Tuesday, 18 August 2026

Executives at uranium producer Energy Fuels purchased stock in their own company days before Trump stripped 1.24 million acres from Bears Ears National Monument, opening the land to mining again, according to Grist.

Grist reported that board chair Bruce Hansen acquired 4,000 shares the day after a purchase by Bhappu. The monument reduction removed 1.24 million acres from Bears Ears, making the land available for mining.

Energy Fuels operates White Mesa Mill, which Grist describes as the last conventional uranium processing site in the nation. The mill sat about a mile from the Bears Ears boundary before the monument was cut by 90 percent, Grist reported.

The company's federal backing extends beyond uranium. According to Grist, the Department of Defense issued a USD 725 million loan to Energy Fuels on June 18 to support developing rare earth elements.

Ebusco cut its EBITDA loss to EUR 17.9 million in the first half of 2026 from EUR 36.2 million a year earlier, according to electrive, even as the bus maker handed over fewer than half as many vehicles as in the comparable period.

Deliveries fell to 16 buses from 47 a year earlier, electrive reported. Turnover came in at EUR 22.0 million, down from EUR 28.2 million in the same period the previous year.

The cost base shrank alongside the order book. Full-time positions were reduced from 282 at the end of 2025 to 248 by the end of June, according to electrive.

On the funding side, the company secured a financing package worth approximately EUR 27.4 million in April, electrive reported.

A fresh dispute weighs on the pipeline. Verkehrsbetriebe Potsdam cancelled an order for 23 battery-electric buses, and Ebusco disputes the validity of that cancellation, according to electrive.

Hyundai has opened orders for the IONIQ 3, with the entry-level Advance trim carrying the 42 kWh battery priced from £22,245, according to Electrek.

Electrek put the equivalent figure at roughly $30,000 for that base trim. Pricing on the continent starts at €27,995 in the Netherlands, the outlet reported.

Range splits along battery size. The Standard trim's 42 kWh pack delivers up to 213 miles on the WLTP cycle, while the Premium, Ultimate, and N-Line Evo trims run the 61 kWh pack rated at up to 308 miles, per Electrek.

The electric hatch departs from the IONIQ 5 on electrical architecture. Electrek reported that the IONIQ 3 uses a 400V system rather than the 800V setup found in the IONIQ 5, a choice made to reduce costs.

Production has already started. Hyundai began building the IONIQ 3 at its Izmit plant in Turkey, and the facility will initially turn out 30,000 IONIQ 3 vehicles annually, according to Electrek.

Mesa Power Solutions has opened a manufacturing and administrative campus in Evansville, Wyoming, built at a cost of USD 70 million, according to Power Magazine.

The site brings 300 employees under one roof and widens the company's capacity to build natural gas power generation equipment, Power Magazine reported. Buyers named for that equipment are utilities, data centers, and other commercial and industrial customers.

The facility sits at One Mesa Way and covers 220,000 square feet, per Power Magazine.

Nvidia agreed on Monday to provide up to USD 105 billion to backstop a new OpenAI data center in Ohio, Semafor reported.

The structure lands as lenders and equity investors question how much of the sector's borrowing is visible. Morgan Stanley analysts said much of hyperscalers' growing debt sits off their balance sheets, and that the credit arrangements themselves are becoming more convoluted, according to Semafor. That combination makes it "increasingly difficult for investors to assess companies' total potential leverage," the analysts wrote.

The risk has also drawn a central bank warning. A correction in US tech stocks appears likely even if AI eventually satisfies investor hopes, the European Central Bank said, and the resulting bust could threaten Eurozone stability.

Hunter Valley Operations wants to keep two open-cut thermal coalmines in New South Wales running into the mid-2040s, with a combined ceiling of 26 million tonnes of coal a year from 2027, according to IEEFA.

Under state guidelines, HVO was permitted to count just 0.33% of the emissions the project will generate in NSW when it prepared its cost-benefit analysis, IEEFA said.

The extension would lift the mines' emissions to 15.3Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), IEEFA said, with almost 60% of that total tied to an estimated 3.2 billion litres of diesel burned over the life of the mines. Diesel-fuelled haulage and excavation therefore dominate the project's on-site emissions profile rather than the coal handling itself.

The application went before public hearings held by the NSW Independent Planning Commission (IPC) last month and has drawn more than 8,000 submissions, split two-thirds in favour and one-third against, according to IEEFA.

IEEFA also said HVO has no exit strategy for the two mines, which employ 1,500 people. That leaves the closure horizon and the workforce transition unresolved while the proponent seeks approval to mine for roughly two more decades.

The extraction limit and the mid-2040s end date set the scale of the decision facing the IPC: a single approval covering two open-cut operations at a fixed annual maximum from 2027 onward.

The California Energy Commission voted unanimously on Monday to approve a rule that phases in the nation's first efficiency standards for tires, Grist reported.

Compliance arrives on two dates. Under the regulation, an initial standard aimed at the least efficient tires applies from 2029, and a tighter threshold follows in 2033.

Commission chair David Hochschild said the rule will save Californians roughly USD 1 billion a year on refueling.

The state also expects an air-quality dividend. Its projection puts the annual reduction at 2 million tons of carbon dioxide, a volume the state likens to removing around 400,000 cars from the road.

Commission arithmetic sets the price premium for a more efficient set of tires at USD 6 to USD 26. Lower fuel use covers that gap and then some: the commission put lifetime net savings per tire at USD 85 to USD 153, assuming gasoline at USD 4.60 a gallon.

Shoppers get a leaf rating at the point of sale. The scale rises with efficiency, and four leaves marks the top tier.

Deployable Energy has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Hornbeck Offshore to apply its Unity Nuclear Battery across five strategic maritime and offshore markets, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. Hornbeck Offshore has also taken a strategic investment position in Deployable Energy.

Offshore Engineer OEDigital reports the partners target a reduction of at least 20% in total cost of ownership against conventional marine diesel or grid-power alternatives. The same reporting describes a long-term opportunity for multi-gigawatt deployment over a 10-year horizon.

The Unity Nuclear Battery is a 1 MWe transportable microreactor, mass-manufactured and engineered for integration into existing vessels rather than requiring ships to be built around the reactor, per Offshore Engineer OEDigital. Refueling intervals are designed to exceed five years, and the unit is presented as emissions-free power, according to the same account.

The design choice matters for the offshore fleet economics the MOU addresses. A reactor sized at 1 MWe and fitted to a hull already in service avoids the newbuild cycle that has constrained earlier marine nuclear concepts. Fuel logistics shift on the same basis: an interval longer than five years removes the bunkering cadence that sets diesel operating cost.

The cost-of-ownership target is stated against two distinct baselines, marine diesel and grid power, which points at both vessel propulsion or hotel load and shoreside or platform supply. Neither the five markets named in the MOU nor the size of the Hornbeck Offshore investment was specified in the announcement.

Ninety-five foundations have been installed at the East Anglia THREE offshore windfarm off the coast of Suffolk, according to CleanTechnica.

The windfarm is a joint venture between ScottishPower and Masdar valued at GBP 4 billion, CleanTechnica reported.

Once operating, the project will generate 1.4 GW of clean power, according to the same report.

Sunrun will supply energy capacity to Voltus for delivery of megawatts to AI hyperscalers across the PJM and MISO regions, according to CleanTechnica.

The arrangement routes capacity from Sunrun's residential storage-plus-solar systems into Voltus, which will use it to deliver what the companies call Bring Your Own Capacity megawatts to hyperscale AI buyers, CleanTechnica reported. The same report frames the deal as strengthening grid reliability and creating economic benefits for customers in the two regions.

Sunrun, listed on Nasdaq under the ticker RUN, is described as America's largest provider of residential battery storage, solar, and home-to-grid power.

The structure points distributed residential assets at a demand source normally served by utility-scale supply. Aggregating home batteries and rooftop solar into a capacity product gives a retail-scale fleet a route into wholesale markets serving data center load.

A newly published interconnection framework would hand every customer a firm service allocation alongside three separate tranches of flexible service, each less assured than the one before it, pv magazine reported. The framework, called Grid 2.0, comes from a team under Chris Shelton, senior vice president at AES Corporation, and is pitched as "a standardized, automated way to integrate load and supply".

Speeding interconnection through flexible service is the effect the drafting team claims for the design.

The case the authors make rests on how rarely the binding hours occur: peak periods driving infrastructure buildout can amount to as little as 30 hours per year, and planners have long sized the system for them anyway, pv magazine reported.

Texas supplies the working example. Regulators and analysts have credited the connect-and-manage treatment of new generators on the ERCOT transmission grid with the pace of solar, wind and storage additions in the state, according to pv magazine.

Five names appear on the publication, four of them from AES and one from Fluence, the energy storage firm. The same group set up a Grid 2.0 Task Force to carry the work forward, pv magazine reported. AES Next, LLC; Fluence; and Tapestry are listed as supporting organizations.

AJ Hall said the first version of the protocol is more likely to launch on a large load than on generation, since current interconnection and transmission rules make that route simpler to implement.

Australia's Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) will raise its small-scale technology certificate eligibility cap tenfold from October 1, lifting the threshold from 100 kW to 1 MW, according to RenewEconomy.

The change widens the pool of commercial and industrial solar systems that can claim upfront certificate value under the federal scheme. Systems that previously sat above the 100 kW ceiling will fall inside the 1 MW cap once the new threshold takes effect.

A second measure lands earlier. RenewEconomy reported that the NSW Peak Demand Reduction Scheme expands to cover commercial-scale batteries from September 1, with upfront discounts available for batteries with capacity up to 30 MWh.

The two announcements arrived within a fortnight of each other and have, per RenewEconomy, transformed the economics for commercial solar and battery projects in Australia.

The battery discount ceiling of 30 MWh sits far above typical behind-the-meter storage sizing, opening the scheme to substantially larger commercial installations than a residential-oriented rebate would reach.

Soil beneath an agrivoltaic array measured more than 20 C cooler than adjacent ground in full sunlight, according to pv magazine, which reported the reading was taken at around 11 a.m.

The outlet noted the measurement came during a period of particularly high temperatures and does not represent an average reduction.

The readings come from field work led by Giuseppe Ferrara, whose team is taking measurements at two pilot sites, pv magazine reported. The sites were developed through a collaboration involving the University of Bari, Italy's ENEA research agency, the startup Agridatalog and other partner companies.

One site is the Vigna Agrivoltaica di Comunità in Laterza, in Puglia, where the researchers are examining fig and olive crops grown under the panels, according to pv magazine.

The second is an installation run by the Le Greenhouse consortium in Scalea, Calabria, where the work centres on lemon and lavender, the outlet reported.

New Zealand's government has set aside NZ$30 million for hydrogen inside its NZ$1.2 billion Regional Infrastructure Fund, with the money directed at green hydrogen production, co-production facilities and related infrastructure, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The package was unveiled by Hon Shane Jones at a hydrogen sector hui in Christchurch, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Support covers production plants as well as the surrounding infrastructure needed to move and use the fuel, rather than production alone. The allocation sits within the wider Regional Infrastructure Fund, tying hydrogen spending to the same envelope the government uses for regional projects.

Hydrogen Fuel News described the decision as a shift away from small pilot grants toward planned investment in hydrogen infrastructure. The stated aim is to start regional green hydrogen projects.

The hydrogen allocation represents a fraction of the fund it comes from, at NZ$30 million against NZ$1.2 billion.

Moody's raised the credit ratings of 13 oil and gas companies worldwide in the first six months of 2026 while cutting seven, according to World Oil.

Exploration and production companies drove the improvement. The segment recorded six upgrades over the period, more than any other part of the oil and gas industry, World Oil reported.

The rating actions were geographically concentrated. North American and Latin American oil and gas companies accounted for 12 of the 13 upgrades in the first half, against six downgrades, according to World Oil. That leaves a single upgrade recorded outside those two regions.

The balance of 13 upgrades to seven downgrades marks a rating trend tilted toward improvement across the sector as a whole.

Service-side conditions look weaker than the producer picture. Moody's expects demand for onshore drilling and oilfield services in the U.S. to stay subdued through 2026, World Oil reported.

The split matters because upstream producers and the contractors that drill for them sit on opposite sides of the same spending decision. Upgrades clustered among E&P names show balance sheets strengthening, while the subdued onshore services demand Moody's describes points to restrained activity levels rather than an expansion of drilling programs.

With the ratio of upgrades to downgrades at 13 to seven, and nearly all of the upside concentrated in the North American and Latin American company set, the credit improvement Moody's has recorded so far is narrow rather than broad-based.

Primary Hydrogen Corp. has taken two exploration licences covering 1,166 hectares in the Cumberland Basin of Nova Scotia to search for natural hydrogen, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The company said it acquired the Northumberland Natural Hydrogen Project in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.

Hydrogen Fuel News reported that licences 58173 and 58174 cover about 72 claims across roughly 1,166 hectares, positioned along the northern edge of the Cumberland Basin.

The basin holds more than seven kilometers of Late Carboniferous sedimentary layers, among them the Cumberland, Windsor, and Mabou groups, according to the same report.

Rooftops across Bangladesh's garment and textile factories have room for as much as 2,800 MWp of solar, a build-out priced at roughly 126.7 billion Bangladeshi Taka, or USD 1.03 billion, according to a study reported by Mongabay.

Researchers reached that figure after surveying 661 factories in the Bangladeshi cities of Gazipur and Savar. The fieldwork closed in October 2025 and was run by Atonu Rabbani of Dhaka University with a research team from BRAC University, Mongabay reported.

Price tags explain most of the inaction. Of the factories with no solar installed, 65% named high installation costs, while 43% pointed to a broader shortage of resources.

Grid dependence is heaviest at the bottom of the supply chain. The survey put grid reliance at nearly 87% of power demand for small and medium enterprises and above 93% for micro-factories.

Paperwork has also killed projects that had financing lined up. Denim Expert Limited abandoned a planned 1-megawatt rooftop system backed by IDCOL, additional managing director Mohiuddin Rubel told Mongabay, saying the company "could not secure the funding because of lengthy bureaucratic procedures".

The Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority puts renewables in Bangladesh at 1,822.22 MWp, equal to 5.61% of total power generation capacity. The study's 2,800 MWp estimate for garment and textile rooftops is larger than that installed figure.

Qcells has started pulling the full solar manufacturing chain into its plant in Cartersville, Georgia, moving beyond the assembly of major panel components, Grist reported. The expansion began in June at the site, which sits about an hour northwest of Atlanta.

The facility carries a USD 2.5 billion investment and runs on 90 MW of power, according to Grist, which also reported 3.5 million gallons of water and 60 tons of chemicals on site.

Qcells, a South Korean firm, has said Inflation Reduction Act incentives were a major reason it built the Cartersville plant, per Grist.

The policy footing is shifting. Grist reported that the Trump administration plans to levy new tariffs and impose minimum import prices on polysilicon, the key ingredient for solar cells, with the measures taking effect in December.

The manufacturing squeeze arrives against uneven investment flows. Clean energy advocacy group E2 tracked nearly USD 13 billion in abandoned solar, wind, and battery investments in the first quarter, according to Grist, while roughly USD 18 billion in new projects were announced as companies scrambled to meet the deadline of the expiring tax credits.

Demand for the output is not the constraint. Solar and storage accounted for 90% of new power added to the U.S. grid in the first quarter, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Deepwater output across Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow by more than 1 million boe/d by 2035, with large project sanctions in 2026 and 2027 the gate on that growth, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Two of those sanctions are already done. Equatorial Guinea and Chevron signed off the Aseng Gas blowdown project in late January, a scheme that monetizes roughly 1 Tcf from Aseng on Block I, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

In Angola, Azule Energy took a final investment decision in June on the Greater PAJ project spanning Blocks 31 and 31/21. The development targets recovery of about 250 MMbbl of oil from seven fields, with peak output of around 95,000 bbl/d and first oil in 2029, per the same report.

The near-term pipeline is thinner than the schedule implied. FIDs on ExxonMobil's Owowo and TotalEnergies' Preowei developments in Nigeria are likely to slip into 2027, Offshore Engineer OEDigital said.

Ghana's Deepwater Three Points project, also known as Pecan, will not reach FID this year. Front-end engineering and design is complete and well and subsurface contracts are largely finalised, but uncertainty over the future partnership structure continues to weigh on progress, according to the report.

The timing matters for the 2035 figure. Sanction slippage pushes engineering, procurement and drilling schedules to the right, and the more than 1 million boe/d of expected growth rests on the same 2026 and 2027 decision window. Greater PAJ shows the lag involved: sanction in June, first oil four years out.

Gas-led sanctions sit alongside the oil projects. The Aseng blowdown is aimed at backfilling the Equatorial Guinea LNG plant, tying deepwater reservoir management to liquefaction feedstock rather than crude export volumes.

Sunrun has signed a multi-year agreement with Voltus to pool residential storage-plus-solar systems across the PJM and MISO grid regions into a distributed power plant serving AI hyperscalers, according to ESS News.

The arrangement routes hyperscaler money to household hardware. "In collaboration with Voltus, we are providing critical capacity from home batteries supported by funding from hyperscalers," said Sunrun CEO Mary Powell. ESS News describes Sunrun as America's leading residential installer.

Voltus is running the deal through its Bring Your Own Capacity (BYOC) program, which the company announced in 2025 and billed as a way for hyperscalers to bring capacity to the grid and improve their odds of securing an interconnection for a new data center, ESS News reported.

The mechanism has a precedent with a named buyer. In June, Google signed a three-year contract with Voltus under BYOC for up to 100 MW of electricity capacity to help power new data centers in the PJM region, which ESS News calls the data center capital of the world.

Aggregation of this kind sits alongside a far larger project already on Sunrun's books. In June, Sunrun, Tesla, and Renew Home announced plans for a 16.8 GW virtual power plant, per ESS News. The Voltus agreement differs in its counterparty: rather than selling flexibility into utility or wholesale programs, the capacity is contracted behind the meter for compute demand.

The interconnection angle is the commercial core of BYOC. Queue positions, not turbines, are the binding constraint for hyperscalers adding load in PJM, and Voltus pitched the program as a route to demonstrate capacity that improves an applicant's interconnection prospects. Enlisting Sunrun's installed residential fleet in PJM and MISO gives that pitch a physical asset base spread across thousands of homes.

For homeowners, the return is a payment stream sourced from hyperscaler budgets rather than from ratepayer-funded demand response, based on Powell's description of the funding.

A 10 MW/20 MWh battery energy storage system will be built at the Perlen Papier AG site in Switzerland, with BESS Perlen AG funding the project, according to ESS News. BESS Perlen AG is a Swiss joint venture between Perlen Industrieholding AG and the Valyou Investment Foundation.

The hardware comes from ADS-TEC Energy, and the installation will sit at the plant of paper product manufacturer Perlen Papier AG, ESS News reported.

Commissioning is scheduled for the end of 2026.

Revenue will arrive in two stages. ESS News reported that the Perlen system will first be used mainly to supply ancillary services, which contribute to the balance and stability of the electricity grid. The battery will subsequently also trade in day-ahead and intraday electricity markets, adding further revenue streams.

The two-hour duration implied by the 10 MW power rating and 20 MWh of energy capacity fits that sequencing: short-duration assets are typically sized for frequency products before they take on wholesale arbitrage.

Canadian Solar said the dismissal formally terminates the remaining litigation between it and Maxeon, according to pv magazine.

The underlying case began when Singapore-based Maxeon sued Canadian Solar for patent infringement in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in March 2024, pv magazine reported. The suit involved an unspecified TOPCon solar cell technology.

The legal path narrowed at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. In Final Written Decisions issued in January 2026, the PTAB ruled in Canadian Solar's favor and found all Maxeon patent claims asserted against the company in the federal court litigation invalid, according to pv magazine. With those claims struck down, the district court action lost its basis, and the dismissal closes out what remained between the two manufacturers.

Mahle has unveiled a range-extender system for heavy-duty battery-electric trucks, which it describes as a world first, according to electrive. The supplier will present the unit at IAA Transportation in Hanover.

At the core of the package sits a high-voltage generator driven by a compact internal combustion engine, electrive reported. The generator delivers a continuous output of 110 kW and a peak output of 130 kW.

An oil-cooling system lets the generator reach a power density of more than 7 kW per kilogramme, according to electrive.

The weight case is the commercial argument. Mahle says the system replaces about one-third of the battery capacity a battery-electric truck carries today, letting operators specify a smaller pack. That cuts rear axle load by about 400 kg and total vehicle weight by about 600 kg, per electrive.

On range, Mahle claims a range-extender battery-electric truck can cover more than 800 km in total, with the battery contributing about 400 km and the generator the remainder.

Marco Warth, Head of Corporate Development at Mahle, called the unit a smart "emergency power unit" that is activated at precisely the right moment and significantly increases the range available.

The California legislature advanced four clean energy bills to floor votes and held a smart meter data access bill in committee, PV Magazine reported.

One of the surviving measures, Senate Bill 868 from Senator Scott Wiener, clears regulatory hurdles for plug-in balcony solar systems up to 1,200 W. Plug-in units of that size sit at the small end of the distributed solar market and have faced permitting and interconnection friction that the bill targets directly.

Assembly Bill 1813 cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee. It directs regulators to value community solar and storage using the Avoided Cost Calculator maintained by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Tying compensation to that calculator replaces bespoke program pricing with the same avoided-cost methodology the CPUC already applies elsewhere, and it sets the economics for community solar projects that have struggled to reach financial close in the state.

Senate Bill 913, authored by Sen. Josh Becker, requires the CPUC to establish a valuation framework for behind-the-meter battery storage systems that export energy to the grid during peak stress. That places a compensation obligation on the regulator rather than leaving export value to utility tariff design, and it applies to residential and commercial batteries already installed behind customer meters.

The casualty was Assembly Bill 1787, which failed to pass out of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill would have required utilities to provide real-time smart meter data access to consumers. Real-time interval data is the input layer for virtual power plant dispatch and for third-party load management products, so its failure leaves the aggregation bills advancing without the customer-side data mandate that would have supported them.

The package moves against a backdrop of California electricity rates doubling over the past decade. Rate pressure is the political fuel behind measures that let customers self-supply or sell power back, and it also frames the counterargument utilities and ratepayer advocates raise about cost shifts between participating and non-participating customers.

The Avoided Cost Calculator referenced in AB 1813 is the CPUC's standing tool for pricing distributed resources against what the grid would otherwise spend on generation, capacity, and transmission. Applying it to community solar and storage means project revenue tracks a regulatory model rather than a legislated fixed rate, which shifts the negotiation from the statehouse to the commission's periodic updates of that model.

SB 913 and AB 1813 both hand implementation to the CPUC. Neither bill sets the numbers itself. The commission proceedings that follow will determine whether behind-the-meter export payments and community solar values are high enough to move projects, and that is where the substance of the legislative session will land.

Balcony solar, by contrast, is a permitting question rather than a compensation one. SB 868 addresses the regulatory barriers to plug-in systems at or below 1,200 W, a category aimed at renters and apartment residents who cannot install roof-mounted arrays. The bill does not create a payment mechanism for those systems.

All four surviving bills still require floor votes.

ExxonMobil has committed roughly USD 1.1 billion to equipment contracts for Phase 1 of the Rovuma LNG development in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, ahead of a final investment decision, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Three equipment categories sit inside the awards: subsea production systems, large-bore production valves, and offshore line pipe. According to the outlet, the packages were placed to keep the development moving toward that investment decision.

The biggest single award went to OneSubsea UK together with OneSubsea AS, per Offshore Engineer OEDigital. Their work covers engineering, procurement, fabrication and manufacturing of subsea production systems, plus controls and umbilicals.

ExxonMobil signed the orders for the Area 4 partner group rather than on its own account, the outlet reported. Alongside Mozambique's state hydrocarbons company Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH), the group takes in China National Petroleum Corp, Eni, Korea Gas Corp and XRG, the investment arm of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.

Security concerns in Mozambique had halted work on Rovuma LNG in 2021. Exxon withdrew that force majeure in November, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital, and the equipment awards come after that step.

The U.S. Interior Department has put forward a sale of deep-sea mining leases in U.S. waters around the Northern Mariana Islands, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Under the plan from the Marine Minerals Administration, the auction area totals about 67 million acres, spread across seabed on both the eastern and western flanks of the U.S. Pacific territory.

Minerals access for supply chains and manufacturing is the stated purpose. Acting MMA Director Matt Giacona said in a statement the proposal is meant to support U.S. access to minerals "needed for supply chains, manufacturing and national security".

A similar step came last month, when the Trump administration proposed leasing more than 31 million acres of seabed off American Samoa for deep-sea mining, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Malta's Regulator for Energy and Water Services (REWS) is preparing a second competitive bidding round for renewable energy this year, open to installations sized from 40 kW to 10 MW, according to pv magazine.

The invitation to bid document will be published on August 24, with the bidding window running from October 5 to October 12, pv magazine reported, citing REWS.

Across both invitation to bid (ITB) calls this year, Malta could allocate a combined 15 MW, with bids capped at EUR 0.14/kWh, according to pv magazine.

Winning bidders receive 20-year contracts for difference under the scheme, with developers naming the price at which they will supply electricity.

The first round drew a thin field. Three bids came in, and two projects, of 90 kW and 118 kW, were recommended for award at EUR 0.136/kWh each, pv magazine reported, citing REWS data. Both cleared just under the cap that applies to the two calls.

The capacity on offer is large relative to the country's recent build rate. Malta's cumulative solar capacity reached 250 MW by the end of last year, an increase of 12 MW on the year prior, according to figures from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) cited by pv magazine. The two recommended projects from the first round together account for a fraction of that annual addition.

The wider size band in the coming round reaches well beyond the scale of the awards made in the first call, where the largest recommended project was 118 kW against an upper limit of 10 MW in the new tender.

Thea Energy has closed an extension of its Series B funding round, drawing support from Brevan Howard Macro Venture, Aloniq, ALJ Investments, Beyond Earth Ventures and further strategic investors, the fusion developer said in a statement distributed by GlobeNewswire.

The extension builds on a Series B the company had previously announced at USD 100 million, led by Thomas Tull's US Innovative Technology Fund, with proceeds directed at scaling magnet manufacturing capacity, according to the same statement.

Separately, Thea Energy said it received a USD 20 million award from the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The award falls under the Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) program and is aimed at expanding domestic production lines for modular high-temperature superconducting magnets.

The company describes its Helios power plant preconceptual design as the most mature stellarator power plant architecture, and said the design was certified by the DOE under the Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program.

Magnet manufacturing sits at the centre of the funding case. Both the earlier USD 100 million raise and the ARPA-E award are tied to production capacity rather than to plant construction, with the SCALEUP money specifically earmarked for domestic modular HTS magnet lines. Stellarators rely on shaped magnetic fields to confine plasma, making magnet supply a hard constraint on any deployment schedule.

The DOE certification of the Helios preconceptual design places the architecture inside a federal milestone framework rather than a grant-only relationship. Thea Energy has not tied the Series B extension to a named amount.

Risen Energy has signed two memorandums of understanding with Ukrainian energy company Ascania Energy covering up to 100 MW of solar capacity and 200 MWh of utility-scale battery storage in Ukraine, according to ESS News.

The division of work splits supply from execution. ESS News reported that Risen Energy will provide the PV modules, utility-scale energy storage systems and technical support, with Ascania Energy acting as EPC contractor and leading local project development.

What the two companies signed is a cooperation framework rather than a binding build order. No financial terms and no project timelines have been disclosed, per ESS News.

Risen Energy is not new to the Ukrainian market. ESS News reported the module maker has supplied 12 solar projects in the country, among them the 323 MW Pokrovskaya Solar Power Plant. That installed base gives the storage-side expansion a delivery track record to build on, though the MoUs themselves commit neither party to a schedule.

On the battery side, cumulative BESS deliveries from Risen Energy exceeded 10 GWh globally as of Q2 2026, according to ESS News. Measured against that figure, the 200 MWh contemplated in the Ukrainian framework is a small fraction of the company's shipped volume to date.

The pairing of 100 MW of generation with 200 MWh of storage implies roughly two hours of storage duration relative to the solar capacity named in the agreements.

Atomic Canyon has made the Nuclear Industry Virtual Assistant (NIVA) available fleetwide across the North American nuclear fleet, the company said in a GlobeNewswire release. The assistant was developed alongside collaborators including the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), EPRI, and the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI).

The rollout follows a pilot phase. According to the announcement, NIVA currently carries two core use cases, both tested over the past six months before the wider deployment.

Constellation Energy is among the end users, per the release. Its portfolio spans 26 nuclear reactors across six states and generates one-third of U.S. clean nuclear power.

Atomic Canyon, which describes itself as a developer of AI tools for the nuclear energy industry, disclosed new funding alongside the deployment. The backers named are NVIDIA, Plug and Play Ventures, and Mortimer "Tim" Buckley, the former chairman and chief executive of The Vanguard Group.

Portugal is aiming for 3 GW of batteries by 2030 under its National Energy Storage Strategy, a third above the 2 GW figure carried in the National Energy and Climate Plan (PNEC 2030), with the strategy target stepping up to 4.5 GW ten years later, ESS News reported. Installed batteries in the country stood at just 20 MW at the close of 2025, per the annual review published by renewables association APREN.

The gap is meant to narrow through auctions. September brings two procedures worth a combined 1.05 GW of grid-connected capacity, according to ESS News. Standalone storage competes for a grid allocation capped at 750 MVA. A separate cap of 300 MVA is reserved for new renewable generation paired with storage on site.

Grant funding has already moved. A January 2025 award spread EUR 100 million (USD 116 million) across 43 storage projects totalling roughly 500 MW, ESS News reported.

Lithium-ion remains marginal next to the incumbent technology. APREN's statistics put pumped hydro at 2.8 GW at end-2025, and the National Energy Storage Strategy sets that fleet at 3.9 GW by 2030 and 5.26 GW by 2040.

CALB, a Chinese battery manufacturer, disclosed a plan in January for a lithium-ion cell plant in Portugal sized at 15 GWh a year, according to ESS News.

Susana Serôdio of APREN tied further build-out to three conditions: how fast licensing and project delivery move, whether developers get grid access, and "above all, the creation of sufficiently stable revenue streams".

Einride will put 500 Tesla Semis on US roads, Electrek reported, the largest publicly disclosed order for the model to date. The deal lifts the Swedish freight operator's deployed electric truck count from about 250 to roughly 750.

Deliveries begin next month, and the balance of the fleet arrives in phases spread over 24 months, according to Electrek.

The trucks will operate in five states: California, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, and Georgia. Amazon is the named customer.

The prior high mark belonged to WattEV, which ordered 370 Tesla Semis in May for port drayage work in California, Electrek reported.

Einride reported first-half 2026 revenue of USD 27 million, a 26% increase in constant currency, alongside adjusted EBITDA of negative SEK 363 million, per Electrek. Cash at the end of June stood at SEK 748 million, or roughly USD 77 million.

Tesla's Semi plant next to Gigafactory Nevada has a design capacity of 50,000 trucks a year and started ramping in April, Electrek reported.

The Powered by E.ON Drive & Clever joint venture will dissolve after eight years, with its 157 fast-charging stations divided between the two partners and an external third party, according to electrive.

Electrive reports that Clever takes the Danish stations, E.ON Drive Infrastructure the Swedish ones, and Uno-X Mobility the Norwegian sites. The joint venture was founded in 2018 by E.ON Drive Infrastructure and Clever to facilitate long-distance travel with electric cars across Scandinavia.

On the Danish side, Clever will acquire all six motorway sites held by the joint venture, comprising 48 high-powered charging stations, electrive reports. The company will also take over a large charging hub from E.ON Drive Infrastructure on the E45 motorway, which includes 14 charging points.

E.ON Drive Infrastructure becomes sole owner of the 19 motorway sites in Sweden, which include 80 high-power charging points, according to electrive. Uno-X Mobility Norge AS, the third party previously uninvolved in the venture, will assume ownership and operation of the twelve Norwegian sites.

The reallocation leaves each partner concentrated in a single national market rather than operating a shared cross-border corridor. Denmark and Sweden pass to the founding shareholders, while the Norwegian portion moves outside the original partnership entirely.

South Africa's Cabinet approved the Revised Electricity Pricing Policy for public comment last month, SAnews reported. Under the policy, NERSA, the country's electricity regulator, will be required to publish a 10-year electricity price forecast.

Minister Ramokgopa said electricity tariffs have increased by about 977% over a period stretching back to 2007, according to SAnews.

Part of that bill covers debt Eskom never collects. Between 1% and 2.5% of the current tariff reflects the utility's inability to recover what consumers owe, Ramokgopa said.

The document replaces the 2008 Electricity Pricing Policy. SAnews reported that it accounts for developments in the electricity supply industry, including market reforms tied to the unbundling of Eskom and the implementation of the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act, 2024.

A published forecast horizon of a decade would give industrial buyers and municipalities a longer view of regulated price paths than the current annual determination cycle offers.

Benchmark oil prices topped USD 90 a barrel as investors worried that efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz were making little headway, according to Semafor.

The move came alongside a broader repricing in fixed income and equities. Semafor reported that government bond yields rose to multiyear highs and stock markets fell, on growing concern that tensions involving Iran are unlikely to resolve in the near future.

The strain is clearest at the long end of sovereign curves. French and German long-dated yields are at their highest since 2008 and 2011 respectively, while Japanese long-dated yields are closing in on an all-time record, according to Semafor.

The reporting ties the crude move directly to transit risk rather than to a supply outage, with the stalled reopening effort cited as the trigger for investor unease.

Brookfield Renewable Partners and La Caisse have closed their acquisition of Quebec-based renewable energy producer Boralex, according to pv magazine, with Brookfield taking 70% of the company and La Caisse the remaining 30%.

The deal values Boralex at CAD 37.25 per share, pv magazine reported. Shareholders signed off at an annual and special meeting held on June 4, 2026.

Boralex operates roughly 3.8 GW of wind, solar, hydroelectric and battery storage capacity, according to pv magazine. That portfolio now sits under private ownership split between an infrastructure investor and an institutional partner.

The producer keeps its headquarters in Quebec and will continue to run independently after completion, pv magazine reported. Its shares come off the Toronto Stock Exchange as part of the closing.

The delisting removes one of the listed pure-play renewable generators from public markets in the province, leaving the 3.8 GW fleet reported by pv magazine outside the disclosure cycle that comes with an exchange listing.

General aviation remains the largest user of leaded transportation fuel in the United States, with more than 220,000 aircraft still burning aviation gasoline, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The scale of the substitution problem is visible in sales volumes. Swift Fuels said it has sold over 5.8 million gallons of unleaded aviation gasoline since 2015, mostly its UL94 grade, Inside Climate News reported. Annual consumption of leaded 100LL in the United States runs at roughly 180 million gallons.

The federal effort to replace leaded avgas has not moved past its opening stage. The FAA said the transition remains in phase 1, which is expected to conclude by the end of 2027.

That gap between cumulative unleaded sales over more than a decade and a single year of 100LL demand frames the fleet-wide engineering and distribution task facing suppliers. The installed base of piston aircraft covered by the FAA figure is the constituency any drop-in replacement has to serve.

OpenAI will take part in building a fossil-fired power plant that Semafor Net Zero described as possibly the largest such plant in the country, an indication of the scale Big Tech and its financiers are pursuing in the AI energy race.

The plant is to be sited in Ohio, with Japan's SoftBank, the government, and Nvidia also involved, Semafor Net Zero reported.

Semafor Net Zero characterized the project as the furthest expression so far of the "bring your own power," off-grid model for data centers that the Trump administration has been promoting. Under that model, generation is tied directly to computing load rather than routed through the grid.

Private equity investment in utilities globally topped USD 69 billion in 2025, 50% above the previous year, according to Semafor Net Zero.

OpenAI's role, per the same account, is to help build the plant rather than own it outright.

Enphase Energy Inc. has begun taking preorders for the IQ Battery C80, its first commercial battery storage system for the United States market, with shipments promised for the first half of 2027, according to Solar Builder.

The unit is an all-in-one, AC-coupled system delivering 80 kWh of energy capacity inside what Solar Builder describes as a compact enclosure. A single system provides up to 40 kVA of continuous power, and it arrives with battery packs and microinverters already integrated, the outlet reported.

Enphase expects the product to be manufactured entirely at U.S. facilities, which the company says makes it 100% FEOC compliant, per Solar Builder. That domestic-production claim is the commercial hook for installers weighing procurement rules on sourcing.

Coverage from Solar Builder also states the system carries a 15-year limited warranty.

The preorder window opens well ahead of delivery, with the launch commitment set for the first half of 2027 rather than a specific ship date.

West Virginia's Division of Air Quality, part of the state Department of Environmental Protection, found that developer Fundamental Data met the site-control requirements tied to its August 2025 air quality permit for the Ridgeline Facility, according to Power Magazine.

The determination applies to a gas turbine power plant that Fundamental Data is planning as the first phase of a broader project in West Virginia, Power Magazine reported.

The wider complex combines gas, solar, and data-center capacity and is sized at 5 GW, per Power Magazine, which described the project as contested.

Fundamental Data is based in Purcellville, Virginia, according to the same report. The site-control question was one of the disputed elements attached to the August 2025 permit.

Equinor has agreed to buy a 17.4% stake in petroleum exploration licence PEL 90 in the Orange Basin offshore Namibia from a Chevron subsidiary, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The Norwegian company said the purchase marks its entry into Namibia, and that the licence carries a drill-ready prospect scheduled for testing in 2026.

Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported that Chevron subsidiary Harmattan Energy held 52.5% of PEL 90 before the deal. QatarEnergy holds 27.5%, while Trago Energy and state-owned oil company NAMCOR each hold 10%.

Equinor did not put a value on the transaction. The company said the acquisition fits a strategy to strengthen and replenish its international portfolio.

TerraPower has signed two agreements, one with Hyundai Engineering & Construction (HDEC) and one with SK Innovation, to develop and commercialize its Natrium reactor technology across the United States, Korea and select international markets, according to Power Engineering Nuclear.

The first of the two deals is a framework agreement naming HDEC as engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for up to eight future Natrium reactors, Power Engineering Nuclear reported. That mandate carries completion, price and performance guarantees, a contracting structure that shifts schedule and cost risk onto the builder rather than the reactor developer.

The SK Innovation agreement is a term sheet advancing the two companies' intent to build Korea's first commercial Natrium plant, with plans to expand internationally, per the same report. TerraPower was founded by Bill Gates.

The reference project remains in Wyoming, developed through the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) as a public-private partnership, and is expected to be completed in 2030, according to Power Engineering Nuclear.

That timetable already absorbed one slip. TerraPower announced a schedule delay in late 2022, pointing to insufficient commercial high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) manufacturing capacity and the loss of Russian supply options. Fuel availability, not reactor design, was the constraint the company named.

Demand-side commitments are running ahead of the first unit. TerraPower holds an agreement with Meta for up to eight Natrium plants by 2035, Power Engineering Nuclear reported. The HDEC contract covers up to eight reactors, matching the scale of that offtake ambition.

The Korean pairing gives TerraPower two distinct functions from one country: HDEC as the construction arm with guaranteed delivery terms, and SK Innovation as the domestic development partner for a first commercial unit in Korea. Both agreements point at markets beyond their home jurisdictions, with the stated scope covering the United States, Korea and select international markets.

Sanctions and a naval blockade already in place have "crippled Iran's economy," an administration official said, according to Semafor.

Semafor reported that options under consideration for tightening Iran's economic isolation include seizing Iranian assets and imposing sanctions on the country's trading partners, on exchange houses, and on Chinese banks. Each of those measures carries potential downsides, according to the report.

The official's argument, as relayed by Semafor, sets the existing sanctions regime and the blockade against the case for further escalation.

Cosan S.A. has formally notified the New York Stock Exchange that it intends to voluntarily delist its American Depositary Shares, according to a material fact announcement published by GlobeNewswire Energy. The ADSs are represented by American Depositary Receipts, each covering four common shares of Cosan with no par value.

The move follows a resolution adopted by Cosan's Board of Directors on August 14, 2026. The notification to the NYSE covers the ADS line only.

Cosan said the transaction forms part of its objective to simplify and optimize its capital structure, with cost reductions and a greater focus on its most strategically relevant business areas.

The company will keep its common shares listed on the Novo Mercado segment of B3 S.A. - Brasil, Bolsa, Balcao in Brazil, where trading in the shares is predominantly concentrated, according to the announcement. Novo Mercado is B3's segment carrying the most demanding corporate governance requirements for listed issuers.

Delisting from the NYSE does not end Cosan's US disclosure duties. The company said it will remain registered under the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and will continue complying with its reporting obligations under that statute after the NYSE delisting takes effect.

The combination of an exchange exit with continued Exchange Act registration is the narrower of two available routes for a foreign private issuer: it strips out the listing fees and exchange-level compliance load of a dual venue while leaving periodic reporting to US investors intact. Cosan framed the decision in terms of capital structure and cost, not disclosure appetite.

The stated concentration of trading on B3 is the operative commercial fact. An ADS line that carries a small share of total volume generates listing and depositary costs disproportionate to the liquidity it provides, and consolidating price formation on the home market removes that duplication.

SLB has won a contract from Brunei Shell Petroleum to bring shut-in wells back online across several mature offshore fields in Brunei, according to World Oil.

The work is structured as an integrated production restoration program, World Oil reported, covering subsurface evaluation, selection of well candidates, engineering and offshore execution. Project management, well intervention services, monitoring, metering and marine logistics also sit inside the contract scope.

According to World Oil, this is the first time SLB has deployed its integrated production restoration solution for Brunei Shell Petroleum, bundling several services and workflows under one coordinated execution model.

SLB and Brunei Shell Petroleum kept the commercial detail closed. Financial terms, the well count and the incremental production the operator expects to recover were all withheld, World Oil said.

Ecopetrol has closed an approximately $1.2 billion purchase of a controlling 51% stake in Brava Energia, enlarging the Colombian company's upstream footprint in Brazil, World Oil reported.

The stake was assembled in two pieces. Roughly 25% of Brava's outstanding shares came through a tender offer, with a further 26% delivered under a share purchase agreement announced earlier, according to World Oil.

Funding came from inside the group. World Oil reported that the $1.2 billion transaction was financed through an intercompany loan from Ecopetrol Capital AG.

Brava's output averaged approximately 78,800 boed over the first six months of 2026, rising to about 84,400 boed in June, per World Oil.

On reserves, Brava reported approximately 459 MMboe of proved (1P) reserves and 605 MMboe of proved plus probable (2P) reserves as of year-end 2025, according to World Oil.

Those volumes set the acquisition metrics. World Oil put the implied value paid at approximately $8.40/boe of proved reserves and $6.30/boe of proved plus probable reserves.

Brava's trailing financials give the earnings base behind the price. For the 12 months ended June 30, 2026, the company reported approximately $2.34 billion in revenue and $1.05 billion in EBITDA, World Oil reported.

TGS is starting the fourth phase of its multi-client 3D seismic program offshore Sarawak, Malaysia, adding roughly 1,020 km² of new data to support exploration across the basin, according to World Oil.

The Ramform Sovereign is scheduled to mobilize for the survey during Q4 2026, and acquisition is expected to be completed in December, World Oil reported.

Phase 4 sits inside a wider multi-client contract that covers acquisition and processing of up to 105,000 km² of 3D seismic data offshore Sarawak, per World Oil. Against that ceiling, the first three phases have delivered more than 20,000 km², according to the same report. The new phase therefore extends a dataset that so far represents a fraction of the contracted area.

TGS said the Phase 4 survey is supported by industry funding. That structure is standard in the multi-client model, where a contractor shoots and owns the data and recovers cost through pre-funding and later licence sales rather than a single operator's exploration budget.

TGS CEO Kristian Johansen described the Sarawak basins as one of the most prolific hydrocarbon-bearing basins in Southeast Asia.