 largest utilities, driven by above-average rates and heavy electricity use, a 2025 Inside Climate News analysis found. Rate cases and resource decisions affecting those bills now pass through a commission that will nearly double in size before 2027.

Source: insideclimatenews.org (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink

Policy & Geopolitics

NESO Opens Industry Input on Redesigning Great Britain's Wholesale Power Market

The National Energy System Operator (NESO) is asking industry how to redesign the wholesale electricity market across Great Britain, opening a Call for Input on proposed reforms aimed at the market's efficient operation and future development.

Responses close on April 14, 2026. Alongside the input request, NESO is seeking Expressions of Interest from firms wanting seats on an Expert Group run with Ofgem and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) to help shape the reforms and how they are put into practice.

The work sits under the Reformed National Pricing (RNP) programme, which follows a government decision to keep one nationwide market rather than split the country into zones. The REMA Summer Update 2025 confirmed that Great Britain will keep a single national wholesale electricity market.

NESO says the RNP programme aims to sharpen investment signals, run the system more efficiently, cut constraint related costs, and back the Clean Power 2030 action plan.

Constraint costs have moved to the center of the reform debate. Payments to curtail wind output where transmission is tight, and to fire up gas plants past network bottlenecks, land on consumers through balancing charges. By naming those costs as a target, NESO signals that locational signals inside a single national price, not zonal splits, will do the heavy lifting.

The Expert Group gives generators, suppliers, network owners and large consumers a direct seat at the table to settle detailed design questions with NESO, Ofgem and DESNZ.

Source: gov.uk (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink

High voltage transmission pylons and power lines crossing green British countryside with distant wind turbine and power plant.
Photo: Altaf Shah / Pexels (opens in a new tab)