Sunday, 19 July 2026

Palm Beach County commissioners are set to cast a final vote on July 15 on Project Tango, a hyperscale AI campus planned for a 202-acre parcel north of Southern Boulevard, according to Inside Climate News.

The county's zoning commission had already moved against the plan. On July 2, its members voted 6-0 to recommend denial after 39 residents spoke against the project at a hearing, splitting from planning staff who backed approval, Inside Climate News reported.

The amended proposal reshuffles the site's use rather than its size. The data center portion would grow nearly fivefold to 1 million square feet, while the overall footprint holds at roughly 3.6 million square feet, with warehouse space shrinking to make room, according to Inside Climate News.

Project critics put the campus power draw above 600 megawatts, a figure they calculate at more than 17 times the largest traditional data center in Florida, Inside Climate News reported.

The developer says it holds a binding power service agreement with Florida Power & Light, whose 3,750-megawatt West County Energy Center sits across the canal from the parcel, according to Inside Climate News.

Permitting adds another layer. A state law effective July 1 requires the South Florida Water Management District's governing board to hold a hearing before granting a water permit to any data center with peak demand of at least 50 megawatts, a level Project Tango would clear, Inside Climate News reported. No application has been filed, so no such hearing has taken place.

The district said as of July 10 that it had received no consumptive use or environmental resource permit applications tied to the project, according to Inside Climate News.

A 500 kW floating solar pilot has begun operating at the Port of Valencia, developed by BlueNewables with backing from Naturgy, pv magazine reported. The outlet described it as Spain's first offshore solar platform.

The catamaran-style unit sits within a wider effort begun in March 2025, which pairs two floating platforms branded PV bos for a combined 1 MW, according to pv magazine. Together the installation should produce roughly 1,500 MWh of electricity each year, the outlet reported.

The platforms carry 600 solar modules apiece on a deck measuring 64 m by 41 m, per pv magazine.

Construction took place at the San Enrique shipyard in Vigo, Galicia, a yard held by the Marina Meridional Group. The unit was named Paiporta after the Valencian municipality struck by the 2024 Dana storm, pv magazine reported.

Coordination runs through the Port Authority of Valencia, with funding from an IDAE grant under the Renmarinas Valenciaport program, itself drawing on NextGenerationEU money, according to pv magazine.

Gridcog closed a USD 10 million Series A round led by ABB to grow software that models storage, renewables, flexible load, and hybrid energy projects, according to ESS News.

Axpo, DNV Ventures, and VERBUND X Ventures joined ABB in backing the round, ESS News reported. AlbionVC and Clean Energy Finance Corp., both already on the shareholder register, added support.

The company said its platform has run models for more than 16,000 projects spread across more than 40 countries. Users of the software include Shell and Octopus Energy Generation, according to Gridcog.

Stuart Thompson, president of ABB's electrification service division, tied the raise to a shift toward projects that pair renewables, storage, and flexible loads. "The energy transition increasingly depends on projects that combine renewables, storage and flexible loads," Thompson said.

Halliburton has secured integrated drilling and completions contracts for the GranMorgu deepwater project offshore Suriname, a development operated by TotalEnergies, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Block 58, where the field sits, is run by TotalEnergies with a 50% stake, with APA Corporation holding the remainder, according to OEDigital. TotalEnergies sanctioned the GranMorgu development in October 2024.

The fields lie 150 km off Suriname's coast, with recoverable reserves put at more than 750 million barrels, according to OEDigital. GranMorgu will bring the Sapakara and Krabdagu oil discoveries into production, following an exploration and appraisal campaign completed in 2023.

Halliburton said the award sets up what it described as its first global alliance with TotalEnergies and Noble.

Before the contract work began, Halliburton upgraded its liquid mud and cement plant using local suppliers and backed the build of Suriname's first drilling and completions workshop equipped for maintenance and repair, according to OEDigital.

Five floating offshore wind developers active in the Celtic Sea have created the Celtic Sea Forum, a body meant to coordinate work across Wales and southwest England, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Membership brings together Blue Gem Wind, White Cross Offshore Wind, Gwynt Glas, Ocean Winds and Equinor, each advancing floating wind schemes in the region. The Crown Estate chairs the group, and Marine Energy Wales and clean energy consultancy Regen have joined as participants, with Julia Rose, Head of Offshore Wind at The Crown Estate, in the chairing role.

Large-scale construction on Leasing Round 5 projects will begin in the mid-2030s. Ahead of that, the group said findings from floating wind test and demonstration projects will cut costs, expand supply chain capacity and shape later commercial-scale developments.

Saudi Arabia swung to a current account surplus in the first quarter of 2026, its first in nearly two years, as oil revenues rose and imports fell, according to Semafor Net Zero.

The swing came from two directions at once: crude sales brought in more money, while a drop in imported goods reaching the kingdom shrank the outflow side of the ledger.

The economy has absorbed the strains of the Iran war, wrote Tim Callen, former IMF mission chief to the kingdom, in a piece for the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute. Callen credited a decades-old oil pipeline to the Red Sea and disciplined fiscal management.

That pipeline mattered for sales during the conflict. Aramco's East-West pipeline, together with its storage assets held in various countries, let the company capture higher crude prices while the war ran, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Looking past the quarter, Callen wrote that Saudi policymakers are expected to keep building resilience through new pipelines and upgrades to air, rail, sea, and road links.

VinFast has introduced the VF 2 electric city car and launched it first in Vietnam, according to electrive. The company expects to begin customer deliveries in September.

Electrive reports the VF 2 is priced at 188 million dong (6,257 euros), below the Minio Green at 269 million dong (8,953 euros).

The car runs on a rear-mounted single motor producing 30 kW and 65 Nm of torque, according to electrive. VinFast offers Eco and Normal drive modes and claims a top speed of 80 kph.

Electrive reports the VF 2 uses an 18.3 kWh battery pack delivering a range of 210 kilometres. Charging runs at up to 24 kW, and a 10-70 per cent session takes approximately 34 minutes.

VinFast will include ten complimentary charging sessions per month at V-Green public charging stations across Vietnam until 10 February 2029, according to electrive.

Wood Mackenzie placed Sungrow first in its inaugural global ranking of battery energy storage system (BESS) integrators, ahead of Tesla and CATL, according to ESS News.

The assessment arrived as annual global battery storage installations exceeded 100 GW for the first time in 2025, ESS News reported.

BYD placed fourth in the ranking, while Envision and Trina Storage shared fifth place, according to ESS News. Fluence, LG, Canadian Solar, and Wartsila completed the top 10.

Nine of the top 10 companies invested more than 4% of annual revenue in research and development during 2025, ESS News reported. Six of the top 10 have more than a decade of experience integrating BESS projects.

The Wood Mackenzie report awarded 24 manufacturers a Grade A rating, according to ESS News.

Austin Energy and Entergy Texas have selected FranklinWH's residential home storage system for new virtual power plant (VPP) demand response programs, according to Solar Builder.

The Austin Energy pilot is capped at 1,500 participants, Solar Builder reported. The utility is targeting 78 MW of demand capacity by 2027 and 270 MW by 2035 through the effort.

Entergy Texas's Battery Storage Solutions program will pay customers up to USD 325 per year for participating, according to Solar Builder.

FranklinWH now participates in 25 VPPs nationwide, said CEO Gary Lam.

Texas ranks second in the Solar Energy Industries Association's (SEIA) Solar State by State rankings, according to Solar Builder. About 60% of the state's new residential solar installations come with paired battery storage.

AI data centers can no longer be treated as passive customers by electric utilities, according to POWER Magazine.

For decades, even very large electric customers fit within a familiar utility planning model, POWER Magazine wrote. In that model, the utility studied the load, identified required facilities, assigned costs, and folded the demand into its planning.

Norway's Safe union and employers agreed to end a labour dispute in the oil service industry that had disrupted offshore drilling and cut the country's petroleum production, according to industry group Offshore Norway.

The two sides will now submit to voluntary arbitration, Offshore Norway said.

The Safe union launched its strike on June 15 after wage talks broke down, according to Offshore Norway. Employers responded by announcing a lockout from June 27 that affected close to 2,000 employees.

By July 9, the dispute had cut Norway's petroleum output by a cumulative 2.4 million barrels of oil equivalent, Offshore Norway said. The group described that loss as equal to more than half a day's total production.

Offshore Norway had warned that if the dispute continued, it could reduce output by about 120,000 boed by mid-July, up from an initial impact of around 12,000 boed.

The dispute affected oil service companies including SLB, Halliburton, Subsea 7, DOF Subsea, Weatherford, DeepOcean and Baker Hughes, according to Offshore Norway.

Norway is Europe's largest supplier of pipeline gas and produced more than 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2025.

Two subsidiaries of deep-sea mining firm The Metals Company (TMC) have gone to court to stop an International Seabed Authority (ISA) investigation into their conduct, according to Climate Home News.

The subsidiaries, Tonga Offshore Mining Ltd and Nauru Ocean Resources Inc, brought their case to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in June, Climate Home News reported. Both firms want the inquiry frozen until the tribunal rules.

ISA secretary-general Leticia Carvalho pushed back on the challenge to the regulator's authority over ocean governance. "The deep seabed belongs to no single country and no corporation; it belongs to all of us," Carvalho said, calling its resources the "common heritage of humankind," according to Climate Home News.

The legal fight comes after TMC secured a separate green light outside ISA channels. In May, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) certified the company's application to explore 120,000 square kilometers of sea floor, Climate Home News reported.

Talks on the ISA rulebook that would govern commercial extraction remain stuck. The body has spent more than 12 years drafting a mining code for the deep ocean floor without reaching agreement, according to Climate Home News.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects the EU Methane Emissions Regulation (EU MER) to cut the pool of tradable crudes available to European Union refiners by over half once the import rules apply on January 1, 2027.

In force since August 2024, the regulation obliges importers of crude oil, natural gas, and coal to show that upstream producers meet monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) standards on par with EU requirements, or reach Level 5 of the United Nations Environment Program's Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP 2.0).

Drawing on OGMP 2.0 data, the IEA puts roughly 22.5 million b/d of global output as meeting Level 5 criteria in 2027. That volume marks the ceiling on crude EU refiners could source once the import provisions bite.

North American exports supplied 23% of EU crude imports in the second quarter of 2026, the IEA said.

No EU-accredited third-party verifiers are yet in place to confirm MRV compliance, according to the IEA. As a result, a producer operating at OGMP 2.0 Level 5 standards still has no route to certify its compliance under the EU MER.

Aptera announced a partnership with RepairPal that gives access to 4,300 service shops across the United States, according to Electrek. Only about 200 of those shops are currently certified to work on high-voltage EV batteries, Electrek reported.

RepairPal does not own its own shops. Instead it certifies local shops to work on particular models of car, according to Electrek.

The service deal arrives before the vehicle has cleared its full regulatory path. Aptera recently earned its EPA Certificate of Conformity, a regulatory step required for all vehicles, Electrek reported. The company is still waiting on Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) certification.

Aptera is taking reservations now for USD 100, according to Electrek.

The initial incarnation of Aptera folded in 2011 and was brought back to life in 2019 by its original founders, Electrek reported.

Kempower and charge point operator PowerUp America opened a public DC fast charging station in Manchester, Kentucky, the first of 12 charging projects the two companies are building together in the Southeast, according to Electrek.

Electrek reported the Manchester site sits at 425 KY-80 and operates 24/7. It is the only Kentucky project in the initial rollout, with the remaining 11 sites under development in Georgia.

The station features four Kempower Flex Satellite chargers carrying both NACS and CCS1 connectors, per Electrek. The site offers up to 800 kW of available power across the chargers.

PowerUp designed the location with pull-through charging spaces for larger vehicles and towing, along with covered canopies, according to Electrek.

Monil Malhotra is president of Kempower North America.

Nissan is recalling 3,788 new 2026 Leaf EVs over faulty rear outboard seat belt assemblies, according to Electrek.

Consumer Reports engineers found that the 2026 Leaf's rear seat belt failed to stay locked when used to secure a child seat, per Electrek. The vehicle fails to meet federal safety standards for Occupant Crash Protection.

Consumer Reports notified Nissan of the rear seat belt issue on April 22, 2026, according to Electrek.

Nissan traced the fault to its supplier and found no other Nissan vehicles were affected.

Nissan expects a fix to be available this winter, according to Electrek. Notification letters warning owners of the safety risk will be mailed on July 17, 2026.

Global electric vehicle sales hit 2 million in June 2026, pushing sales for the year so far to 9.6 million, according to Electrek. That volume ran 7% ahead of the same month last year and 11% above May.

Europe posted its best EV month ever in June, according to Electrek. Sales there climbed 28% from May and 31% from a year earlier, while France, Denmark, Spain, and Portugal each logged fresh monthly highs. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence senior EV analyst George Whitcombe called the region a key driver of growth after another record month.

In France, Renault took a 20% slice of the EV market during the month, and four of the five top-selling models there carried Renault badges, according to Electrek.

North American sales tell a different story, down 20% so far this year. Benchmark ties much of that drop to weaker policy support after the US federal EV tax credit ended. All-electric sales at GM and Ford have slid deeper than the wider US EV market as both retool their EV plans, according to Benchmark.

China's home market remained down year over year, with June sales off 11% and the year-to-date figure off 14%, according to Electrek. Its automakers turned to shipments abroad, sending nearly 500,000 new energy vehicles overseas in June for another monthly record.

Lotus sent its first Chinese-built Eletre SUVs to Canada in early July under a tariff quota, according to Electrek. The arrangement lets up to 49,000 Chinese-built EVs enter at a 6.1% tariff, cut from a previous 100% surtax.

Talen Energy cleared 10,180 megawatts in the PJM Interconnection Base Residual Auction for the 2028/2029 planning year at a clearing price of USD 325 per megawatt-day, according to a GlobeNewswire release from Talen Energy.

The results equate to approximately USD 1,208 million in capacity revenues for Talen Energy over that planning year, the company said.

The PJM 2028/2029 planning year runs from June 1, 2028 through May 31, 2029, according to Talen Energy.

Talen Energy owns and operates approximately 15.6 gigawatts of power infrastructure in the United States, including 2.2 gigawatts of nuclear power and a dispatchable fossil fleet, the company said.

BYD's new Qin Max will join the Qin lineup as a larger sibling to the Qin L, positioned above it as a B-segment fast-charging sedan, according to Electrek.

Lu Tian, general manager of BYD's Ocean series, previewed the Qin Max for the first time on BYD's Weibo page on Sunday, Electrek reported.

BYD vehicles equipped with Blade Batteries 2.0 and Flash Charging can recharge from 10% to 97% in nine minutes, and from 10% to 70% in five minutes, per Electrek.

A filing with China's MIIT lists the Qin Max at 4,866 mm long, 1,880 mm wide, and 1,495 mm tall, with a wheelbase of 2,790 mm, according to Electrek.

The Qin Max EV motor will be offered with two power outputs, 120 kW (160 hp) or 240 kW (321 hp), Electrek reported.

According to CarNewsChina, the Qin Max will offer 52.868 kWh and 64.315 kWh Blade Battery options, delivering CLTC ranges of 530 km (330 miles) and 630 km (391 miles) respectively.

BYD said the Qin L EV, launched last year starting at 119,800 yuan ($17,500), sold over 10,000 units in its first week, per Electrek.

A UK energy industry coalition sent a letter to all 403 Labour members of Parliament on Tuesday, pressing them to support continued North Sea oil and gas development, according to World Oil.

The letter told MPs that choices made by the new government would shape how far the UK sustains its own production against rising reliance on imported oil and gas, World Oil reported.

David Whitehouse, chief executive of Offshore Energies UK, said domestic energy production should be kept alongside greater investment in renewable and low-carbon technologies. He tied that mix to "energy security, economic resilience and reindustrialization," according to World Oil.

GMB General Secretary Gary Smith said keeping oil and gas produced at home is essential to cutting dependence on imported energy while protecting jobs, communities and national security, World Oil reported.

The coalition backed the letter with coordinated displays on offshore installations and industrial sites. The campaign signage read, "Back North Sea oil and gas. Not imports."

US President Donald Trump abandoned a plan to charge a 20% toll in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Semafor. The retreat came a day after a White House official told Semafor that Trump was "very serious" about the fee.

Analysts were skeptical about the proposal because it would double the cost of moving oil through the strait, Semafor reported.

Hours after the retreat, Washington restarted its naval blockade of Iranian ports and launched fresh strikes against Iran, according to Semafor.

The Wall Street Journal described the moves as Trump's latest shift in military strategy after aerial attacks, the original blockade, and a ceasefire failed to force Tehran into surrendering.

New York announced a data center moratorium on Tuesday, placing a one-year suspension on construction of large-scale data center facilities in the state, according to Semafor Net Zero.

The measure is the first of its kind in the US, Semafor Net Zero reported.

The move lands as a Gallup poll showed Americans' confidence in Big Tech is at a new low, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Cypress Creek and Google have broken ground on a solar and battery storage project that CleanTechnica describes as America's largest solar project.

According to CleanTechnica, the project will include 2.5 GWdc of solar and 2.9 GWh of battery storage once fully complete.

CleanTechnica reported that the project will support 700 construction jobs per phase.

The project is being built with Arkansas steel and American-made components, according to CleanTechnica.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) and onshore wind will deliver 93% of electricity supply under the cheapest path to net zero by 2050 for the electricity sector, according to the final GenCost 2025-26 report from CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).

The report is the eighth annual assessment by the two agencies of the costs of new-build electricity generation, storage and hydrogen technologies. It concludes that solar and onshore wind continue to deliver the lowest levelised cost of electricity from the current day out to 2050.

GenCost is designed as an objective benchmark to guide policy out to 2030 and 2050.

Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action has started a project with turbine manufacturers, utilities, and grid operators to deploy hydrogen-ready gas-fired power plants, hydrogen sprinter plants, and long-duration storage across southern Germany, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The project brings together turbine manufacturers, utilities, and grid operators to roll out the plants and storage solutions in the region, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Hydrogen Fuel News reported that the initiative is aligned with the Kraftwerksstrategie and Germany's National Hydrogen Strategy. The effort aims to secure electricity delivery starting in 2031, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

Hyundai has unveiled HTWO Energy Cheongju, described by Hydrogen Fuel News as South Korea's first sewage-to-hydrogen hub.

The facility produces 500 kg/day of clean hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles, with plans to scale up to 2 tons/day, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

It sits at the Cheongju Public Sewage Treatment Plant and is the first of its kind that Hyundai directly operates, transforming sewage sludge into clean hydrogen fuel, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

The waste-to-hydrogen hub is part of the vision from Hyundai Motor Group, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

Uruguay's state-owned utility UTE and Chile's HIF Global have agreed on the electricity tariff for a 1 GW green hydrogen plant in the Paysandú region, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The deal removes the main hurdle to the project's final investment decision, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

The project pairs a gigawatt-scale electrolysis facility with dedicated wind and solar parks that together hold 2 GW of generation capacity, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

Hydrogen Fuel News reported the plant is poised to be one of the largest private investments in Uruguay's history.

Solar delivered a quarter of the European Union's electricity in June 2026, a record share for the technology, according to CleanTechnica.

The outlet reported that 25% of EU power came from solar in June, the first time solar reached that level.

That output made solar the EU's largest single source of power for only the third month ever, according to CleanTechnica. The result marks a record share of EU power from solar for the month, the outlet reported.

A 500 kW floating solar photovoltaic (PV) platform developed by BlueNewables has arrived at the Port of Valencia, according to CleanTechnica. The publication describes it as Spain's first floating solar PV platform.

CleanTechnica reports that the system is designed to be quick to manufacture and to require little, simple maintenance.

Fewer than one in four home battery owners have signed up to a virtual power plant (VPP), according to a recent ACCC Electricity Inquiry cited by RenewEconomy.

The finding points to low participation among battery owners in schemes that pool household storage for grid use.

Plico is described as Australia's first 100% privately funded residential virtual power plant, according to RenewEconomy. It launched in Western Australia in 2017 and is led by chief executive Robbie Campbell.

The 150 MW Tauhei Solar Farm on New Zealand's North Island has been energized and has begun exporting electricity to the national grid, according to pv magazine. Project owner Harmony Energy and joint venture partner Igneo Infrastructure Partners announced the milestone, making Tauhei the country's largest solar farm to date.

The facility reached energization 15 months after construction started and two months after the last of almost 330,000 solar panels was installed, pv magazine reported. The outlet cited the developers describing the milestone as achieved well ahead of schedule.

Tauhei is built across a 182-hectare site near Hamilton in the North Island's northeast, according to pv magazine. It overtakes the 47 MW Lauriston Solar Farm, developed by Genesis and joint venture partner FRV Australia near Christchurch on the South Island, as New Zealand's largest.

Commercial operations are expected by October 2026, about four months ahead of schedule, pv magazine reported. Once operational, the farm will generate an estimated 280 GWh of renewable electricity per year, enough to power approximately 35,000 homes.

The project is supported by a power purchase agreement with gentailer Meridian Energy, which has signed a deal to buy 100% of the output for the first 10 years of operation, according to pv magazine.

The majority of the site will remain in productive farming, switching from dairy to sheep farming, pv magazine reported. The panels will provide shelter and shade for the sheep and help retain moisture in the ground during the hottest months of the year.

Longi measured 35.5% power conversion efficiency on a two-terminal crystalline silicon-perovskite tandem solar cell, a result it described as a world record for the technology, according to pv magazine. The company disclosed the figure on July 14 at its 2026 Solar and Storage Innovation Technology Conference, held at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

The European Solar Test Installation (ESTI), which sits within the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Italy, verified the measurement independently, pv magazine reported.

The reading exceeds Longi's earlier directly comparable laboratory mark of 34.85%, which the company reported in April 2025 with certification from the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). NREL also certified a 33% rating the company reported in June 2025 for a two-terminal perovskite-silicon tandem cell measuring 260.9 cm².

The higher efficiency arrives without a route to market. In June, Longi said it held no active mass-production plan for crystalline silicon-perovskite tandem cells.

A separate device technology is already scaling. Longi said its nano-alloy contact matrix technology has reached volume production at its 21 GW Xixian cell manufacturing project.

Data centers in Nebraska will be required to disclose more about their operations, including annual water use and power demand, to the state under a new law passed by the Nebraska Legislature, according to Grist.

Jesse Bradley, director of Nebraska's Department of Water, Energy, and Environment, told Grist the state agency will then assess what information gaps remain. Bradley called the legislation a "great start" that will help with future planning.

The disclosure requirement lands in a state that does not have an official count of how many data centers operate within its borders, according to Grist.

Google's Nebraska data centers consumed about 732 million gallons of water in 2025, according to the company.

From 2020 to 2024, Meta's four million square-foot Sarpy County data center withdrew between 26.7 million and 37.5 million gallons from the local water supply annually, depending on the year, according to Grist. That facility uses a combination of evaporative and closed loop cooling.

The International Maritime Organization said the Strait of Hormuz remains too dangerous for commercial vessels to transit, according to Rigzone.

Dominguez said 6,000 seafarers are still stranded. He also said there is no basis under international law for imposing tolls or mandatory payments on the waterway.

Shortly after a temporary accord in June, the IMO created a ship-evacuation program to rescue seafarers who had been trapped on ships inside the Persian Gulf, according to Rigzone. The UN agency scrapped the plan as Iran continued to attack commercial vessels in the waterway.

American Deep Sea Minerals is seeking the Trump administration's approval to lease 25 million acres of international waters for mining exploration just outside the exclusive economic zones of French Polynesia, the Cook Islands and Kiribati, according to Grist.

The target zone, called Eastern High Seas Pocket 3, is entirely surrounded by waters over which the three nations hold exclusive rights. Grist reports the area has an abundance of albacore, yellowfin, and bigeye tuna and is visited by dozens of fishing vessels each year.

The application is one of at least a dozen the Trump administration has received, and it is available for public comment until August 3, according to Grist. Trump announced that the United States would not await international permission and would begin allowing deep sea mining in the high seas under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act, a law passed during the Carter administration that lets the US permit mining in international waters.

Graham Goulet initially submitted his bid under the name Kraken Metals in August 2025 and paid USD 100,000 to submit the application, Grist reports. In April, the company hired Wouter Duijnstee, an environmental engineer who previously worked with Allseas, a Netherlands-based contractor that has provided deep sea mining equipment to The Metals Company.

The bid runs against recent moves by one of the neighboring nations. Last summer, at the United Nations World Ocean's Conference, French Polynesia established the world's largest contiguous marine protected area, reinforcing its 2022 ban on seabed mining, according to Grist.

Ørsted has awarded Windcat long-term contracts for crew transfer vessel services at its Grimsby operations in northeast England, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. The deals started in June and run a firm five years, with extension options attached.

Under the arrangement, Windcat keeps seven crew transfer vessels working for Ørsted's Generation UK Hub, which runs and maintains six offshore wind farms out of Grimsby's Royal Docks. Four of the vessels carry 12 passengers and three carry 24.

Windcat said Ørsted chose to swap earlier arrangements for fresh long-term contracts spanning the full fleet, pointing to operational performance and safety record.

Mark Hickson, Head of Nearshore, Generation UK at Ørsted, said the extension backs the developer's push for safe and efficient operations across the UK.

A retired coal mine site in the Hunter region will be rebuilt to dispatch 300 megawatts of pumped hydro and solar power over a 12-hour window after New South Wales cleared the plans, according to RenewEconomy.

NSW planning minister Paul Scully said the $1.8 billion Stratford Pumped Hydro and Solar project has been approved for construction at Yancoal Australia's former Stratford Mining Complex, an open-cut coal site in the Gloucester Basin north of Newcastle, RenewEconomy reported.

Gloucester Coal, a Yancoal subsidiary, first put the project forward in 2024, when mining stopped at Stratford, according to RenewEconomy.

No pumped hydro scheme had won final planning approval in NSW in the preceding six years, RenewEconomy reported.

U.S. prosecutors allege in an indictment unsealed earlier this year that a public affairs firm working on behalf of an oil giant matching Exxon's description hired Israeli private investigator Amit Forlit to execute a project that involved hacking climate activists, according to Grist.

Forlit faces hacking and wire fraud charges that could result in up to 45 years in prison, Grist reported. The U.S. government issued an arrest warrant and attempted to extradite him from the United Kingdom.

In court documents, Forlit alleged that the hacking was commissioned by DCI Group, a public affairs firm with a longtime relationship with Exxon, according to Grist. Reuters reported that the FBI had investigated DCI Group regarding the hacking operation.

DCI Group partner Craig Stevens said his firm has been told by the government that neither DCI nor any of its personnel are under investigation, according to Grist. Stevens said the firm had no knowledge of the alleged hacking activity.

Exxon has stated it has not been involved in or aware of any hacking activities and would condemn any such activity, Grist reported.

Exxon quoted the hacked meeting agenda in court filings to argue that activists were conspiring against the company as it faced subpoenas and lawsuits from 17 attorneys general, according to Grist.

Those investigations followed media reports that Exxon's own scientists determined as early as 1982 that the extraction and burning of fossil fuels caused climate change, according to Grist. The company went on to fund climate denial campaigns.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero launched the UK carbon management innovation challenge in July 2026, the first of a series of cleantech innovation challenges, according to the department's programme overview.

The challenge aims to accelerate the development, demonstration and commercialisation of innovative solutions for carbon capture and greenhouse gas removal in the UK, according to the department's notice.

The expression of interest form for the challenge coalition closes at 11.59pm on 23 August 2026, the department said.

The cleantech innovation challenges were announced in the Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan in October 2025 and launched in July 2026, according to the programme overview. Additional challenges are expected to be launched across 2026 and 2027.

Stromnetz Berlin has picked GE Vernova to build two 110 kV gas-insulated substations, one in Wittenau and one in Neukölln, according to GE Vernova. The company booked the order in April 2026 and did not disclose the financial terms.

Both substations will run on GE Vernova's g³ insulation, which the company says cuts the insulating medium's global warming potential by roughly 99% against SF₆.

Work on the Wittenau site is scheduled to span June 2026 through March 2031. The Neukölln build is set to run slightly longer, from June 2026 into January 2032.

Europe's grids need proven equipment that can be deployed quickly, said Frank Ennenbach, Central Europe Regional Leader for GE Vernova's Grid Systems Integration business line. GE Vernova says its technology underpins roughly 30% of Germany's electricity generation.

Clean Motion has put a swappable battery into its lightweight EVIG and started on-road trials in Stockholm, drawing on GoCimo's existing swap network, according to electrive. The van is running live delivery routes, including runs for Foodora.

The trial pairs Clean Motion with the City of Stockholm, Lund University, GoCimo, and Foodora, electrive reported. Test routes cover Stockholm's Old Town and the city's low-emission zones.

Depending on how the EVIG is configured, its stated range runs from 100 to 150 kilometres, according to electrive. A roof-mounted solar module is expected to add 40 to 50 kilometres of daily range when the weather cooperates.

GoCimo built its swap batteries mainly around electric scooters, electrive reported. Fitting the same packs to the EVIG carries that swap model into light electric commercial vans.

Getting the van ready took a year, according to electrive. Over the past twelve months the partners reworked the battery, mechanics, and interfaces so the EVIG could draw on the same swappable packs as other vehicles in the GoCimo fleet.

Principle Power secured the operations and maintenance contract for the EFGL floating wind project, which is operated by Ocean Winds in partnership with Banque des Territoires, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. The contract covers the project's three WindFloat floating foundations, which support three Vestas V164-10 MW turbines.

Operations will be based at Port-La Nouvelle in southern France, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. Principle Power said nearly 30% of its global workforce is based in France.

With the addition of EFGL, Principle Power said it now supports 105 MW of deployed capacity using WindFloat floating foundations, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The company's prior floating wind O&M experience includes the 2 MW WindFloat 1, the 25 MW WindFloat Atlantic and the 50 MW Kincardine Offshore Wind Farm, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Cypress Creek has begun construction on the Steel River Energy Center, with the opening two phases sized at roughly 1.6 GWdc of solar and 1.9 GWh of battery storage for the local grid, Solar Builder reported.

At full build, the site reaches 2.5 GWdc and 2.9 GWh of storage, according to Solar Builder, with completion set for 2029 and output pegged at enough to serve more than 315,000 homes each year.

Google holds a power purchase agreement covering the first two phases, in what Solar Builder described as the company's largest solar and storage investment to date.

Equipment sourcing spans several suppliers: panels from First Solar, LG batteries produced in the U.S. and Canada then assembled in Arizona, and 159,000 tons of structural steel drawn from Mississippi County, Arkansas, Solar Builder reported.

Cypress Creek and Google have pledged a combined USD 8 million toward programs for Arkansas residents and K-12 schools, according to Solar Builder. That total includes USD 400,000 from Cypress Creek for a new playground at Rivercrest School District.

Steel River adds to a Cypress Creek portfolio of 19 GW, of which 6.8 GW is operating or under construction, Solar Builder reported. The developer manages assets in 24 states.

The European Commission intends to adopt recommendations next week that would postpone penalties on energy imports that fall short of the bloc's methane emissions rules, according to World Oil.

The rules require fossil-fuel shipments entering the bloc to meet monitoring, reporting and verification standards for methane starting in 2027.

Celine Gauer, the European Commission's new director general for energy, said the guidelines would "urge member states not to apply penalties for a certain period of time, letting time for the market to adjust," World Oil reported.

Last month, 17 of the EU's 27 member states pressed for targeted changes to the import provisions of the regulation. The Commission held the rules in place and issued non-binding guidance rather than amending them.

At a meeting of energy ministers, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belgium, Italy, Poland and Sweden were among those urging the Commission to weigh a three-year delay to the importer obligations.

The pressure comes with supply leverage attached. The U.S., now Europe's largest supplier of liquefied natural gas, has signaled its cargoes would go elsewhere if the bloc declines to soften the regulation, World Oil reported.

The regulation targets methane because the gas traps roughly 80 times more heat than CO2 over its first 20 years in the atmosphere.

Forty-six local projects across 11 towns will share $2.1 million in the opening round of the Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zone community grants, according to RenewEconomy. Acerez runs the program and expects it to distribute up to $4 million to local initiatives over its full course.

The first-round money splits into two funding tiers, RenewEconomy reported. Significant grants run from $50,000 to $1 million, while smaller awards start at $3,000.

Acerez brings together Acciona, Cobra, and Endeavour Energy. EnergyCo appointed the partnership to develop and operate the Central-West Orana REZ network infrastructure, according to RenewEconomy.

"These grants are about backing the people and places that make regional communities strong," said Steve Masters, Acerez CEO.

Google will buy the entire first phase of output from the Steel River Energy Center in Arkansas under a virtual power purchase agreement covering 100% of initial generation, according to pv magazine. The publication called it the largest solar-plus-storage project of its kind to break ground in the United States.

Cypress Creek Energy is developing the site, which starts with 1.6 GW of solar paired with 2 GWh of battery storage, an amount pv magazine said can supply roughly 315,000 homes each year. Plans call for total capacity to reach 2.5 GW of solar PV and 2.9 GWh of storage once the site is fully built out.

First Solar is set to provide the PV modules, structural steel will come from within Arkansas, and battery systems will be built at LG's Phoenix, Arizona facility, pv magazine reported.

Google's grid-based emissions climbed 37% in 2025 as artificial intelligence workloads expanded, according to pv magazine. BloombergNEF data cited by the publication put Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft together at 49% of all corporate clean-power deals signed last year.

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute estimates that about 56% of the power running U.S. data centers now comes from fossil fuels.

A team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has reported 28.04% power conversion efficiency from a perovskite-organic tandem solar cell, according to pv magazine. The design combines a wide-bandgap perovskite base layer with an organic top cell tuned to a narrow bandgap.

Stability held up in testing. After 625 hours of continuous operation under illumination, the cell kept 90% of its starting efficiency, pv magazine reported.

On its own, the strongest perovskite device measured 20.01% efficiency under standard illumination, with an open-circuit voltage of 1.42 V and a fill factor of 85.13%. Built into the full tandem stack, output peaked at 28.80%, though pv magazine flagged that this figure came with instability problems.

The research appeared in a paper titled "Perovskite-organic tandem solar cells with a photo-transformable stabilizer" in nature.

The headline figure sits above an earlier benchmark for the same cell type. In June 2025, the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) reported 26.4% efficiency for a perovskite-organic tandem cell, according to pv magazine.

PureSky Energy completed a USD 183.7 million investment-grade refinancing of its operating community solar portfolio, according to a GlobeNewswire release.

The deal consolidates eight existing debt portfolios into a single structure covering 211 MWDC of solar capacity and 58 MWh of energy storage across 43 operating assets in Massachusetts, New York, and Minnesota. The structure eliminates refinancing risk across the portfolio for the next decade, PureSky said.

Marathon Capital acted as exclusive financial advisor to PureSky on the transaction. Note Purchasers participating in the refinancing include PGIM, funds managed by AB CarVal, and Denham Capital.

PureSky operates a portfolio with a generation capacity of about 300 MW across 63 operational or under-construction sites.

Israeli battery company Airengy is partnering with salt and chemicals producer Nobian to evaluate its technology for a 2.5 GWh compressed air energy power plant at a salt cavern in Hvornum, Denmark, according to ESS News.

Nobian will assess Airengy's technology for the project, which would connect to the company's existing salt cavern, ESS News reported.

The planned battery will have a power output of between three and 10 megawatts, paired with long-duration energy storage capacity, according to ESS News.

The well diameter at the salt cavern is the limiting factor constraining the system's capacity, said Airengy's Tzvi Joshua. A well sits in the center of the cavern, and only a certain volume of compressed air can pass through a given diameter.

The Danish project is Airengy's fourth compressed air energy power plant partnership in Europe, according to ESS News. It follows earlier projects in the United Kingdom, Romania, and Germany.

Texas upstream oil and gas employment has risen by 40,500 jobs since the pandemic-era low point in September 2020, a gain of nearly 26 percent, according to TXOGA.

Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed June figures ranging from a low of 111,900 in June 2021 to a high of 169,900 in June 2016.

The Dangote Refinery in Lagos has moved to price its products in Nigeria in US dollars, according to Semafor Net Zero.

The shift reverses an earlier arrangement. The refinery agreed in 2024 to set depot prices in the local currency after a government deal to source crude oil domestically, which the plant would purchase in naira, Semafor Net Zero reported.

The refinery is planning an initial public offering later this year, and the move to dollar pricing for local sales aims to shield it from foreign exchange risks, according to Semafor Net Zero.

The pricing change lands against a backdrop of pressure on fuel costs. President Bola Tinubu removed a fuel subsidy in 2023, driving higher fuel prices and a cost of living crisis, Semafor Net Zero reported.

South Africa is planning its biggest buildup of strategic oil reserves since the apartheid era to shield its economy from global energy shocks, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Draft fuel security rules would require state and private fuel companies to hold a combined buffer of up to 81 days of national consumption, Semafor Net Zero reported.

The plan would revive a storage network originally built in the 1970s to protect against international sanctions, according to Semafor Net Zero.

South Africa closed its two major refineries in 2022 after new fuel regulations undermined their commercial logic, Semafor Net Zero reported. The draft proposal cites the closure of those domestic refineries as compounding the country's fuel vulnerability, stating that "this vulnerability is compounded by the closure of domestic refineries."

Nigeria's Aliko Dangote has announced plans to expand his refining business to East Africa, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Volkswagen opened pre-orders for the ID. Cross on Wednesday in Germany, according to Electrek. The standard Trend model, with 85 kW output and a 37 kWh battery, will go on sale in mid-October starting at 27,995 euros ($32,000), Electrek reported.

The ID. Cross will be offered with two battery options, according to Electrek: a 37 kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) pack and a 52 kWh nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) pack. The larger pack delivers a WLTP range of up to 427 km (265 miles), per Electrek.

Electrek reported that the 37 kWh battery supports DC fast charging of up to 90 kW, allowing it to recharge from 10% to 80% in around 23 minutes.

Nearly 190,000 hectares of forest in Africa were converted to mines between 2001 and 2020, according to researchers at the universities of Cambridge and Sheffield.

The study found that each hectare cleared within a mine's immediate footprint drove an additional 34 hectares of forest loss, usually to build roads or new urban settlements serving the mine.

The effect runs deeper in DR Congo, which holds more than half of the world's cobalt used for lithium batteries in electric vehicles. There the multiplier reaches as high as 58 hectares of deforestation for every hectare lost to a mine.

Writing in The Conversation, the researchers said the minerals needed for climate technologies could speed up ecological collapse in biodiversity hotspots.

Italy's renewable-linked battery storage capacity reached 11,941.72 MWh by the end of June 2026, with total power output of 6,000.88 MW, according to ESS News.

That capacity was spread across 943,729 electrochemical storage systems integrated with renewable energy sources as of June 30, ESS News reported.

Solar made up the largest share of the country's renewable fleet. According to ESS News, solar represented 53.6% of Italy's total renewable energy capacity, with 46,605.58 MW installed.

Italy added 6,720.97 MW of new solar generation over the past 12 months, an annual increase of 16.85%, according to ESS News.

Hainan has become the first province in China to bring in a political ban on the sale of petrol-powered vehicles, according to electrive. The province plans to prohibit the sale of pure combustion-engine vehicles by 2030 and to electrify all new and replacement vehicles in the private sector, electrive reported.

The share of New Energy Vehicles, which cover battery-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles, in Hainan's vehicle fleet is set to rise from 23.75% in 2025 to 45% by 2030, according to electrive.

The plan states the province will promote fuel cell vehicles in heavy-duty trucks, cold-chain logistics and public transport, electrive reported.

Hainan's provincial government has confirmed it will continue to follow the timetable established in 2022, according to electrive.

Asian refiners bought at least 11 million barrels of US crude in deals struck late on Tuesday, according to traders cited by Rigzone. More deals may follow, the traders said.

The buyers included refiners in South Korea, Japan and Thailand, according to Rigzone. Some of the cargoes may load as soon as this month, the traders said.

Rigzone reported that the surge in Asian purchases was driven by escalating hostilities between Washington and Tehran and a virtual standstill in observable traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Attacks on ships have increased in recent days, according to Rigzone, while Washington has reimposed a blockade of Iranian ports.

As of Wednesday, there was only a trickle of observable traffic going through Hormuz, Rigzone reported. Iran has been moving crude tankers out of the gulf with their transponders turned off, according to the report.

Guatemala plans to procure around 300 electric buses from 2027 as part of efforts to build an integrated public transport system, according to electrive.

The Ministry of Finance has established a state guarantee fund worth approximately EUR 57 million, according to electrive. The government says the fund could unlock financing of up to around EUR 517 million.

The government estimates that battery-electric buses could cut fuel costs by up to 51% compared with diesel-powered vehicles, electrive reported.

Government projections put the long-term replacement need at around 2,100 buses, creating annual demand for approximately 300 vehicles, according to electrive.

The plans draw on the Metropolitan Area Mobility Master Plan, which covers 17 municipalities in the Guatemala City metropolitan region and was developed with support from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), electrive reported.

According to government figures cited by electrive, commuters in the region lose an average of around 1,300 hours per year in traffic. The economic impact of congestion is estimated at more than 25 billion Quetzal, around EUR 2.9 billion, annually.

China is assigning dense travel corridors to electric rail rather than beginning from aircraft demand, according to CleanTechnica.

That approach runs against a market Boeing sizes at 8,830 new commercial aircraft, which the manufacturer expects Chinese airlines to require by 2043, according to CleanTechnica. By deciding how people should move and routing high-density corridors to electric rail, China reduces the role that new aircraft orders play in meeting that travel demand.

Diesel generator backup coverage at new data center projects has fallen to between 15% and 40%, according to Rosendin's Bill Mazzetti. The shift favors battery energy storage systems (BESS) as developers rethink power infrastructure for AI workloads, ESS News reported.

Utility demand-response requirements and regional policy are pushing the change. Texas Senate Bill 6 incentivizes on-site dispatchable power for loads above 50 MVA, helping drive BESS adoption at data centers.

Interconnection delays add pressure. Utility queues for AI training facilities above 100 MW extend up to seven years in some regions, pushing developers toward smaller, localized solutions, according to ESS News.

Cost is a central factor. Data center capital expenditures currently average about USD 13 million per megawatt of build capacity. Developers are simplifying the electrical powertrain to lower that figure. Moving to solid-state transformers and medium-voltage uninterruptible power supply (UPS) solutions can eliminate up to two-thirds of the traditional electrical conversion steps, according to ESS News.

Rosendin projects data center buildout volumes to grow 35% to 40% annually through 2029, before cooling to roughly 15% growth in 2030 as demand aligns with pre-AI cloud levels. Mazzetti views the capital expenditure market as 2.5 years into a projected seven-year cycle.

Retrofits will factor into the near-term buildout. Over the next two to three years, Mazzetti expects legacy data centers of around 12 MW to be retrofitted and doubled in capacity using localized microgrids.

Environmental and climate campaigners want Kenya's government to abandon a proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery backed by Aliko Dangote, Climate Home News reported.

The plant is slated for Lamu County on Kenya's northern coast and is billed by Climate Home News as East Africa's largest refining project, with construction expected to run up to three years. The refinery would supply refined products to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and other regional markets.

Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, described the approval as "an extraordinary act of environmental recklessness and economic short-sightedness".

Sherelee Odayar, oil and gas campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, cautioned that a plant of this size could raise the risk of habitat destruction, marine pollution, oil spills and air pollution in one of East Africa's most fragile coastal ecosystems, according to Climate Home News.

Kenya rolled out a National Electric Mobility Policy earlier this year to accelerate electric-vehicle adoption and trim a fuel import bill of roughly USD 5 billion a year, Climate Home News reported. Ethiopia has barred imports of non-electric vehicles and counts more than 100,000 EVs on its roads.

Dangote already runs a 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Lagos, currently Africa's largest, and plans to more than double its capacity to 1.4 million barrels, according to Climate Home News.

Cantabria's CTC Technology Centre is testing multi-layer protective coatings to shield offshore concrete hydrogen storage against corrosion and permeation, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The centre is developing the advanced protective coatings for offshore concrete cells designed to store green hydrogen, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

The coating approach targets hydrogen permeability and chloride-induced corrosion at the same time, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

Topsoe will supply its SynCOR Ammonia technology to a 500 short tons per day blue ammonia fertilizer plant in Gothenburg, Nebraska, according to Hydrogen Fuel News. The site is set to produce about 500 short tons of blue ammonia each day for local farmers, with reduced carbon emissions through integrated carbon capture, per the same report.

Topsoe announced the technology contract this month with Nebraska-based J Westling & Co, according to Hydrogen Fuel News. The publication reported that the deal aims to boost local clean ammonia output and cut transport costs.

The Gothenburg facility marks the first time SynCOR Ammonia, Topsoe's autothermal reforming setup, is being deployed in a mid-scale fertilizer plant in the US, according to Hydrogen Fuel News. The integrated carbon capture is intended to cut freight costs for farmers and lower emissions from production, the report said.

Montra Electric has delivered 65 electric heavy-duty trucks in a single batch, the first lot of a 260-unit order, according to electrive. The company flagged off the batch from its factory in Manesar, Haryana, on 8 July.

The delivered model is the Rhino 5538 EV tractor-trailer, powered by a 280 kW permanent magnet synchronous electric motor with a 6-speed automated manual transmission, electrive reported.

The truck uses a 282 kWh LFP battery pack, which Montra Electric claims delivers a range of 198 kilometres in the 4x2 variant and 169 kilometres in the 6x4 variant. It supports dual-gun fast-charging at up to 240 kW, with a 20 to 100 percent session taking 60 minutes, according to electrive.

Ex-factory prices start at 11.5 million rupees (approx. 105,500 euros) for the 4x2 variant and 11.8 million rupees (approx. 108,300 euros) for the 6x4 variant.

The truck is eligible for incentives of up to 960,000 rupees (approx. 8,800 euros) under the Ministry of Heavy Industries' PM E-Drive scheme, electrive reported.

The Delaware River Basin's fracking ban held on Tuesday when a Republican-backed amendment to the Water Resources Development Act never reached a vote in committee, leaving the restriction intact for now, Inside Climate News reported.

U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, wrote the measure, which sought to remove the Delaware River Basin Commission's power to regulate hydraulic fracturing across the 330-mile watershed, according to Inside Climate News.

Inside Climate News reported that the commission found fracking in the basin risked contaminating water relied on by some 15 million people in the region for drinking, agriculture and industry.

Had it passed, the amendment would have reversed a prohibition formally in place since 2021 and observed informally since 2010, the year the commission first put it forward, Inside Climate News reported.

Perry has pushed the issue through legislation before. Inside Climate News reported that he introduced the DRILL Now Act in 2025 to bar the commission from enforcing rules tougher than those set by the state applying them.

Congress created the commission by statute in 1961, according to Inside Climate News.

Industry voices have backed the repeal effort. Marcellus Shale Coalition President Jim Welty, whose group represents natural gas interests, told Inside Climate News the ban "has done irreparable harm to many landowners, and it is past time for Congress to remedy this injustice".

Workers at the Ichthys liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility have ratified a pay agreement, closing out a dispute that stopped production and export loadings, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Inpex Senior Vice President Corporate Bill Townsend confirmed the ballot result by email and said the company would file the deal with the Fair Work Commission for approval.

The walkout that shut production and LNG exports wound down in June once both sides settled on a provisional deal, which union members then voted through, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Unions blamed the June action for two condensate cargoes and one LNG cargo missing their scheduled loadings. They put the resulting hit to Inpex at roughly USD 200 million in lost earnings at the 9.3 million-metric-ton-per-year plant.

Inpex had sought to stop the industrial action, but the Fair Work Commission threw out that bid following a two-day hearing, per Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Unions named Shell's Prelude floating LNG facility as the site they expect to become the next major bargaining flashpoint.

Western and central Europe face raised odds of heat waves through July and August 2026, with strong solar irradiation and weak wind pushing photovoltaic output past seasonal norms, according to Montel.

German solar generation could run as much as 20% above normal if June-like weather patterns return, Montel said, making the region's largest power market a focal point for the swings ahead.

When negative price risk climbs, flexible generators and battery operators are likely to keep pulling volume out of day-ahead auctions, Montel said.

Montel points to southeastern Europe as the region most exposed when extreme heat hits, where high temperatures strain supply and lift prices. That exposure showed up in June, when heat forced output cuts at Hungary's Paks nuclear plant, which led to higher prices.

Clean Core Thorium Energy said its ANEEL fuel reached burnup above 60 GWd/MTU inside the Advanced Test Reactor at Idaho National Laboratory. The company separately reported that a peer-reviewed engineering assessment of the fuel ran in Nuclear Engineering and Design, a journal published by Elsevier.

In a CANDU-6 reactor, published analyses put the average discharge burnup for ANEEL fuel at 44,300 MWd/MTHM, roughly six times the figure for natural uranium fuel, according to the GlobeNewswire release.

The assessment ties several safety metrics to the thorium-based design. Full-core coolant void reactivity drops by nearly 20% with ANEEL fuel, the paper states. Its fuel temperature coefficient runs more than six times more negative than that of natural uranium fuel, the same analyses show.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories ran independent calculations with the MCNP code and found that existing reactor control and shutdown systems keep adequate margins with ANEEL fuel, with no redesign required.

Mehul Shah, Founder and CEO of Clean Core Thorium Energy, said the company "demonstrated first and published second".

Oil and gas technicians now have a six-week route into wind operations and maintenance work, after ECITB, GWO and ORE Catapult opened their Wind Turbine Maintenance Technician Cross Skill Program, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The program targets serving Instrument and Controls, Mechanical and Electrical Technicians, giving them the technical grounding to move onto onshore or offshore wind assets as Wind Turbine Maintenance Technicians, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Two pilots preceded the wider rollout, the outlet said.

Trainees get site access to ORE Catapult's Levenmouth demonstration turbine, working through the course material inside the nacelle itself, per Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Eligibility hinges on current competence: applicants must show ongoing technical proficiency in their primary trade, for instance via Connected Competence technical tests, the outlet reported.

IEEFA published a fact sheet tracking offshore CO2 storage project plans emerging on the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard. The document is dated July 15, 2026.

The fact sheet was authored by Anika Juhn, an energy data analyst with IEEFA whose research covers carbon capture technologies and issues related to long-term CO2 storage.

Organizers plan to announce USD 60 billion in commercial agreements between US companies and the Iraqi government and private businesses at a US Chamber of Commerce summit Friday, according to Semafor. The summit will feature Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

Semafor reported that energy will dominate the agreements, spanning oil and gas, energy infrastructure, and power generation.

Steve Lutes, the US Chamber's vice president for Middle East Affairs, told Semafor the deal count surpasses what the Chamber had hoped for in terms of the number of deals.

Summit sponsors include GE Vernova, BP, Excelerate Energy, ExxonMobil, and Shell, according to Semafor.

Trump argued Iraq has tremendous potential because of its oil and said there are going to be a lot of deals, according to Semafor. He also suggested the US no longer needs a military footprint in the country, saying the relationship should instead center on economic partnership.

Volvo is considering launching two new electric vehicles in the United States, an electric sedan and a wagon, with prices expected to start in the low $50,000s, according to Electrek.

A source briefed on the matter told Automotive News the models could reach showrooms in 2028.

Both would use Volvo's SPA3 platform, which debuted on the EX60 earlier this year and uses an 800-volt architecture and cell-to-body construction, according to Electrek. Volvo tech boss Anders Bell said the SPA3 platform "opens new possibilities" as a dedicated EV platform.

Volvo is forecasting about 10,000 annual sales for the electric sedan and wagon in America, per Electrek.

Volvo's V60 Cross Country station wagon for the US market rolled off the assembly line in April 2026.

Global electric vehicle sales reached a record 2 million deliveries in June, led by the European market, according to Electrek.

In the United States, sales remain below last year's peak but rose more than 20% from the previous month, Electrek reported.

California introduced a new EV incentive worth USD 3,500, according to Electrek.

Wallbox and Turning Point Energy said they have surpassed 10,000 electric vehicle chargers sold and installed across Saudi Arabia, according to CleanTechnica.

Wallbox, listed on the NYSE under the ticker WBX, is a global provider of electric vehicle charging and energy management solutions, per CleanTechnica. Turning Point Energy is described by the same outlet as a leading EV infrastructure provider in Saudi Arabia.

The Port of Newcastle has received approval to store grid-scale lithium-ion batteries at its Mayfield Multipurpose Terminal, becoming the first port in New South Wales (NSW) to do so, according to RenewEconomy.

The port announced the approval this week, though it was granted late last year. Since then, the port says it has received over 700 battery storage containers for grid-scale projects across NSW, according to RenewEconomy.

Among the projects drawing on the terminal is the 500 MW/2,000 MWh Tomago big battery, which AGL is building just west of Newcastle, RenewEconomy reported.

Batteries have also been stored at the port for Origin Energy's 700 MW/3,160 MWh Eraring battery and the 408 MW/816 MWh Bellambi Heights battery energy storage system (BESS), according to RenewEconomy.

Renewables remain the most cost-competitive form of new-build generation on an unsubsidised basis in the United States, according to Lazard, which published the 19th edition of its Levelized Cost of Energy+ report this week.

Lazard found these technologies will continue to account for the majority of near-term capacity additions in the country. Wind, solar and storage are expected to hold that lead largely because of their relatively short deployment timeline, according to Lazard.

The latest analysis shows the levelized cost of energy continues to rise. Even with those higher costs, Lazard reported that wind, solar and storage remain cheaper than conventional new-build alternatives, including gas, coal and nuclear.

India's renewable energy capacity reached 263 GW by January 2026, according to IEEFA, as the country works toward a target of 500 GW by 2030.

Wood Mackenzie forecasts that India will require around USD 1.5 trillion in energy transition investment between 2026 and 2035, according to IEEFA.

NTPC Limited has outlined an USD 80 billion capital expenditure plan through 2032, with 40% of its planned new capacity in renewables, according to IEEFA.

Investor appetite has extended to debt markets. In February 2026, Indian renewables company ReNew's USD 600 million green bonds were listed on Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) with withholding tax exemptions and attracted international investors, according to IEEFA.

The UK-India trade agreement entered into force on 15 July 2026, according to IEEFA.

US tandem cell startup Swift Solar acquired an extensive set of intellectual property related to heterojunction (HJT) solar cell production from Meyer Burger, according to pv magazine. The purchase took place earlier in 2026.

Meyer Burger is now defunct, pv magazine reported.

Swift Solar is working with some of the experts who were key to developing the heterojunction technology, according to pv magazine.

Joel Jean is the CEO of Swift Solar, and Gunter Erfurt is the former CEO of Meyer Burger, pv magazine reported. The two spoke with pv magazine about the company's plans to apply its newly acquired knowledge to manufacturing in the United States.

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill signed a bill creating a program to incentivize data centers to secure clean capacity by reducing demand elsewhere on the grid, according to Canary Media.

Canary Media reported the program is a first-of-its-kind measure. It offers data centers an unorthodox route to the power they need: by bankrolling home energy upgrades.

India has ordered ship owners, ship managers and recruitment agencies to stop deploying Indian seafarers on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz after an upsurge in attacks, according to Rigzone.

The Directorate General of Shipping said in a post on X late Wednesday that there should be no deployment of Indian crew on vessels transiting the waterway until further orders.

The directive affects a large share of the world's merchant crews. There are more than 310,000 Indian seafarers on merchant ships, making India the second-largest supplier of sailors, according to an estimate from BIMCO and the International Chamber of Shipping cited by Rigzone.

The order faces immediate doubts over its reach. Manoj Yadav, general secretary of the Forward Seamen's Union of India, said it can't be enforced because most ships are foreign-owned and foreign-flagged and India has no jurisdiction.

The Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf to global markets and used to carry about a fifth of daily global oil supply in peacetime, according to Rigzone.

India's move follows a similar step by the Philippines, which asked agencies to stop sending its nationals to the Persian Gulf and later eased that restriction, according to Rigzone.

Only around 24 per cent of household battery owners take part in a virtual power plant, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's latest Inquiry into the National Electricity Market.

The finding came despite rapid growth in household batteries, the ACCC said.

The regulator also found that virtual power plant customers generally have lower electricity bills.

ABB is acquiring French company Advantics to strengthen its portfolio of fast-charging solutions, according to electrive. The transaction is expected to close in Q4 2026, and the companies have not disclosed the financial details, electrive reported.

Advantics is based in Saint-Genis-Pouilly and develops hardware and software for power conversion, according to electrive. Advantics states its power modules achieve efficiencies of up to 99 percent.

Advantics brings expertise in silicon carbide power electronics and engineering competence for compact power converters, said Massimiliano Cifalitti, Head of ABB's Smart Power Division.

Silicon carbide semiconductors enable higher switching frequencies, lower losses, and more compact systems compared to conventional silicon components, according to electrive.

BMW is pulling back 29,119 plug-in hybrids in the United States after finding a starter-system defect that can short-circuit and spark a fire, according to electrive.

Four model lines fall under the action: the 330e iPerformance from model years 2016 through 2018, the 530e iPerformance and 530e xDrive iPerformance from 2018 through 2020, and the 740Le xDrive iPerformance from 2017 through 2019, electrive reported.

The fault sits in an electrical relay inside the engine starter. Water reaching that relay can corrode it, disrupting the electrical connection and stopping the combustion engine from starting, according to electrive. Corrosion can also make the relay overheat and short-circuit in some cases.

The high-voltage battery packs are not implicated, according to electrive. No crashes or injuries tied to the defect have been reported.

BMW will fit a new engine starter at no cost, electrive reported. Letters to affected owners are due to go out on 28 August 2026.

TU Graz researchers have developed FLAPTrack, a dual-axis solar tracker that folds its modules flat during storms, according to pv magazine. The system pairs higher photovoltaic yields with automated weather protection.

FLAPTrack reports yield gains of up to 40% compared with fixed-mount installations, according to pv magazine.

The design relies on a patented linear actuator that performs two functions, pv magazine reported: adjusting the modules' orientation toward the sun and folding them into a protective position.

Field testing is underway with a 1.8 kW photovoltaic array installed on the roof of a university office building, according to pv magazine.

Buchroithner said FLAPTrack can generate more than twice as much power as conventional photovoltaic systems during morning and evening hours, when overall electricity consumption is particularly high, according to pv magazine. Buchroithner added that the optimized tracking also helps reduce grid stress.

Gulf Marine Services (GMS) will deploy one of its self-elevating accommodation units on a four-year charter serving offshore work in Brazil, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The firm term runs to 1,461 days, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital, which reported that the counterparty is an international offshore accommodation services provider.

Delivery to the charterer is scheduled in Rio de Janeiro within a window from August to November 2026, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

GMS entered the Latin American market in May 2026, and this award followed that entry, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

GMS Executive Chairman Mansour Al Alami said the four-year charter secures long-term utilization for one of the company's newest vessels, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. He tied the deal to what he described as demand for high-quality self-elevating units.

Gridserve has opened its fifth Electric Forecourt in the UK at Markham Vale, sited at Junction 29A of the M1, according to electrive. The company describes it as its largest charging station to date.

The site holds 39 rapid charging bays, electrive reported. Of those, 36 serve passenger EVs and three are set aside for larger vehicles such as electric HGVs, coaches, vans, or tow vehicles.

On-site generation comes from 138 rooftop 455W solar panels, according to electrive. The facility also draws on rainwater harvesting to cut mains water use.

The retail building runs from 6AM to 9PM daily, while the charging bays stay operational 24 hours a day year-round, electrive reported.

The opening lifts Gridserve's UK charging network past 200 locations, according to electrive.

Ross Watson, General Manager at Markham Vale, said the site brings a world class facility and an entirely new scale of charging provision to the region.