Thursday, 20 August 2026

Associate Professor Rhiyaad Mohamed of the University of Cape Town has secured an EQT Foundation grant to develop ultra-low-iridium anodes for proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The award is the EQT Foundation Critical Minerals Science Grant, directed at ultra-low-iridium anode catalysts for proton exchange membrane water electrolysers, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Iridium sits on the anode side of PEM cells, where it drives the oxygen evolution reaction. The work aims to cut catalyst costs and support scalable green hydrogen production, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

California is putting USD 95.2 million into electric vehicle charging and hydrogen refueling infrastructure, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The money is split across passenger chargers, heavy-duty vehicles and station reliability, and carries what Hydrogen Fuel News describes as a strong equity mandate.

The California Energy Commission is managing the Clean Transportation Program that distributes the funding, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Under that program, the commission is targeting gaps in the existing network, improving the reliability of hydrogen refueling stations, and deploying high-powered chargers serving vehicles ranging from passenger cars to buses, according to the same report.

Reliability is treated as a funding category in its own right rather than a byproduct of new construction, with hydrogen refueling stations named alongside charger deployment as a target for the allocation.

PX Group and SoHHytec have started a pilot project in Switzerland producing green hydrogen onsite with a proprietary solar-to-hydrogen system, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The demonstration sits at a PX Group plant in La Chaux-de-Fonds, in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

At the centre of the installation is SoHHytec's Arb photoelectrochemical platform, which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using concentrated sunlight, according to the same report. The design keeps hydrogen production at the point of consumption rather than trucking supply to the site.

Sunlight availability is the obvious constraint on that approach. Hydrogen Fuel News reported that the system falls back on renewable electricity when cloud cover or unfavourable weather cuts the solar input. That backup path keeps the unit operating outside clear-sky conditions rather than idling until direct sunlight returns.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued an emergency order under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act to cut the risk of power outages across the mid-Atlantic region, according to Energy.gov.

The order clears PJM Interconnection, L.L.C., working with Talen Energy Corporation, to operate Unit 4 at the Wagner Generating Station in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, beyond its current operating limit to meet anticipated electricity demand.

It takes effect on August 20, 2026, and runs through November 17, 2026, per the same announcement.

Energy.gov said the measure is intended to strengthen grid reliability and minimize the risk of energy shortfalls in 13 states and the District of Columbia.

The stated purpose of the Section 202(c) action is outage risk reduction across the mid-Atlantic footprint rather than a permanent change to the unit's authorization, with the relief bounded by the November end date.

A Chinese solar businessman who packed AUD 20,000 into a bag of tea and pushed it on a Clean Energy Council manager in Australia has lost his business visa and will fly out once released, RenewEconomy reported.

Zhu Guoxin, 40, would not let the manager refuse the tea when the two met at Camp Hill, a Brisbane suburb, on July 9, calling it "a cultural gift", according to RenewEconomy.

Zhu hid the cash in the tea after the Clean Energy Council turned down further payments to "hurry up" sign-off on Growatt New Energy products, an account he later admitted to, RenewEconomy reported.

Five Growatt applications were in play, all of them aimed at qualifying the products for clean energy subsidies in Australia, prosecutor Bimal Raut told the court.

Police caught Zhu at Sydney International Airport on July 24 at the boarding gate, and Queensland took custody of him under extradition a day later, per RenewEconomy.

The magistrate was told Zhu intends to buy his own ticket and depart Australia as soon as he walks free, with the business visa already cancelled.

Module manufacturers in the United States are assessing steel in place of aluminum for solar module frames, according to pv magazine. The publication attributes the shift in evaluation to domestic content requirements alongside quality concerns tied to bigger modules and thinner aluminum frames.

One product in that category is the Nextpower NX CoreFrame. Per pv magazine, the frames are roll formed from steel coils and require more than 50 bending steps to produce.

The design targets factory compatibility. According to pv magazine, the steel frames are intended as a drop-in replacement that requires no process changes at plants currently building modules with aluminum frames.

That compatibility claim matters for the domestic content calculation described by pv magazine, since a frame swap that leaves existing lines untouched avoids retooling for manufacturers responding to those requirements. The same reporting links the material question to module format, with thinner aluminum frames on larger modules cited among the quality concerns pushing manufacturers to look at steel.

Armidale mayor Sam Coupland says the New England Renewable Energy Zone will only proceed if the NSW state government commits about AUD 500 million to upgrade water security in his region, according to RenewEconomy.

The demand follows a resolution passed by the Armidale Regional Council in June, summarised by RenewEconomy as "no water, no REZ".

Coupland frames the funding as a precondition rather than a preference, tying the transmission and generation zone's progress directly to the water upgrade, per RenewEconomy. The council resolution set out the same position in four words before the mayor attached a figure to it.

Panoro is paying USD 80 million on a cash free, debt free basis for a producing offshore asset in Cote d'Ivoire, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The purchase adds roughly 23% to Panoro's pro forma group production and about 11% to group 2P reserves, the outlet reported.

Block CI-27 delivered gross output of 195 MMscfd of gas and 1,380 bopd of liquids in FY 2025, equivalent to about 36,000 boepd, per Offshore Engineer OEDigital. That gas volume covered more than 70% of national gas demand in Cote d'Ivoire.

Gross remaining reserves at the block stand at an estimated 540 Bscf of gas and 5 MMbbls of liquids, with an additional 380 Bscf and 9 MMbbls classified as resources, according to the same report.

Foxtrot International operates Block CI-27, holding a 27.27% effective participating interest in the asset. PETROCI and SECI are among the joint-venture partners.

The reserve profile is weighted heavily toward gas rather than liquids, at 540 Bscf against 5 MMbbls. The contingent barrel count is larger than the booked one, with 9 MMbbls of liquids resources sitting behind the 5 MMbbls of reserves.

The production split points the same way. Liquids ran at 1,380 bopd in FY 2025 against 195 MMscfd of gas, leaving the combined 36,000 boepd figure dominated by the gas stream.

Norway's combined oil and gas production came in 2.5% below an official forecast in July, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate said on Thursday.

Total output of oil, condensate, natural gas liquids and gas reached 0.665 million standard cubic metres per day, equivalent to 4.18 million barrels of oil equivalent. That marked a decline of 1.5% against the same month a year earlier.

The shortfall was driven by crude. Oil output slipped to 1.78 million barrels per day from 1.97 million bpd in July of the previous year, undershooting a forecast of 1.82 million bpd, according to preliminary data from the directorate.

Gas moved the other way but still missed its target. Production climbed to 350.6 million cubic metres per day from 329.8 mcm a year earlier, 1.8% short of the 357 mcm the regulator had projected, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate said on its website.

Monthly variation is built into the country's output profile. Norway is Europe's largest supplier of natural gas and a major oil producer, with volumes shifting month to month across close to 100 offshore fields depending on maintenance needs and other stoppages.

Appalachian Power (APCo) has launched two separate solicitations for grid-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Virginia, United States, according to ESS News. Bids for both close on September 30, 2026.

The larger of the two tenders covers up to 500 MW of BESS capacity, to be contracted through one or more purchase and sale agreements, ESS News reported. The second solicitation is structured differently: up to 300 MW procured under one or more capacity purchase agreements.

APCo will give preference to projects able to reach commercial operation by March 31, 2030, though the utility will still weigh proposals that miss that date, per ESS News.

The procurement sits inside a statutory build-out schedule. Under the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), APCo must add roughly 780 MW of short-duration battery storage by 2040, ESS News reported. A separate obligation covers 520 MW of long-duration storage by 2045.

The split between purchase and sale agreements and capacity purchase agreements gives developers two commercial routes into the same procurement window. Under the first structure, APCo takes ownership of the asset; under the second, it contracts for capacity from a project that stays in third-party hands. Both tracks run to the same September deadline, and both feed the short-duration and long-duration targets the VCEA sets out to 2040 and 2045.

The March 2030 preference date sits well ahead of either statutory deadline, indicating APCo wants capacity on the system early rather than at the compliance horizon.

Eric Sprott has committed C$10 million to MAX Power Mining's Lawson natural hydrogen project in Saskatchewan, according to Hydrogen Fuel News. The money funds commercial validation drilling and seismic mapping at the site.

Hydrogen Fuel News reported that the investment runs through 2176423 Ontario Ltd., described as Sprott's private investment arm. The vehicle's backing is directed at drilling and seismic studies at the Lawson Complex in Saskatchewan.

The stated aim of the work, per the same report, is to establish whether a new clean hydrogen source can be confirmed in western Canada. Natural hydrogen refers to hydrogen occurring in the subsurface rather than produced through electrolysis or from natural gas.

Seismic mapping typically precedes drilling in subsurface exploration, defining targets before capital is spent on wells. Commercial validation drilling, the second workstream named in the financing, tests whether measured volumes support a commercial case rather than a geological indication alone.

Paradip Port Authority has opened a tender for project management consultancy services covering the installation of a 1 MW electrolyser for green hydrogen production and the purchase of eight hydrogen fuel cell buses, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The consultancy scope pairs on-site hydrogen production with a captive transport fleet. Hydrogen Fuel News reported that the tender covers procuring, commissioning, and maintaining eight 32-seater hydrogen fuel cell electric buses, which will carry employees and visitors within the port's grounds.

The port authority frames the package as reinforcement of its Green Hydrogen Hub status, complementing an approved green fuel jetty, per the same report.

The design keeps supply and demand on the same site: a single megawatt of electrolysis feeding a defined internal bus route, rather than hydrogen sold into an external offtake market. That structure removes the distribution question that has stalled larger fuel cell fleet plans, since the buses refuel where the hydrogen is made.

Solar installers and business owners in Mexico are reporting kidnappings, extortion, equipment theft, and other security incidents across several states, according to pv magazine, citing CPEF, an association representing PV integrators.

CPEF President Aldo Diaz Nuno described one case in which several installers traveling to Tabasco for an inspection were seized after leaving their hotel, with their captors demanding a ransom, pv magazine reported.

Diaz Nuno said comparable incidents have taken place in Chihuahua, Guerrero, and Sinaloa, according to pv magazine.

The association is preparing a document on the security situation. Per pv magazine, it is expected to be addressed to officials including President Claudia Sheinbaum and CFE Director General Emilia Esther Calleja Alor.

Tyczka Hydrogen GmbH has acquired an operational 5 MW green hydrogen hub certified as a renewable fuel of non-biological origin (RFNBO) in Hesse, Germany, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The plant sits in the Hessisches Kegelspiel logistics park at Hünfeld-Michelsrombach, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

The outlet said the site links a 4.8 MW wind turbine and future solar arrays to a 5 MW proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyser system supplied by Fest GmbH, through a partnership with ABO Energy. Direct coupling of the electrolyser to on-site renewable generation is the structural condition behind the RFNBO certification the hub already carries.

Output is intended for buses and long-haul trucks, with Tyczka Hydrogen targeting supply of certified green hydrogen to those fleets, per Hydrogen Fuel News. The outlet framed the purchase as aligned with Germany's drive to decarbonize heavy-duty transport.

Alongside heavy-duty refuelling capacity, Hydrogen Fuel News said the acquisition is intended to cut emissions and create local jobs.

Korea South-East Power (KOEN) and the Saemangeum Development Agency have signed a memorandum of understanding to build an integrated green hydrogen and renewable power complex at Saemangeum in Buan, North Jeolla Province, South Korea, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The project pairs generation, conversion, and reconversion on one site. Hydrogen Fuel News reports the plan covers 1 GW of onshore solar capacity, 320 MW of water electrolysis, and 100 MW of hydrogen power generation.

That configuration puts electrolysis at roughly a third of the solar capacity feeding it, a sizing choice that reflects the intermittent duty cycle of photovoltaic output rather than continuous operation. The 100 MW hydrogen power block sits downstream, converting stored hydrogen back to electricity.

The agreement is between a state-owned generator and the development agency responsible for the Saemangeum site, according to Hydrogen Fuel News. An MoU sets the terms of cooperation; it is not a final investment decision.

Waldevar Energy has won the engineering, procurement and construction contract for GEN-I Sonce's 55 MW / 220 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) at Gheorgheni in eastern Transylvania, Romania, according to ESS News.

The contractor will complete its scope of works by Q3 2027, covering engineering, procurement, construction, installation, testing and commissioning, ESS News reported.

The project sits inside a wider build-out by the developer. GEN-I Sonce has previously said its portfolio of utility-scale BESS under operation would reach 800 MW by the end of 2026, per ESS News.

GEN-I Invest bought three operational BESS sites in Bulgaria in July, adding 30 MW / 76 MWh across facilities at Belovo, Momchilgrad and Parvomay 1, according to the same report. That purchase brought already-running assets into the group's books, in contrast with the Gheorgheni site, which still has to be built.

At four hours of duration, the Gheorgheni system is configured for longer discharge than the acquired Bulgarian fleet, which averages closer to two and a half hours across its 30 MW and 76 MWh.

A rooftop solar array sitting within 10 meters of a household raises that household's chance of installing photovoltaics (PV) by 20% and its chance of buying an electric vehicle by 23%, according to pv magazine.

The underlying sample is large. Researchers worked from geocoded records for 260,000 households in the canton of Bern in Switzerland, tracked across 2008 to 2019, pv magazine reported.

A modelled scenario put a number on the knock-on effect of a single install. One extra solar PV system yields, at the median, 0.07 further PV systems and 0.05 further EVs among neighbours, plus 3.7 MWh in annual electricity savings attributed to peer effects, according to pv magazine.

Benedikt Janzen of Germany's University of Passau and Patrick Bigler of Switzerland's University of Lausanne wrote the paper, "Green spills: Peer effects in pro-environmental behaviors," which appears in the Journal of Public Economics, pv magazine reported.

The cross-category result is the sharper finding: the EV figure of 23% sits above the 20% recorded for copycat rooftop installations at the same 10-meter band. The 3.7 MWh estimate converts the spillover from a count of hardware into a consumption effect.

Hydro generation across ten systems with complete records reached 31.65 TWh between June 1 and August 15, 2026, the weakest of seven summers and 6.0% below the 33.69 TWh recorded over the same calendar window in the drought summer of 2022, according to pv magazine.

The shortfall was concentrated in reservoir plants. Measured against each system's own 2020 to 2025 average, reservoir output over the same period fell 42.7% in Austria, 37.9% in Italy, 29.1% in Romania and 25.9% in France, pv magazine reported.

Solar filled the gap. Across fifteen systems in the sample, summer solar generation climbed from 34.1 TWh in 2020 to 88.7 TWh in 2026, per pv magazine.

The growth in daytime photovoltaic supply also rewrote pumped-storage operating patterns. The peak charging hour moved from around 04:00 to between 13:00 and 14:00, and the correlation between hourly solar output and hourly pumping rose from zero to 0.86 over six summers, according to pv magazine. Pumps that once drew cheap overnight power now run on midday surplus.

That re-timing matters because reservoir hydro and pumped storage are the flexible resources systems lean on when thermal margins tighten in summer. With reservoir output down by more than a quarter in four of the countries measured, the stored-energy buffer available for evening peaks is smaller than in any of the prior six summers in the dataset.

The solar figure is the counterweight: 88.7 TWh in 2026 is more than two and a half times the 34.1 TWh delivered across the same fifteen systems in 2020, pv magazine reported. The pumping correlation of 0.86 indicates how tightly the charging cycle now tracks that midday output.

Malaysian energy regulator Suruhanjaya Tenaga has issued new guidelines setting out installation requirements for residential rooftop solar under the NEM Rakyat and NEM GoMEn net metering schemes in Peninsular Malaysia, according to pv magazine.

The two schemes sit at opposite ends of the size range. Under NEM Rakyat, capacity is capped at 5 kWac for single-phase residential connections and 12.5 kWac for three-phase connections, pv magazine reported. NEM GoMEn permits systems as large as 1,000 kW, subject to technical and network limitations.

The crediting mechanism is unchanged in structure. Electricity exported to the TNB grid is offset against consumption on a 1:1 basis, and unused credits can be carried forward for up to 12 months, per pv magazine. Each NEM arrangement runs for 10 years.

Uptake across both programs stands at roughly 1.7 GW of operating PV capacity, with a further 595 MW under development, the Malaysian government said, as reported by pv magazine.

That installed base is measured against the quota fixed when the current phase of the programme opened. NEM 3.0 launched in December 2020 with a total quota of 2.5 GW, according to pv magazine. The operating and pipeline volumes together account for the bulk of that allocation, leaving a narrowing headroom for new applicants under the existing ceiling.

The capacity thresholds define who falls into which track. Households on standard single-phase supply are held to the 5 kWac limit, while three-phase premises can install two and a half times as much under the same scheme. The 1,000 kW ceiling under NEM GoMEn places that track well outside typical household demand, with network constraints as the binding condition rather than a fixed rating.

Arbitrage earnings for utility-scale batteries across Australia's National Electricity Market came to $53 million in the second quarter of 2026, down 57% from the same quarter a year earlier, BNEF said. Realized spreads on that trading fell 84% year on year, landing at $60/MWh.

BNEF pointed to a growing utility-scale battery fleet, and the competition between those assets, as the force squeezing arbitrage returns lower. Batteries set the wholesale price in 39% of intervals during the quarter, against 19% in the same period a year earlier.

The wider price backdrop moved in the same direction. BNEF's 3Q 2026 Australia Power Market Quarterly report puts the year-on-year drop in average NEM power prices in a range of 40% to 65% for the quarter.

Intraday arbitrage across the NEM averaged $103 (USD 73) per MWh, 79% below the year-earlier level, a decline BNEF attributed to a milder winter and softer evening demand.

At 6 pm, batteries covered an average 8.4% of power demand over the quarter, compared with 3.1% twelve months earlier. Gas held 6.8% of demand in that same interval, down from 12.6%.

Wind and solar together accounted for 35% of NEM generation share in Q2 2026, up from 31% year over year.

SLB expects to reactivate as many as 15 oil rigs already sitting in Venezuela, William Antonio, the company's president of Mexico, Central America and Venezuela operations, said at a conference in Houston reported by Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Up to four of those rigs could restart this year, Antonio told Reuters, with the timing hinging on whether contracts are signed with oil producers.

The oil service provider is working alongside private equity firm Formentera Partners either to bring idle rigs back into service or to import additional units into the country in the coming months, executives from both firms said on Wednesday during the conference, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The starting point is close to zero. Baker Hughes data cited in the same report put the number of active onshore drilling rigs in Venezuela at two at the end of July.

Venezuelan oil minister Paula Henao, speaking earlier at the conference, called on companies to invest in the country and to help expand its supply chain so that oil production is sustainable and profitable over time.

That appeal has not yet moved the largest international producers. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips have not rushed to return, saying more work needs to be done to protect contracts and investments, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

The split matters for how any recovery in Venezuelan drilling would be financed. Service companies and private equity capital are positioning first, while the majors that would underwrite large-scale field development hold back on contract security grounds. Antonio's conditional framing points the same way: the rig count moves when producers sign, not before.

Geely says its next-generation solid-state EV battery will reach an energy density of up to 500 Wh/kg, according to Electrek. The automaker is already running the cells through real-world validation ahead of a pilot rollout in 2027.

On range, Geely says vehicles fitted with the cells will travel over 1,000 km on a single charge, a figure the company describes as "comparable to diesel-powered cars". Durability is pitched at the same order of ambition: Geely claims a lifespan of up to 1 million km, or 621,000 miles, per Electrek.

The density target sits well above what is shipping today. Electrek reports that the best high-nickel NMC cells in production EVs land around 250 to 300 Wh/kg at the cell level. Hitting 500 Wh/kg would roughly double the upper end of that band.

Geely is not alone on the timeline. CATL is targeting 2027 for pilot production of its own 500 Wh/kg sulfide solid-state cell, according to Electrek. Two pilot programs aiming at the same density figure in the same year puts the validation stage, rather than the laboratory result, at the center of the competitive question.

Pilot production is a narrow step. It establishes whether a cell chemistry can be built repeatably on a line, not whether it can be built at automotive volume and cost. Geely's disclosure covers validation and a pilot date; the claimed cycle life of up to 1 million km is the number that would have to hold through that process to matter for a production vehicle.

Solrite Energy is entering the Illinois market with a program that puts battery energy storage in households for USD 20 per month and makes those batteries available to support the local power grid, according to Inside Climate News.

Illinois becomes the fifth state where Solrite owns virtual power plants, alongside California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Texas, Inside Climate News reported. The company has about 50 employees and runs systems in roughly 7,500 homes.

The hardware is deliberately oversized. Solrite installs a 60-kilowatt-hour battery, far more than a single house typically needs, leaving capacity to serve the address and send power to the grid, per Inside Climate News. For scale, households in ComEd territory consume an average of about 20 kilowatt-hours per day.

The launch follows a state law creating demand for aggregated household storage. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act in January, requiring utilities to develop virtual power plant programs among its provisions, Inside Climate News reported.

Sales of electric trucks and buses across the 34 countries tracked by the ICCT climbed 86 per cent year-on-year in 2025, the second consecutive year of near-doubling, according to the ICCT as reported by electrive.

Heavy battery-electric trucks accounted for much of that momentum. Global sales in the segment reached nearly 240,000 units last year, more than double the 2024 total, electrive reported.

China sits at the front of the shift. Almost 30 per cent of all new registrations in the country's heavy truck segment last year were fully electric, according to the ICCT.

Bogotá has added 50 battery-electric articulated buses to the TransMilenio network, the first battery-electric articulated buses in Colombia, according to electrive. Each vehicle carries up to 160 passengers, electrive reported.

The bodies were built domestically. Busscar assembled 25 units in Pereira and Marcopolo assembled the other 25 in Cota, per electrive.

The delivery is the opening tranche of a larger procurement. Bogotá intends to bring 900 new battery-electric buses into its public transport system between 2026 and 2029, electrive reported.

TransMilenio estimates that the full 900-bus fleet, once in service, will avoid around 57,500 tonnes of CO2 each year.

The purchase lands in a region where electric bus fleets have already reached scale. Latin America now counts more than 10,000 electric buses in operation, with Santiago de Chile the largest single fleet at 4,222 vehicles, according to electrive. Measured against that benchmark, Bogotá's 900-unit target through 2029 would represent a fraction of the regional total already running today.

Articulated vehicles are the segment that matters most for TransMilenio, which runs high-capacity bus rapid transit corridors. Replacing diesel articulated units with 160-passenger battery-electric equivalents shifts emissions off the busiest trunk routes rather than the feeder network.

Europe installed 36 GWh of new battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity in 2025, according to a report by SolarPower Europe, the European solar PV and storage sector association. Annual installations rose 48% year-on-year, increasingly driven by utility-scale projects.

The additions pushed total operational battery capacity in Europe past 100 GWh for the first time, SolarPower Europe said.

Germany held its position as the region's largest market despite the slowest growth among the leaders, adding 6.6 GWh of new BESS systems for an annual expansion of just 2%. The United Kingdom placed second with 5.2 GWh, a 64% rise on the previous year. Italy followed in third with 5 GWh.

Ukraine broke into the top five on a roughly fivefold increase in annual installations, reaching 2.9 GWh, while Bulgaria took fifth place with 2.7 GWh of new capacity.

Deployment is spreading beyond the traditional leaders. The five largest markets accounted for 62% of all installations across Europe in 2025, down from almost 80% of annual deployments concentrated in top-tier markets a year earlier, according to the association.

German automotive supplier Schaeffler and Chinese battery manufacturer CATL have signed a letter of intent to jointly develop battery management systems (BMS) and so-called X-in-1 Integrated PowerBox (IPB) solutions for EVs, according to electrive.

The two companies are targeting the European market first, electrive reported, with an already secured customer project serving as the starting point for the work. The letter of intent covers both the BMS side and the integrated power electronics packages sold under the IPB label.

Thomas Stierle, Member of the Board for E-Mobility at Schaeffler AG, said the goal is to build a competitive portfolio for Europe and other markets together with CATL.

The partnership sits alongside CATL's own cell roadmap. The battery manufacturer recently announced plans to begin pilot production of solid-state cells in 2027, according to electrive. CATL CEO Robin Zeng does not expect volume production of those cells before 2030.

FireBird Energy II LLC is being bought by Continental Resources in a transaction that lifts the buyer's Permian basin output by about 32,000 boed of oil-weighted production, World Oil reported.

The target's footprint runs to roughly 54,000 net acres in the Midland basin, sitting next to acreage Continental already works, according to World Oil.

Oil accounts for 69% of what the FireBird properties currently produce, World Oil reported.

Drilling inventory in the package totals 307 gross operated development locations, spread across more than six stacked-pay reservoirs, per World Oil.

Continental's Permian acreage has grown by more than 40% over the past 14 months once FireBird is counted, according to World Oil.

Doug Lawler, president and CEO of Continental Resources, said the basin is "integral to Continental's portfolio," in comments reported by World Oil.

Closing is expected in September 2026, subject to customary closing conditions, World Oil reported.

Concreting of the fourth tier of the inner containment at unit 1 of Egypt's El Dabaa nuclear power plant is finished, the Nuclear Power Plants Authority said, according to World Nuclear News.

The pour used 1,608 cubic metres of concrete and lifted the reactor building from 24.4 metres above ground to 34.0 metres.

Alexey Zhukov of ASE JSC said installation of the fifth tier, which will act as the support for the polar crane, is planned to begin by mid-August.

El Dabaa sits about 320 kilometres north-west of Cairo and is led by Rosatom, with four VVER-1200 units planned. It will be Egypt's first nuclear power plant and the first built in Africa since South Africa's Koeberg nearly 40 years ago.

Egypt is targeting 9% of its electricity from nuclear by 2030, a share that would be reached once the first two units enter commercial operation and displace oil and gas.

US President Donald Trump threatened to widen economic pressure to bring the war in Iran to an end, telling countries that trade with Tehran they would face severe consequences, according to Semafor.

The warning follows a decision by the UAE, which said this week it would sever economic ties with Iran, Semafor reported.

Semafor identified Dubai as central to enforcing the US squeeze, describing it as a hub for Iranian trade and finance. That role places the emirate's banking and trading channels at the point where any broader restriction on third-country commerce with Tehran would bite first.

The threat extends the pressure campaign beyond Iran itself to the counterparties that keep its trade and payment flows moving.

Prestige Imports, a New Jersey dealership, has filed suit against Polestar over the carmaker's exit from the US market, accusing the manufacturer of breaching New Jersey's Franchise Practices Act, electrive reported, citing Automotive News and Inside EVs.

At the centre of the complaint is notice. According to electrive, the dealership alleges Polestar failed to give the 60-day termination notice that New Jersey law makes mandatory. The filing also alleges the manufacturer offered no sufficient justification for ending the business relationship.

electrive describes Polestar as a Chinese manufacturer and reports that the dealership took the company to court over the exit.

The economics of the withdrawal have drawn political comment. Senator Bernie Moreno claims Polestar lost up to USD 35,000 on every vehicle it sold in the USA, according to electrive.

The exit removes a market that was never the core of the business. Around 80% of Polestar's sales come from Europe, electrive reported.

The U.S. Department of Energy selected seven projects for USD 500 million to expand critical mineral and material processing, battery manufacturing, and recycling capacity in the United States.

The award was announced by DOE's Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI), according to the department's statement.

DOE described the package as the third round of funding from its Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing and Recycling programs, which back materials processing, recycling, and manufacturing work.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said President Trump is securing critical supply chains and bringing critical materials production and processing back to the United States.

A marine drone spotted a few hundred metres from the Black Sea gas project Neptun Deep was destroyed by Romanian F-16 fighter jets, Defence Minister Radu Miruta said, in an account reported by Offshore Engineer OEDigital. Romania's president, Nicusor Dan, pointed to Russia as responsible.

It was the second such operation near the field in the same month. Army divers had already dealt with a pair of Gerbera-type drones adrift inside the exclusive economic zone close to the offshore site, the outlet reported.

Ownership of Neptun Deep is split between OMV Petrom and Romgaz, the state gas producer. Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported that the field, once producing in 2027, is expected to lift Romania to the position of largest gas producer in the European Union.

Mine clearance work continues across the wider basin. Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, all NATO members, have between them neutralised more than 150 mines that drifted into Black Sea trade lanes, according to the same report.

Eneva has begun commercial operation of the first asset in its Azulão Complex in Brazil, according to Power Magazine. The company, described by Power Magazine as the largest natural gas operator in Brazil, confirmed the start of operations.

Officials announced the Azulão installation on August 19, Power Magazine reported.

The complex sits within Eneva's "Reservoir-to-Wire" (R2W) model, which links gas production directly to power generation.

Solar policy support in China coincided with measurable declines in bird diversity across 2,344 counties tracked monthly from 2014 to 2023, according to Inside Climate News, reporting on a new study that paired policy assessment with biodiversity monitoring.

The researchers treated bird diversity as an indicator of ecosystem health and matched it against county-level policies promoting solar power over the ten-year window, Inside Climate News reported.

The effect was uneven. Inside Climate News reported that the authors found the decrease most pronounced in wealthier, non-arid counties and in areas with high numbers of birds that nest in vegetation. In desert regions and in poverty-designated counties, the authors reported no significant negative effect.

Satellite imagery complicated the picture further. Plant cover increased at solar project sites, according to Inside Climate News, a result the authors labelled "inferior greening". The term separates raw vegetation gain from habitat quality: more green pixels did not translate into more birds in the counties where diversity fell.

The scale of the deployment is the reason the finding carries weight beyond one country. China has installed nearly as many solar panels as the rest of the world combined, according to Inside Climate News.

The study's design ties the biodiversity signal to policy instruments rather than to individual projects, since the researchers assessed the policies promoting solar power alongside the monthly bird counts. Where those policies landed in arid or lower-income counties, the measured penalty did not appear.

Denver Public Schools has installed 26 charging plugs at its Hilltop Bus Terminal, served by a Kempower distributed charging system rated at 650 kilowatts, Electrek reported.

The hub pairs with a fleet the district recently enlarged. Twenty-five Blue Bird Vision electric school buses joined three already in service, taking the total to 28, according to Electrek. The district says electric buses now account for 12% of its yellow school bus fleet.

Charging capacity at the depot is shared rather than fixed per plug. Electrek reported that 13 dual-port Kempower Satellite dispensers distribute the available 650 kW dynamically across the plugs, which lets the site handle more vehicles than a hard split of that power would allow.

On running costs, the district estimates electricity will run around USD 1,900 per bus each year against USD 6,800 for diesel, per Electrek. The purchase side runs the other way: an electric bus costs about USD 400,000 compared with USD 140,000 for a diesel unit, though grants and rebates covered both the buses and the charging infrastructure, Electrek reported.

The fleet work sits inside a wider emissions target. Denver Public Schools has set a goal of cutting overall greenhouse gas emissions by at least 90% by 2050. Transportation accounts for 14% of those emissions, according to Electrek.

EnerPure has closed a US$35 million all-equity commercialization financing led by Rice Investment Group, with Canada Growth Fund Inc. joining as co-investor, according to a GlobeNewswire release.

The raise is structured entirely as equity, with no debt component disclosed in the announcement.

Proceeds are tied to the company's Alberta Commercial Plant, which EnerPure is targeting for completion and commissioning in the first half of 2028.

Separately, EnerPure announced a C$6.2 million grant from Emissions Reduction Alberta on July 20, 2026. GlobeNewswire states that the grant sits outside the US$35 million financing and is not included in that total.

ATB Capital Markets Corp. advised EnerPure on the capital raise.

Grid operator PJM Interconnection has put forward a proposal to stop data centers from driving up power prices, but the plan largely depends on states to give it force, according to Canary Media.

Canary Media reported that the long-awaited proposal was unveiled last month, and that its effect rests on state-level enforcement rather than on the grid operator alone.

Pennsylvania is taking up that challenge, according to Canary Media, which describes the state as one of the biggest in PJM's 13-state territory. That footprint makes state-level decisions in Pennsylvania consequential for how the proposal lands across the wider region.

The design places the burden of implementation outside PJM's own rulebook. Without states acting, the mechanism intended to shield ratepayers from data center demand carries no enforcement weight.

Transocean has landed a two-year binding Letter of Award from India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) covering the Dhirubhai Deepwater KG2 ultra-deepwater drillship offshore India, according to World Oil.

The contract carries an approximate value of 300 million dollars, a figure that includes additional services and mobilization fees, World Oil reported. Drilling is expected to start in the first quarter of 2027.

Attached to the award are two years of priced options, per the same report. Should ONGC exercise them in full, the Dhirubhai Deepwater KG2 would remain at work in India into early 2031.

Petroleo Brasileiro SA and Petroleos Mexicanos are jointly evaluating a pre-salt play beneath the Gulf of Mexico offshore Mexico, a zone World Oil describes as older, deeper and potentially richer in oil than many producing fields.

The acreage in question sits off Mexico's Campeche state, where Pemex drilled without success in 2018, according to World Oil. That well went more than 7,800 meters below the seabed and punched through the Campeche salt layer.

The two companies are chasing rocks formed roughly 160 million years ago, World Oil reported.

The work programme reaches past the pre-salt interval itself. Sylvia Anjos, Petrobras exploration and production chief, said at an Aug. 7 media briefing that the partners also intend to explore beneath sedimentary rocks formed by deepwater mud and sand flows, and beneath younger, shallower salt formations.

Petrobras brings a production record from the geological analogue that made its name. Tupi, which the company discovered in 2006 and brought online in 2010, has yielded approximately 4 billion barrels of crude, per World Oil.

Diamondback Energy Inc. will need twice as much electricity within ten years, its chief executive predicts, and that holds whether or not the producer adds a single barrel of output, World Oil reported.

Chief Executive Officer Kaes Van't Hof described Permian power draw as having "gone through the roof" in remarks to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Citigroup analysts see Far West Texas exposed to rotating outages as early as next summer, according to World Oil.

Diamondback ranks among the largest producers in the Permian basin, and Van't Hof says the doubling in power needs arrives regardless of production levels.