Friday, 28 August 2026

Inflation in Iran reached 66% in July, according to Semafor, while food prices rose 128% year on year.

The cost-of-living squeeze sits alongside a US campaign designed to inflict economic pain on the country. Analysts told Semafor that the pressure is squeezing the Iranian people but is unlikely to move their leaders to end the war.

The food price increase runs at roughly twice the headline inflation rate reported for July, per Semafor's figures.

Voltage Energy owes Shoals more than USD 96.38 million after a jury verdict in a federal court in North Carolina, pv magazine reported.

Jurors concluded that the infringement was willful. Two Shoals patents on Big Lead Assembly trunk bus technology were infringed when Voltage brought its LYNX trunk bus products into the United States, according to pv magazine.

The money is only part of the exposure. Shoals says the court signalled it will issue a preliminary injunction barring Voltage from making, distributing or selling LYNX products in the United States, pv magazine reported.

Voltage Energy is fighting the result and said it will ask for a new trial and a review of the verdict. The company "strongly disagrees with the jury's verdict and believes the judgment is not supported by legally sufficient evidence or the law".

The same product family already faced a border restriction. In June, the U.S. International Trade Commission issued a limited exclusion order blocking imports of certain Voltage photovoltaic trunk bus cable assemblies that were found to infringe Shoals patents, pv magazine reported.

The two rulings hit different channels. The trade commission order stops shipments arriving in the country, while the district court case attaches a damages figure and, per Shoals, would reach domestic manufacture, distribution and sale of the same LYNX line.

Windey Energy's board signed off on an offshore wind investment on August 26 after regulators cleared a larger build than originally sanctioned, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Approved capacity rose to 300 MW from 210 MW following additional regulatory approval, the outlet reported, and the change prompted an adjustment to the project's total investment.

The developer will carry out the work through Wenzhou Yunxin Wind Power, a controlled subsidiary, the company said.

On the funding side, around 20% of the investment will come from equity contributions, with loans from financial institutions covering the rest, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

BYD has installed 10,000 second-generation Flash Chargers in China, half of the 20,000 units it announced for the year, according to electrive.

The T-shaped stations each carry two charging cables and 1,500 kW of charging power, electrive reported.

The pace of the build-out is set by the second half of the programme. BYD completed 4,239 of the charging stations in the first two months of 2026, per electrive. Reaching the 10,000 mark leaves the same volume again outstanding against the announced target.

BYD plans to install the remaining 10,000 units in the final four months of the year with the help of partners, according to electrive.

Those roll-out partners include Sinopec, PetroChina, CNOOC, Teld, and JD.com, electrive reported. The line-up puts three state oil and gas groups alongside a charging network operator and an e-commerce logistics firm in the same deployment programme.

The 1,500 kW rating per station applies across the two-cable configuration described by electrive, placing each site well above the power levels of conventional direct-current fast chargers and making grid connection capacity a determining factor in siting.

European recyclers lose roughly EUR 1.90 for every kilogram of electric-vehicle battery pack they process, according to a study carried out within the EU-funded Safeloop project and reported by electrive.

Moving the packs is one reason. Once pulled from a vehicle, lithium-ion cells fall under hazardous-goods rules, and the study puts the resulting freight bill at an average of 16 times what ordinary cargo costs.

The study models what happens if a 20% recycling quota applies and recyclers pass every euro of that loss down the chain: a battery pack could increase by about 6%.

Five changes would close the gap, according to the study: safer cell design, shorter shipping distances, automated disassembly, dedicated recycling infrastructure, and common transport rules. Applied together, they trim costs by roughly 34 per cent, enough to turn the EUR 1.90 loss per kilogram into a 13 cent gain.

A second route runs through reuse. Take an electric bus pack and put it to work as stationary storage once it leaves the vehicle, and the value captured across both lives rises 64 per cent, the study found.

The EU Battery Regulation sets minimum recycled-content shares for raw materials in new vehicle, industrial, and starter batteries from August 2031.

Safeloop began in 2024 on a three-year timetable, with EU funding of about EUR 4.7 million and 15 institutions from eleven countries taking part, electrive reported.

Dolphin Drilling has turned down the terms of a non-binding offer from General Hydrocarbons Limited (GHL) that would settle part of an arbitration award of roughly USD 105 million in cash, with the remainder covered by putting the Blackford Dolphin rig to work in Nigeria, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

The drilling contractor called GHL's move to open contact positive, yet said the package as drafted falls short of what it needs. Dolphin added it would engage constructively on terms capable of producing a commercially sound result, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The underlying quarrel dates to April 2024, when Dolphin ended the Blackford Dolphin contract with GHL. Payment problems drove that decision.

Dolphin secured judicial backing in July 2025, when the Federal High Court of Lagos gave it leave to enforce the arbitration award against GHL, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Control of GHL then changed hands. Nigeria's Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria installed a receiver/manager over the company in November 2025, and creditors received instructions to file claims.

The rig itself is contracted elsewhere. On August 20, Dolphin said the Blackford Dolphin will stay with Oil India Limited until October 15, 2026, finishing drilling, testing and abandonment scopes at sites east of India, with the terms and scope of the existing contract carried over. Any Nigerian work under the GHL proposal would depend on that commitment.

Hubject is extending its Plug&Charge authentication system into Japan through a cooperation with Plugo, a charging infrastructure company that wants to bring the system to the Japanese market, electrive reported.

Hubject is based in Berlin, electrive reported. The underlying technology follows ISO 15118-2, an international standard, according to electrive.

Plugo has run Plug&Charge on the CHAdeMO standard in Japan so far, the company said. "Through our partnership with Hubject, we will expand this experience to NACS and other charging standards used internationally," Plugo said.

That covers two connector families under one authentication layer: CHAdeMO on the Japanese side and NACS, one of the standards Plugo named as a target for the rollout.

Over five million electric vehicles worldwide already support Plug&Charge, according to Hubject, cited by electrive.

Wood Mackenzie now forecasts cumulative energy storage capacity across Latin America to reach 34 GW in 2035, up from 2.5 GW in 2025, according to pv magazine.

That marks a sharp upgrade from the consultancy's earlier view. In September 2025, Wood Mackenzie projected the regional market would hit 23 GW in 2034 on a compound annual growth rate of 8%, pv magazine reported. The revised trajectory represents a 13.6-fold increase in installed capacity over 10 years.

Procurement activity across several national markets underpins the revision. Brazil will hold its first two capacity reserve auctions dedicated to large-scale battery systems on Dec. 2 and Dec. 4, 2026, according to pv magazine. The first round is reserved for projects meeting domestic manufacturing requirements; the second is open to other systems. Contracts run for 15 years, with supply starting Aug. 1, 2028.

Argentina has already awarded capacity through two tenders. The AlmaGBA auction awarded 713 MW, and AlmaSADI awarded a further 700.5 MW, pv magazine reported.

In Mexico, the call for strategic projects set an indicative target in July of 935 MW of standalone storage systems, all specified with three-hour durations, according to pv magazine.

The Dominican Republic is using a mandate rather than an auction. Regulations require new renewable projects of at least 20 MWac to pair with storage equivalent to at least 50% of installed capacity, with a minimum duration of four hours, pv magazine reported. Wood Mackenzie puts the country's storage target at 500 MW by 2030.

Petroleum Marine Services (PMS) has finished laying three subsea pipelines for the fourth phase of the Kamose offshore gas field development in Egypt, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The lines measure 8 inches in diameter and were installed with the contractor's PMS-12 barge, a vessel built for subsea pipeline laying and offshore platform installation, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported. North Sinai Petroleum Company (NOSPCO) operates the project.

The pipeline work forms part of an offshore scope awarded to PMS. Next comes the installation of the Hoor, KSE-1 and Snefru production platforms, with hook-up and commissioning activities scheduled after the platforms are in place, per the same report.

PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP) subsidiaries and Petronas Carigali's PC JDA have signed a 35-year production sharing contract covering Block A-18-01 in the Malaysia-Thailand Joint Development Area, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The contract lets the partners continue petroleum exploration, development and production from the block. PTTEP JDX Thailand (JDA) Limited and PTTEP JDX Thailand, together with PC JDA, entered into the agreement with the Malaysia-Thailand Joint Authority (MTJA), the outlet reported.

Equity is split evenly: PTTEP and PC JDA each hold a 50% participating interest. Both agreements carry 35-year terms effective from January 1, 2026.

Alongside the production sharing contract, PTTEP, MTJA and PC JDA signed a gas sales agreement for the block with buyers PTT Public Company Limited and Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas), according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Block A-18-01 sits in the southern Gulf of Thailand and covers approximately 3,494 square kilometers, producing natural gas and condensate for Thailand and Malaysia. Gas production capacity runs at roughly 300 million to 400 million standard cubic feet per day, with output supplied equally to the two countries.

The Thai share of that volume accounts for about 4% of national natural gas demand and feeds mainly power generation in southern Thailand, the outlet reported.

China brought 21.81 GW/58.60 GWh of new-type energy storage online during the first half of 2026, ESS News reported, using the domestic policy label that groups storage technologies outside conventional pumped hydro. Measured against the same period a year earlier, power capacity additions dropped 18% and energy additions dropped 16%.

Export demand moved the other way. CNESA counted 298 GWh of overseas storage orders won by Chinese suppliers over the half, an increase of 83% on the prior year.

The installed base kept climbing regardless of the slower half-year pace. At the end of June, new-type storage totalled 168.3 GW/448.7 GWh, gains of 59% on power and 71% on energy against a year earlier, according to ESS News.

Procurement volumes outran commissioning by a wide margin. Storage system awards through centralized and framework tenders came to 80.16 GWh, 95% above the year-earlier level, and engineering, procurement and construction contracts totalled 161.2 GWh, up 112%.

CNESA's projection puts cumulative new-type storage at 200.7 GW to 221.9 GW by the close of 2026, widening to a range of 371.2 GW to 450.7 GW by 2030.

California's Ontario International Airport has won roughly USD 4.15 million from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to expand zero emission infrastructure and buy additional electric ground support equipment (GSE), according to Electrek.

The award totals USD 4,147,752. Electrek reported that once the airport adds its 25% cost match, combined spending on electric GSE at Terminals 2 and 4 reaches USD 5.53 million.

The money comes through the Federal Voluntary Airport Low Emissions (VALE) grant program, which funds eligible airport projects that cut greenhouse gas emissions and helps operators meet air-quality goals.

Atif Elkadi, chief executive officer of the Ontario International Airport Authority, described the FAA decision as "a tremendous vote of confidence in the work we are doing to build a more sustainable Ontario International Airport". He said three VALE grants in three years "represents meaningful progress," and that the latest award lets the airport and its airline partners keep reducing emissions while investing in infrastructure the airport will need.

Hungary's occupational safety authority has temporarily suspended work in three areas of CATL's battery plant in Debrecen after nine employees were found to have experienced elevated nickel exposure, according to electrive.

A follow-up occupational safety inspection carried out by authorities in Hajdu-Bihar County concluded that workers had not been adequately provided with protective equipment, electrive reported.

The suspension lands on a site that has already slipped behind its own schedule. CATL had projected the start of series cell production in Debrecen for March or April 2026, according to electrive. The cell factory was initially designed for an annual capacity of 40 GWh, with longer-term plans to expand to as much as 100 GWh per year.

In May, the Chinese battery manufacturer commissioned a new module assembly line on the Debrecen premises with an annual capacity of 5 GWh, electrive reported.

The delay has already redirected supply for a customer program. Batteries for the new Mercedes-Benz electric van VLE were originally to come from Debrecen but are now shipped from China, with CATL covering the additional costs incurred, according to electrive.

Africa is on track to install 17 gigawatts of solar this year, a 45% increase year-on-year, according to the global energy think tank Ember and the African Tech Futures Lab. If that pace holds, it would be the third consecutive record year for African solar installations.

The build-out sits against a wide access gap. Nearly 600 million people on the continent still lack electricity, a shortfall Semafor attributes to inadequate energy and infrastructure investment.

Off-grid deployment is one route around that gap. IRENA said solutions such as solar mini-grids are "crucial for expanding access to dispersed and underserved populations" in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Senegal.

Nigeria signed a USD 200 million agreement with a renewable energy company last year to connect rural areas using solar mini-grids, according to Semafor.

Pulse Clean Energy has awarded Metlen a balance-of-plant contract covering Penn BESS, a 129 MW/362 MWh battery site in the West Midlands, England, ESS News reported.

Across the United Kingdom, Metlen counts around 30 storage units either finished or in progress, adding up to close to 2 GWh, according to figures the company gave ESS News.

The Italian arm of the fleet centres on a 25 MW/75 MWh unit in Apulia that has reached full operation, backed by EUR 18 million of long-term financing. Dispatch there sits with Dolomiti Energia Group under a seven-year physical tolling agreement.

In Greece, a 330 MW/790 MWh standalone battery in Thessaly is now connected to the national transmission system, ESS News reported. Karatzis Group holds the site through a joint venture with Metlen.

A second Greek asset, the 48 MW/96 MWh Aenaos project at Polygyros in Halkidiki, has been finished. Its build sat inside Greece's National Recovery and Resilience Plan and drew money from the EU's NextGenerationEU instrument, per ESS News.

Metlen and Greek utility PPC struck a deal in March on an equally owned joint venture, with a target of up to 1.5 GW/3 GWh in Romania, Bulgaria and Italy. Those units are specified as two-hour, liquid-cooled lithium-iron-phosphate systems.

The projects run on different commercial footings. Apulia earns through the tolling deal with a named offtaker, Aenaos was financed through the recovery plan and NextGenerationEU, and Penn is construction scope for an external developer. At 790 MWh, the Thessaly battery exceeds the combined energy capacity of the Apulia and Aenaos sites.

Cmb.Tech has begun operations at a green hydrogen plant in Walvis Bay, Namibia, pairing 5 MW of off-grid solar with a 5 MW proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer and 5.9 MWh of battery energy storage, according to pv magazine.

The solar array covers 6.5 hectares and holds roughly 7,000 modules, pv magazine reported, with Namibia's Ohlthaver & List Group as development partner.

Siemens supplied the electrical, automation and safety systems as an integrated package, according to the same report.

The developers describe the site as Africa's first fully integrated green hydrogen facility.

Output will feed dual-fuel trucks and generators, with railway and maritime uses also planned, pv magazine reported.

Cmb.Tech said it intends to scale the project to 250 MW in a first step and to 500 MW later, and cited potential future production of green ammonia for maritime applications. That expansion path would lift the electrolyzer from single-digit megawatts to a scale two orders of magnitude larger than the unit now running.

The off-grid configuration is the distinguishing feature. Solar generation, battery buffering and electrolysis sit behind a single boundary at Walvis Bay, with no reported grid connection supplying the stack. The 5.9 MWh battery is the element that lets the PEM unit keep running through the gaps in a solar profile, and its sizing relative to the 5 MW electrolyzer sets how many hours of production the plant can hold after sunset.

The end-use list runs through transport rather than industrial feedstock. Trucks and generators come first, railway and maritime follow, and green ammonia enters only at the larger capacity tiers Cmb.Tech has flagged.

Co-located solar-plus-storage projects pulled in a record USD 25 billion of investment during the first half of 2026, according to BloombergNEF data reported by pv magazine.

That figure sits inside a wider renewables total of USD 327.5 billion committed globally over the same six months, pv magazine reported.

The United States ranked as the second-largest market for renewable energy investment, behind China and ahead of the European Union, with 54% year-on-year growth, according to pv magazine. Developers accelerated project financing to meet tax credit deadlines and to respond to surging electricity demand, driven in part by data centers.

US solar investment specifically rose 41% to a record USD 45.8 billion, pv magazine reported.

The capital numbers run against the build numbers. BloombergNEF expects new renewable energy installations in 2026 to fall below 2025 levels, which would mark the first year-on-year decline in more than a decade.

Fuel at the pump in Senegal now costs nearly double what drivers pay in Niger, according to Semafor Net Zero, which reported that the rise in global oil prices caused by the Iran war has hit Francophone West Africa unevenly.

Senegal, described by Semafor Net Zero as the second-largest economy in the West African Economic and Monetary Union, raised prices this month to USD 1.70 per liter. Niger's pump price has largely held at USD 0.89 per liter.

Côte d'Ivoire sits between the two. Semafor Net Zero reported two price jumps over the last three months, taking fuel to USD 1.61 per liter. The outlet noted the country accounts for more than a third of the bloc's economic weight.

The divergence tracks how each government sources refined product. Niger has been cushioned by its small domestic refining capacity, Semafor Net Zero reported. Togo took a different route, becoming one of the first African buyers of refined fuel from Nigeria's Dangote refinery in March.

The IMF had warned of "uneven exposure" across the bloc, whose eight members share a common currency and some economic policy, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Hyundai is adding a global D-segment electric SUV positioned slightly above the IONIQ 5, Electrek reported.

The vehicle sits inside a wider product plan. Hyundai and Genesis intend to launch 100 new or refreshed vehicles worldwide between now and 2030, according to Electrek. The rollout is weighted toward North America with 58 launches, followed by 49 in South Korea, 41 in Europe and 26 in India.

Hyundai aims to sell 5.5 million vehicles globally by 2030, up from 4.1 million in 2025, Electrek reported.

Electrified vehicles are targeted to account for 60% of the mix by 2030, against 23% in 2025. Electrek describes that category as covering hybrids, fully electric vehicles and extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs).

In the first half of 2026, Hyundai sold 2 million vehicles and posted record revenue of 95.2 trillion won, about USD 69 billion, per Electrek.

US retail sales hit a record 490,000 vehicles in the first half of the year, according to Electrek.

Hyundai plans to apply Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to its first mass-produced software-defined vehicle in 2028, through a partnership with NVIDIA, Electrek reported.

Codelco, the Chilean state copper producer, has entered a five-year technology collaboration with Canadian equipment maker MacLean Engineering covering underground mining operations, Natural Resources Canada announced.

Three technical areas fall under the agreement: tunnel development, trench scaling and the installation of service infrastructure. The Canadian department describes the goal as technology that "will strengthen worker safety and contribute to more efficient and sustainable underground mining".

The announcement came out of the Conference of Mining Ministries of the Americas (CAMMA) in Santiago, Chile, where Claude Guay, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, led the Canadian delegation.

Ottawa also unveiled the first Canada-Chile Eureka project. Under it, the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) will contribute up to CAD 450,000 in research and development funding to Cheetah Networks, a firm based in Ottawa that works on network analytics and Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity, for joint work with Chilean partners.

A trade mission follows in October 2026, when NRC IRAP and the Trade Commissioner Service (TCS) of Global Affairs Canada will take 12 Canadian companies to Chile under the Canadian Cleantech in Mining Mission.

Canada ranks as the largest foreign investor in Chile.

Kia is recalling 21,290 EV9 electric SUVs from the 2025 and 2026 model years over a defect that can leave the front passenger airbag armed when a child occupies the seat, according to Electrek.

The fault traces to the supplier, which routed the Occupant Detection System mat bladder tube improperly, Electrek reported. Documents submitted to the NHTSA describe a tube that may become pinched after the front seat is adjusted several times. Where that happens, the system may fail to deactivate the airbag when a child or child seat is in the front seat.

The recall population covers 21,290 vehicles across the two model years. Kia estimates only 6% of the EV9s included in the recall actually carry the defect, per Electrek.

Build location determines exposure. The affected vehicles came off the line at Kia's manufacturing plant in Georgia. All 2025 EV9s and certain 2026 models are covered. Kia said 2025 EV9 SUVs built in Korea are not affected.

Roughly 200,000 gal/day of LNG liquefaction capacity has moved into Sapphire Gas Solutions' distributed natural gas business through its purchase of EDGE LNG, bought from affiliates of Blue Water Energy, World Oil reported.

EDGE is headquartered in Texas and runs on modular and mobile equipment, offering three linked services: turning gas to liquid, hauling it, and returning it to gas at the customer end. Its liquefaction fleet supplies buyers spread across the southern U.S..

Neither side put a price on the transaction.

Sam Thigpen, CEO of Sapphire Gas Solutions, tied the purchase to a broader plan: it "progresses Sapphire's strategy to be a fully integrated LNG supplier for our customers," he said.

Sapphire came into the deal shortly after announcing a strategic partnership with private equity firm Antin Infrastructure Partners, according to World Oil.

BritENERGY Group is acquiring a controlling interest in 13 oil and gas wells spread across 3,000 acres in New Mexico's Permian basin, according to World Oil.

The wells and their associated production facilities represent roughly USD 50 million in capital investment, World Oil reported. BritENERGY is targeting 5 MMbbl of production from the acreage by 2032, and expects the development to generate approximately USD 200 million in profit.

Alongside the hydrocarbon assets, the company is planning a 300-MW solar development at the same site.

BritENERGY Chairman Garry Mahoney framed the move as a verdict on conditions at home. Britain has had enormous advantages in engineering and access to capital, Mahoney said, but the country is becoming so hostile to investment that it is heading to energy zero faster than net zero.

He is not alone in that assessment. Hunting CEO Jim Johnson has described the UK as uninvestable, World Oil noted.

The reallocation of capital away from British acreage extends to the largest operators. bp recently announced plans to sell its longstanding UK North Sea upstream business.