Thursday, 3 September 2026

Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the pause on the federal excise tax on gasoline and diesel will be extended until at least next year, according to a statement from the Canadian Energy Marketers Association (CEMA).

The measure had been due to lapse on September 7. In April, the Carney government temporarily removed the 10-cent federal excise tax on a litre of gasoline and four cents per litre on diesel, per CEMA.

The government presented the extension as an affordability measure for Canadians, citing international turmoil in the Middle East and geopolitical pressures with the United States.

CEMA is asking for a transition mechanism, such as a rebate or credit, covering federally taxed fuel inventory held as of the effective date of the suspension. Fuel marketers that bought stock with the excise tax already embedded in the purchase price carry that cost into a market where the tax is no longer collected at the pump.

The association's request ties the extension of the pause to the same inventory question raised by the original April suspension, when the levy was lifted mid-stream on gasoline and diesel already in the distribution chain.

Local opposition is mounting against Asia's fast-expanding data center construction, as governments chasing a share of the AI investment boom collide with residents' environmental and health concerns, Semafor Net Zero reported.

The pushback stretches from India to Australia, according to Nikkei. Its effect so far is geographic rather than aggregate: overall demand is not falling, but investment is being redirected as companies move projects toward areas where resistance is weaker, Nikkei reported.

Semafor Net Zero framed the friction as a conflict between the urge of governments to capture value from AI investment and the concerns of their constituents.

China's oil consumption fell 9 percent from April through June, with transportation fuel use down 16 percent, according to an analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air cited by Inside Climate News.

The Finland-based research organization tied the drop in part to electrification of road freight and passenger vehicles. Electric truck sales rose 77 percent in the second quarter against the same period a year earlier, according to the report. The total number of electric vehicles on the road was 33 percent higher than a year earlier.

Measured across the first half of the year, the decline in Chinese oil use exceeded the entire volume of oil consumed in the United Kingdom over the same period, the report said.

Coal worked against the trend. Burning of coal for power rose 2.4 percent, and the report said the emissions decline would have been larger without that increase.

The reversal cuts against a decade-long pattern. Chinese oil consumption has expanded by more than 500,000 barrels per day annually on average over the last ten years, a run of growth that shaped global crude demand.

China's carbon dioxide emissions fell by 1% in the second quarter of 2026, with oil consumption plummeting amid the strait of Hormuz crisis, according to a Carbon Brief analysis.

The composition of the decline breaks with every previous episode. Carbon Brief said this is the first time reductions in oil consumption have been responsible for a fall in China's CO2 emissions overall, with coal consumption having been the main driver in all earlier cases.

Crude oil processing volumes dropped 11% during the quarter, Carbon Brief reported, and China cut oil imports by 32%. Some of the processing shortfall was absorbed by drawing down oil product inventories, with Sinopec sales down 9%.

Power generation moved the other way. Carbon Brief identified the power sector as the largest source of emissions growth in the quarter, with coal use up 2.4% while gas-fired generation fell 1.2%.

Structural demand destruction sat alongside the crisis-driven cuts. Oil consumption displaced by electric vehicles in China in the first half of 2026 exceeded total oil consumption in the UK over a six-month period, according to Carbon Brief.

Coal demand from chemicals producers also came in below expectations. Carbon Brief said annual growth in coal use for chemicals production slowed to 8%, from 15% in 2025 and 19% in the first quarter, defying expectations of a boom.

Diversified Energy has signed definitive agreements to acquire Birch Permian Holdings and certain affiliated companies from affiliates of Elliott Investment Management, in a deal the company valued at approximately USD 1.8 billion, according to a statement issued through GlobeNewswire.

Birch operates in the Permian Basin as an independent oil and gas producer, according to the announcement.

Funding will come primarily from an issuance of an Asset Backed Securitization of approximately USD 1.5 billion, arranged through Diversified's partnership with Carlyle's Asset-Backed Finance and Capital Markets teams, the company said.

Diversified expects the transaction to lift production by roughly 35% and Adjusted EBITDA by roughly 55%, per the release. The company put the incremental contribution at approximately USD 548 million of annualized Adjusted EBITDA from what it described as a high-margin asset base.

On a pro forma basis, gross volumes under Diversified's operated control are expected to reach approximately 2.5 Bcfepd, equivalent to about 1.6 Bcfepd net, according to the statement.

The company expects to close during the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.

Shell Offshore, a subsidiary of Shell plc, will acquire a 30% stake in the BP-operated Conifer exploration prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

The transaction extends beyond U.S. waters. In a separate statement cited by Offshore Engineer OEDigital, BP plc said Shell would also take a 50% stake in the Tupinamba exploration block in Brazil's Santos Basin.

BP keeps the balance of both interests and stays operator, according to the same report: 70% at Conifer and 50% at Tupinamba.

The Gulf of Mexico, referred to as the Gulf of America under an executive order, accounts for about 15% of U.S. crude oil production, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

OMV Petrom has brought seven 5 MW electrolyzer modules onto the site of its Petrobrazi refinery near Ploiesti, Romania, for a new 35 MW unit, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The refinery is scaling toward 55 MW of green hydrogen capacity, Hydrogen Fuel News reported. The 35 MW unit assembled from the modular units is the step being taken now.

Output from the venture is targeted at about 8,000 tonnes of green hydrogen, per the same report. That volume feeds a refinery that is also gaining a 250,000 tonne plant for sustainable aviation fuel and hydrotreated vegetable oil, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The modular approach matters for the delivery schedule: seven identical 5 MW blocks rather than a single bespoke stack shortens fabrication and commissioning work at the refinery. Each block carries the same rating, and together they account for the full 35 MW installation.

Hydrogen produced on site at a refinery replaces volumes that would otherwise be sourced from fossil feedstock, and the SAF and HVO plant is a hydrogen consumer in its own right. The 250,000 tonne fuel facility and the 8,000 tonnes of green hydrogen are being built into the same industrial complex.

The gap between the 35 MW unit now being installed and the 55 MW figure Hydrogen Fuel News cites for the site marks the remaining build-out at Petrobrazi.

Nadara has confirmed Cowie, north of Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, as the landfall point for the Bellrock floating offshore wind project in Scotland, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The project carries a proposed capacity of 1.8 GW, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Alongside the landfall decision, the developer filed a Scoping Report and a Habitats Regulations Appraisal Screening Report with the Marine Directorate covering the offshore transmission infrastructure tied to the scheme, according to the same report.

The Cowie choice followed community consultation events held in November 2025 and March 2026, per Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Western Australia's Economic Regulation Authority (ERA) has penalised state-owned utility Synergy after finding it breached multiple rules governing the state's electricity market, RenewEconomy reported.

Synergy said the bidding behaviour behind the breach was unintentional and stemmed from a software error at its first big battery project, according to RenewEconomy.

The ERA said on Wednesday it had issued the fine to Synergy following the finding, RenewEconomy reported.

Saipem's pipelay vessel Castorone has reached the Southern North Sea to begin work for the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP), according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The vessel will lay a 136km pipeline linking industry on Teesside and the Humber to the Endurance storage site beneath the North Sea, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported. That subsea line is the transport spine between emitters onshore and the permanent storage reservoir offshore.

At 325 metres long, Castorone is described by the outlet as one of the world's largest pipelay vessels.

Fuel for the campaign will come substantially from biofuel. Castorone will burn almost 3,000 tonnes of marine biofuel during the offshore work, which Offshore Engineer OEDigital said helps reduce emissions tied to construction activities.

Rich Denny, Managing Director at NEP, called the arrival a significant moment for the East Coast Cluster, for industrial decarbonization and for the UK's journey to net zero.

BYD has launched the Sealion 08 and begun mass producing a 4D radar chip, according to CleanTechnica.

The two moves pair a new model with in-house sensing hardware, with the chip now at mass-production stage rather than prototype, per CleanTechnica's report.

CleanTechnica also reported that BYD's battery-electric passenger vehicle sales were up a lot in August.

A fire has gutted the Tungatinah Power Station in Tasmania, a 142.2 megawatt above-ground hydroelectric plant, and left about 300 customers without electricity, according to RenewEconomy.

The outage covers Bonnie Lake, Tarraleah and Dee Lagoon, RenewEconomy reported.

"The fire is currently contained but the damage is significant," Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff told reporters on Thursday morning.

Bringing the blaze under control took 25 emergency crews and 45 personnel hours, according to RenewEconomy.

Tungatinah is one of 11 hydroelectric stations across Tasmania and the second built at Tarraleah, per the same report.

China's carbon dioxide emissions fell by 1% in the second quarter of 2026, according to an analysis published by CleanTechnica.

The decline tracked a sharp contraction in oil demand. CleanTechnica attributed the drop in oil consumption to the strait of Hormuz crisis.

Oil use across the country fell by 9%, with transport oil use down 16%, following disruptions to supply from the Gulf through the strait, per the same analysis.

The first of 69 wind turbines has gone up at Squadron Energy's Uungula wind farm in New South Wales, Australia, according to RenewEconomy. The 414 MW project is the only large-scale wind farm currently under construction in the state.

Squadron Energy says the installation was fully completed at 2pm on Sunday August 30, once the third and final blade was fitted. The first of those blades reached the site earlier in the month, according to the developer. Squadron Energy is owned by Andrew Forrest.

Construction across the wider site is now two-thirds complete, RenewEconomy reported, with works expected to ramp up during the tower installation phase.

The logistics behind the remaining build are already running to a fixed cadence. Squadron Energy needs 204 blades for the other 68 turbines, and those components are arriving at the project site at a rate of one per day, excluding Sundays, according to RenewEconomy.

Powering Skills Organisation estimates the energy transition workforce needs 42,000 new qualified workers, according to pv magazine. The same research points to hiring gaps that employers have been unable to close for months at a time.

Among employers surveyed by PSO, 55% carried vacancies over the past 12 months, pv magazine reported. A further 52% said positions had stayed unfilled for longer than six months.

The pipeline meant to supply those roles leaks early. PSO research cited by pv magazine found 59% of electrotechnology apprenticeship cancellations happen in the first year of study. Another 26% of cancellations occur in the second year. Completion rates for those apprenticeships stand at 70%, according to PSO.

PSO's report names workplace culture as a constraint on recruitment, identifying women, First Nations peoples and culturally and linguistically diverse communities as underutilised talent pools. That framing puts retention and workplace conditions, rather than training volume alone, at the centre of the shortfall PSO describes.

The combination of the two datasets sets the scale of the task. Employers report vacancies they cannot fill, while roughly three in ten apprentices do not finish, with most departures clustered in the first two years of study.

Brazil's Federal Senate passed Bill 278/2026, which sets up a special tax regime for data center services known as Redata, pv magazine reported.

Two domestic conditions attach to the benefit. Operators drawing on the regime have to keep a minimum of 10% of the data processing, storage and handling capacity they install available to the Brazilian market. Alongside that, they owe domestic investment worth 2% of what they spend on products bought under the incentive.

Senators loosened how eligible power is defined. Where the earlier proposal spoke of "clean or renewable sources," the approved wording reads "renewable or low-emission sources," with the detailed criteria pushed to later regulation, according to pv magazine. The approved text treats solar and wind as renewable, and hydropower, biomass and biogas as low-emission, pv magazine reported.

Clean Energy Latin America (CELA) counted 11 long-term supply contracts signed between renewable generators and Brazilian data centers from 2021 to 2024, covering 330 MW and worth roughly BRL 7.7 billion (USD 1.4 billion), according to pv magazine.

Seven of those 11 used a self-generation structure and four were power purchase agreements, the CELA survey found as cited by pv magazine.

Some drivers of the Tesla Model Y have reported suspension problems, according to CleanTechnica, which said the complaints have come from owners in China and the US.

CleanTechnica described the issue as one that has left a bitter taste in the mouths of some Model Y drivers.

The complaints sit alongside the vehicle's commercial standing. The Model Y continues to hold a strong position in EV sales globally and in the US, CleanTechnica said.

Municipal utility Homestead Public Services was owed more than USD 8 million in unpaid bills from customers still receiving service, according to a city analysis from 2025 cited by Inside Climate News, with more than 9,000 delinquent residential accounts on its books.

The arrears are concentrated in small balances. As of April, the average delinquent energy bill in Homestead stood at USD 617, Inside Climate News reported, while the largest single past-due account had reached USD 9,981.

The billing pressure has coincided with a hotter summer. Thirty-seven heat advisories were issued for Miami-Dade County this summer, against 12 the previous summer, according to Inside Climate News. The National Weather Service issued one extreme heat warning, its most severe alert for dangerous heat conditions, on Aug. 19, prompted by a forecast heat index of 112 degrees. That day was the hottest August day on record in Homestead.

Municipal utilities cut off customers at twice the rate of their investor-owned counterparts. In 2024, the only year for which comprehensive federal data is available, municipal utilities disconnected 12 out of every 100 customers, compared with six out of every 100 at investor-owned utilities, Inside Climate News reported.

Petrobras and Pemex announced a two-year memorandum of understanding on June 23 setting out how the two state oil companies will work together, according to Mongabay. The press release describes cooperating to "increase production in deepwater" and in "mature fields... in the Gulf of Mexico".

The deepwater ambition sits against a documented risk gradient. Mongabay cites researchers' analysis of past drilling in the Gulf of Mexico showing that safety and environmental incidents rise by an average of 8.5% for every 30.48 meters of well depth.

Recent operating history in the same basin supplies the immediate concern. An oil spill near the Gulf of Mexico in March contaminated 933 kilometers of shoreline, and Pemex later attributed the pollution to a leak in one of its pipelines, Mongabay reported.

That was not the only incident. An exploratory natural gas well near Las Choapas, Veracruz, exploded in February and kept releasing smoke and gas for nearly five months.

The expansion also runs alongside conservation commitments. Mexico created the Southern Gulf of Mexico Reefs National Park in 2024, the largest marine protected area in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Mongabay.

An eighth suspect has been arrested in an investigation into illegal electricity connections and theft of critical infrastructure at the Emfuleni Local Municipality, according to SAnews. The Gauteng Political Killing Task Team (PKTT) believes the person arrested is the mastermind behind the scheme.

SAnews reported that the suspect will make a first court appearance on Monday, 7 September 2026.

The charges are theft, damage to and theft of critical infrastructure, and money laundering, according to SAnews.

The arrest is the latest in a sequence, with seven other suspects already taken into custody in the same matter, SAnews reported.

Asian refiners will pay USD 2 a barrel under the Oman/Dubai benchmark for Saudi Aramco's flagship Arab Light in September, the deepest such discount since June 2020, Semafor Net Zero reported.

That price list lands after a change in OPEC's membership. On April 28 the United Arab Emirates said it would quit both OPEC and the wider OPEC+ coalition, closing out a seat it had held since 1967, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Without Emirati barrels, OPEC's share of world crude output slips to roughly 31%, down from about 35% when the UAE was counted in. For OPEC+, the comparable figures are about 46% and 42%, per Semafor Net Zero.

Iraq wants a bigger allocation. Over the summer Baghdad pushed for a higher quota, with an output ambition of 8 million to 10 million barrels a day inside six years. Its September quota stood at 4.431 million barrels a day, Semafor Net Zero reported.

American refineries are taking upward of 500,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan crude, about half of that country's output, according to US officials cited by Semafor Net Zero.

OPEC+ has now finished rolling back the 1.65 million-barrel-a-day tranche of voluntary curbs that members agreed in 2023. The final step was an increase of 188,000 barrels a day for September, Semafor Net Zero reported.

Ministers convene on September 6 to set output for the following month, with the next price list due around that meeting, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Hyundai Mobis has begun operations at its first European plant for electric drive systems, located in Nováky, Slovakia, according to electrive.

The Nováky site covers around 106,000 square metres, with a total floor area of 8,500 square metres, electrive reported.

The supplier is targeting 40 per cent of revenue from global customers by 2033, according to electrive. That target frames the plant as a supply base for buyers outside the group rather than a captive facility.

A South Korean research team has developed a route to upcycle silicon recovered from end-of-life photovoltaic modules into silicon nitride (Si₃N₄), according to pv magazine. The recovered silicon reached 99.95% purity after processing, pv magazine reported.

Purification quality drove the quality of the final ceramic. The Si₃N₄ made from the purified feedstock contained 93.1% α-Si₃N₄, against 54.7% α-Si₃N₄ when the recycled silicon was synthesized without the additional purification step, per pv magazine.

Milling speed governed how much aluminum survived the acid step. pv magazine reported that severe particle agglomeration at 800 rpm left a residual aluminum concentration of 4,290 ppm after HCl etching, compared with 189 ppm at 400 rpm.

A sedimentation stage handled titanium dioxide. In 5 minutes, 71.4% of the TiO₂ impurity was removed while silicon recovery held at 92.3%, according to pv magazine.

The work was published in Materials Today Sustainability, with researchers from the Korea Institute of Energy Research and Chungnam National University participating in the study, pv magazine reported.

Silicon nitride is a higher-value output than the feedstock-grade material typically targeted by module recycling, and the α-phase share reported here is the metric that separates the purified route from the unpurified one. The gap between the two figures, 93.1% and 54.7%, sits entirely in the added purification step.

Rideshare drivers in California will be able to apply in September for electric-vehicle incentives under a program whose initial implementation plan the CPUC signed off on 2 July, according to electrive.

Eligibility for the Drivers Assistance Program is set by income and platform: drivers earning low and middle incomes who work for Uber, Lyft or HopSkipDrive. Those same three platforms define the applicant pool when the window opens.

Up to USD 1,170 per year is available towards charging costs, according to CPUC.

The RIDE program draws its money from a regulatory fee levied on TNCs, with the Center for Sustainable Energy running the scheme. Drivers apply through the Center for Sustainable Energy, which also issues incentive payments and handles outreach and ongoing support.

Collecting the fee from transportation network companies keeps the funding inside the rideshare sector. The package pairs purchase incentives with the annual charging allowance, covering both the vehicle and the electricity that moves it.

The US District Court for the District of Columbia has issued a preliminary injunction against the EPA, according to Electrek, ruling that the waivers at issue qualify as adjudicatory orders under the APA and the CRA.

The court held that the waivers are "properly considered adjudicatory orders" under those statutes "for both procedural and substantive reasons," Electrek reported.

In the same preliminary injunction, the court wrote that California is likely to prevail on the merits of the case after a full trial, according to Electrek.

The reach of the dispute extends well beyond a single state. Electrek reported that 16 states have adopted some portion of California's clean air rules.

Portuguese solar generation peaked at approximately 3.85 GW in August, a record for the technology, according to pv magazine. Electricity imports set a record of their own in the same month, exceeding 5.2 GW after interconnection capacity between Portugal and Spain was reinforced.

The monthly supply mix leaned heavily on cross-border flows. Renewable sources met 52% of Portuguese electricity consumption in August, non-renewable generation supplied 12%, and net imports covered the remaining 36%, pv magazine reported.

That import share stands against a considerably greener year to date. Across the first eight months, renewables covered 66% of national electricity consumption.

Solar's rise preceded the August peak. In July, solar PV became Portugal's largest single source of electricity generation for the first time, meeting 19% of national consumption, pv magazine reported, citing REN.

Installed capacity continues to grow, though at a moderate pace relative to the generation records. Portugal added 372 MW of solar between December 2025 and May 2026, per pv magazine.

Studsvik AB has named GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Samsung C&T as strategic collaborators on a proposed four-unit BWRX-300 build in Sweden with a combined capacity of about 1,200 MWe, according to Power Magazine.

The Swedish nuclear technology company has not fixed the location. Power Magazine reported that the plant is planned for either Studsvik's licensed nuclear site in Nyköping or Målma in Valdemarsvik.

The design at the centre of the plan is the BWRX-300, a small modular reactor from GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy. Four units would deliver roughly 1,200 MWe in total under the configuration described by Power Magazine.

Samsung C&T joins as the second strategic collaborator on the proposal.

Energy planning has largely bypassed African agriculture, and experts and policymakers this week pressed for coordinated funding to run food production on renewables, Climate Home News reported.

Hailemariam Desalegn, the former Ethiopian prime minister, told a panel at the 20th session of the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali that the two problems cannot be separated. "Irrigation needs energy. Cold storage, transport, processing, as well as markets - all need reliable energy," he said.

Up to 30% of Africa's food is lost each year before reaching markets, a 2025 report by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) found, with road conditions, storage and cold chain gaps behind the shortfall.

Climate Home News puts the number of people on the continent living without electricity at about 600 million.

The World Bank Group and the African Development Bank Group reported in June that their Mission 300 initiative had reached over 50 million people with new connections in 40 African countries. The programme targets access for 300 million Africans by 2030.

Money, not ambition, framed much of the discussion. AGRA launched its 2026 foresight report at the forum, which sizes the annual agrifood financing gap on the continent at USD 180 billion.

The same report estimates Africa's yearly infrastructure finance shortfall at USD 67 billion to USD 108 billion, and finds that filling it could cut post-harvest losses by half while lifting farmer incomes by as much as 40%.

Second Foundation has signed an optimization agreement with BLEnergy and Shamir Energy covering a 140 MW standalone battery energy storage system to be built in Alytus, Lithuania, according to ESS News.

ESS News reports the facility ranks among the largest standalone battery storage projects in Lithuania. The system is not yet built.

The commercial structure rests on a floor agreement, which ESS News describes as a revenue-protection mechanism guaranteeing a minimum level of return while still allowing the parties to share in higher returns. That structure shifts part of the merchant price risk in battery trading away from the asset owner, since revenue from arbitrage and ancillary services fluctuates with day-ahead and balancing market conditions.

Optimization agreements assign trading and dispatch decisions for a battery to a specialist counterparty, which bids the asset into wholesale and balancing markets. Pairing that role with a floor removes the downside tail for the owner and gives lenders a contracted revenue base to underwrite against, a financing question that has slowed standalone storage projects lacking capacity payments or long-term contracts.

ESS News did not report the storage duration, the commissioning schedule, or the value of the agreement.

Host cities across Texas did not get the economic gains and employment the petrochemical industry promised during its expansion of the last 15 years, according to IEEFA.

IEEFA names three key host regions for the buildout: the Coastal Bend, the Houston Ship Channel, and the Golden Triangle.

The multiplier argument used to sell those projects came from the industry itself. Executives have claimed that every one job at a petrochemical plant results in another seven jobs in the surrounding community, IEEFA said. Set against that claim, the promised boost to local economic conditions failed to appear in the cities that took the plants.

What did arrive was a cost. IEEFA attributes additional health costs to elevated levels of toxic pollutants, with the burden falling on the communities sitting closest to the petrochemical plants.

Texas has no master mailing list of data center operators, state officials told lawmakers at a state Senate hearing, leaving regulators unable to compile complete figures on how much water and power the facilities consume, according to Inside Climate News.

The gap shows up in the response numbers. The Texas Water Development Board sent its annual mandatory survey to 341 data center operators in January, and by August 26 only about 100 facilities had replied, a response rate of 30 percent, Inside Climate News reported. Reminders and direct messages went to operators who had not answered by July.

What did come back points to a large draw on local supplies. In a joint TWDB survey, 81 facilities reported nearly 1.3 billion gallons of total water intake, of which 964 million gallons was potable water, according to Inside Climate News. Those figures cover a fraction of the operators the state attempted to survey.

The reporting gap sits alongside a hard stop on new grid connections. Governor Greg Abbott essentially imposed a moratorium on new data centers connecting to the Texas grid until an audit can be conducted on the projects' viability and community impacts, Inside Climate News reported.

Officials told the Senate hearing they want to know how much water data centers across the state are using. Without a comprehensive contact list, the survey instrument reaches only the operators the state already knows about.

Solar has passed coal in China's installed power capacity for the first time, with PV reaching 1.286 TW by the end of July against 1.285 TW of coal-fired plant, pv magazine reported.

That PV fleet is split between utility-scale projects at 704 GW and distributed systems at 582 GW, and together they hold roughly 31.5% of China's installed power capacity. All fuels combined gave the country 4.078 TW of generating capacity at the end of July.

Liu Zhiqiang, deputy director of planning and development at the China Electricity Council, described the crossover as "a milestone event".

On output, the ranking reverses. Coal plants supplied about 2.5 PWh during the first half of the year, or 49.7% of all generation, according to pv magazine. Solar delivered 802.4 TWh across the first seven months of 2026, around 13% of national electricity consumption.

New build has fallen steeply. First-half PV additions came to roughly 71.8 GW in 2026, against 212.2 GW in the equivalent period of 2025.

Utilization has weakened alongside the capacity build. The average PV utilization rate stood at 91.4% in the first half of 2026, down from 94% a year earlier, pv magazine reported.

D.TRADING, the energy trading unit of Ukraine's DTEK Group, and Finnish battery optimizer Capalo AI have begun working together to offer structured revenue arrangements for battery energy storage and hybrid renewable projects in Europe, ESS News reported.

The arrangement splits the two roles that battery developers usually have to buy separately. D.TRADING takes the contractual counterparty and offtaker position, supplying fixed revenue structures and credit support, according to ESS News. Capalo AI handles market access, trading assets across day-ahead, intraday and ancillary service markets through its Zeus VPP platform.

The combination pairs D.TRADING's offtake capabilities with Capalo AI's multi-market trading platform.

Battery projects in the Balkans are the first target, ESS News reported, with potential expansion into wider Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European markets where both companies already have a presence.

Capalo AI's managed portfolio includes 600 MW of batteries and 300 MWp of solar already live under trading and optimization, according to ESS News.

The optimizer currently operates in six European markets: Bulgaria, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Sweden. It plans to add Estonia, Greece, Portugal and Spain in 2026.

MAN Truck & Bus and its partners will put around EUR 700 million into expanding the European service and sales network by the end of 2030, electrive reported. Around one-third of that sum is earmarked specifically for electromobility and digitalisation.

The bulk of the commitment comes from the network itself. MAN dealers, service partners and importers plan to invest around EUR 400 million in their MAN service locations across Europe, according to electrive. The remainder brings the combined programme to the EUR 700 million figure through the end of the decade.

"The scale of these investments is unprecedented in MAN's history," said Friedrich Baumann, Board Member for Sales and Customer Solutions at MAN.

The electromobility and digitalisation share accounts for roughly a third of the planned spending. The charging component is not being built alone: electrive reported that the charging network expansion embedded in the programme is being carried out in cooperation with energy company E.On.

The two partners are targeting up to 400 charging points at up to 170 locations across Europe, with up to 125 sites in Germany alone. That concentration puts more than seven in ten of the planned locations in a single market.

Density is the stated goal on the service side as well. MAN aims for almost 80% of customers to have a travel time of under 30 minutes to the nearest MAN service location, according to electrive. That target defines what the EUR 400 million of partner-level spending on workshop sites is meant to buy: coverage measured in drive time rather than site count.

Kongsberg Maritime has won a contract from COSCO Shipping (Qidong) Offshore to deliver an integrated technology package for two Wind Turbine Installation Vessels under construction for Cadeler, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The two T-class units were announced by Cadeler in August 2026, with deliveries scheduled for 2030 and 2031, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

The supply scope covers a complete electrical, automation and propulsion package for both vessels. It includes azimuth and tunnel thrusters, dynamic positioning technology, power generation and distribution systems, propulsion drives, integrated automation and vessel control systems, and energy management solutions.

The vessels are intended to support installation of larger next-generation wind turbines and foundations, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. Turbine size drives installation vessel design: crane height, deck load and station-keeping capability all scale with the components being lifted, which is why dynamic positioning and thruster specification sit at the centre of the Kongsberg Maritime package.

Cadeler is described by Offshore Engineer OEDigital as an offshore wind installation company. The delivery dates place the two vessels in service well after the current installation fleet, a build-to-order timeline that ties yard capacity at COSCO Shipping (Qidong) Offshore to turbine models still ahead of the market.

NextEra Energy has credited an AI-driven dispatch and outage-scheduling tool with saving its customers more than USD 20 million so far this year, according to Power Magazine.

The tool works on two levers utilities watch closely: which units run when, and when plants come offline for maintenance. Power Magazine reported the figure as a customer saving rather than a company earnings item.

Santee Cooper is pursuing a separate use case. The utility expects a custom AI weather-forecasting model to help it avoid spot-market purchases that can cost USD 100,000 an hour during extreme weather, Power Magazine reported.

That framing ties the forecasting work directly to procurement exposure. Sharper weather calls shift the decision of whether a utility covers a demand spike from its own fleet or buys into the spot market at the prices Santee Cooper cited. The company describes the model as custom-built rather than an off-the-shelf product.

Both cases are presented by the utilities themselves in dollar terms, one as realized savings to date, the other as an expected avoided cost.

Daimler Truck, the Volvo Group and Toyota are joining forces in Germany to speed up the commercial rollout of heavy hydrogen trucks and the refuelling infrastructure they depend on, with backing from Bosch, Air Liquide and TotalEnergies, according to electrive.

The partners will set out their aims on 15 September at the IAA Transportation show in Hanover, electrive reported.

Membership at launch reaches beyond the three truck makers. Bosch joins as a supplier, while Air Liquide and TotalEnergies come in on the energy side, electrive reported. TEAL Mobility and MB Energy round out the initial list alongside Daimler Truck, Volvo Group and Toyota.

The fuel cell groundwork predates the alliance. Daimler Truck and the Volvo Group run the joint venture Cellcentric, which Toyota entered this year as a third equal partner, according to electrive.

The German government has committed to building an initial hydrogen truck network and has received over 500 applications to its first funding call in that area, electrive reported.

Daimler Truck said Germany is bringing together the full ecosystem needed to scale the deployment of hydrogen trucks by 2030, pointing to policy frameworks, an OEM offering and an integrated hydrogen supply chain and infrastructure.

That supply chain maps onto the roster: vehicle production at Daimler Truck, Volvo Group and Toyota, components at Bosch, industrial gas at Air Liquide, and fuel retail at TotalEnergies.

Cypress Creek Energy has energized its 104 MWdc Ostrea solar project in Yakima County, Washington, according to Solar Builder, which reported the company announcement of Sept. 2.

Microsoft will take the output as the site's long-term off-taker of energy and environmental products under a power purchase agreement, Solar Builder reported. The plant feeds into the Bonneville Power Administration transmission system.

The project represents approximately USD 180 million in private capital investment, according to Solar Builder. Over its operating life, Ostrea is expected to generate an estimated USD 13.3 million in state and local tax revenue.

Cypress Creek Energy will own the project for up to 40 years, Solar Builder reported. The developer said the Ostrea project aims to add a new source of renewable energy to the regional grid in the Pacific Northwest.

Land stewardship programs tied to the site will conserve 275 acres of critical ecological habitats, support wildlife migration paths, and work to restore native vegetation across the project site, according to Solar Builder.

India's Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI) is weighing a new support scheme covering as many as 100,000 heavy-duty electric vehicles, with a total outlay pegged at 98.52 billion rupees, or about EUR 896 million, according to electrive.

Dr. Hanif Qureshi said the programme could support up to 50,000 electric buses and 50,000 electric trucks over the next five years, electrive reported.

The design under discussion leans on credit risk rather than purchase subsidy. Industry rumour cited by electrive is that the ministry is considering guaranteeing up to 80% of the outstanding loan amount if a borrowing fleet owner defaults.

The scale would dwarf what has been backed so far. Indian government support has previously been announced for more than 31,000 electric buses, comprising over 7,000 units under FAME, 14,028 under PM E-Drive and 10,000 under PM E-Bus Sewa, alongside 5,643 electric trucks under PM E-Drive, according to electrive.

Electric trucks remain a rounding error in the wider market. Of 2,339,501 EVs sold in India in 2025, just 573 units were trucks, a share of 0.02%, electrive reported.

Bus numbers are moving faster but from a small base. Registrations reached 4,615 electric buses in 2025 against 3,905 in 2024, growth of 18.2%.

MHI has separately extended the electric truck benefits available under the PM E-Drive Scheme from 31 March 2026 to 31 March 2028, according to electrive.

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) announced a virtual power plant named SHARE, or Smart Home Assets for Reliability and Efficiency, in California on September 3, according to Power Magazine.

Six partners are working with the utility on the program: Rewiring America, Google, Carrier Global Corporation, Tesla, Sunrun and Renew Home, Power Magazine reported.

Power Magazine described SHARE as a first-of-its-kind virtual power plant. The program is designed to help communities benefit from rising electric demand while improving affordability and reliability for all customers, according to the same report.

The Mercedes EQA holds the most battery capacity of any model measured at 150,000 km, with a median state of health of 94%, according to Electrek's report on diagnostics firm AVILOO's battery study. The Hyundai IONIQ 5 follows at 93.8% and the BMW i4 at 93.6%.

The dataset covers more than 500,000 battery tests spanning 20 popular EV models, measured at up to 150,000 km of use, Electrek reported.

At the bottom of the table sit three small-pack cars. The Nissan Leaf recorded a median SoH of 86.7%, the MINI Cooper SE 87.1%, and the Renault Zoe 87.3% at the same mileage, per the AVILOO figures cited by Electrek.

The Cooper SE degraded fastest of any model in the study, shedding seven points of SoH between 50,000 and 150,000 km.

Tesla placed in the bottom third. Electrek reported the Model Y at 90.3% and the Model 3 at 88.9% at 150,000 km, with the Model 3 the second-worst result of any model carrying a battery its size.

Model averages hide wide spreads. Between the best and worst individual example of a single model, AVILOO found gaps reaching 13.5% in SoH, which the firm equates to tens of kilometers of real-world range per charge.

AVILOO's commercial position gives the dataset weight beyond its size. Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and Porsche Holding have each named the firm their preferred independent battery-testing provider for European dealerships, according to Electrek.

The company extended that testing into a financial product this summer, launching a Battery Warranty across 12 European countries. It pays 2,700 pounds or 3,000 euros, depending on market, if a car's pack falls below an individual SoH floor within a year.

Canada and its partners broke ground on Phase 1 of the North Coast Transmission Line (NCTL), an expansion of the transmission link running from Prince George to Terrace in British Columbia, Natural Resources Canada said.

The completed line is projected to generate CAD 10 billion in new economic activity and nearly 10,000 jobs, according to Natural Resources Canada.

The department expects the NCTL to cut emissions by up to three million tonnes annually, which it describes as the equivalent of removing one million vehicles from the road each year.

Industrial load is the stated rationale for the build. Natural Resources Canada said the line will unlock projects including the Ksi Lisims LNG facility and critical minerals developments in the Golden Triangle.

The project was referred to the Major Projects Office in November 2025 as the foundation of the Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor spanning Northwest British Columbia and the Yukon.

The groundbreaking sits inside a broader federal plan. Canada's National Electricity Strategy aims to double the national grid by 2050 to meet demand and secure sovereign power supply, according to Natural Resources Canada.

Volkswagen's supervisory board unanimously approved the automaker's Future Plan 2030 on Thursday, a package that prepares another 50,000 job cuts worldwide and leaves four German plants without confirmed future production, Electrek reported.

The additional reductions bring Volkswagen's total planned workforce cut to around 100,000, according to Electrek. Against a global headcount of roughly 650,000, that is about 15% of the workforce.

The four sites facing an uncertain future are Emden, Zwickau, Hanover, and Audi's Neckarsulm factory. Volkswagen said it cannot currently secure "competitive future production" for them once their existing vehicle allocations run out at staggered points between 2031 and 2034.

The overhang behind that language is capacity. Volkswagen acknowledged its European factories can build more than 500,000 vehicles a year beyond what customers are buying, per Electrek.

Product complexity is being cut alongside plant footprint. The company plans to shrink its global model lineup by around 50% by 2035 and to reduce equipment choices and other variants by roughly 75%, according to Electrek.

Spending is not being cut in parallel. Volkswagen expects to commit EUR 135 billion (USD 157 billion) to capital investment and research and development from 2027 through 2031.

Operatorship of the Mopane oil discovery in Namibia's Orange basin has passed to TotalEnergies, which closed the purchase of a 40% operated stake in the PEL83 licence from Galp, World Oil reported.

Ownership of PEL83 now sits at 40% for TotalEnergies and 40% for Galp, with Namcor and Custos each on 10%. The two companies first struck the deal in December 2025, according to World Oil.

Drilling comes next. TotalEnergies intends to appraise Mopane with three wells starting in the second half of 2026, a programme aimed at supporting a possible final investment decision in 2028, World Oil said.

Galp picks up acreage elsewhere offshore Namibia under the same agreement: 10% of PEL56, the licence holding the Venus discovery, and 9.39% of PEL91.

TotalEnergies operates both. Its stake stands at 35.25% in PEL56 and 33.09% in PEL91, per World Oil.

Chairman and CEO Patrick Pouyanné described the operatorship as "a key milestone" in the company's plan to build production in Namibia.

The Railroad Commission of Texas will gain access to satellite-based ground-motion data covering the Permian basin to support its Underground Injection Control (UIC) program, under a partnership between B3 Insight and SatSense, World Oil reported.

The arrangement pairs interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) measurements from SatSense with subsurface injection data carried on B3 Insight's OilfieldH2O platform, according to World Oil. That combination puts surface movement readings and well-level injection records in the same view.

Regulators will be able to compare surface deformation against injection activity and geologic conditions across the basin, World Oil reported. Ground motion measured from orbit becomes a screening layer over the disposal wells the commission licenses through the UIC program.

The two companies had already merged their subsurface and satellite datasets, World Oil reported, after working together as technology partners with the Center for Injection and Seismicity Research (CISR). The Texas agreement extends that earlier integration to a state regulator.

Jefferies Financial Group puts Venezuelan crude output at 2 million bpd within five years on two conditions: that the U.S.-Venezuela agreement stays intact and that Trump's call for $100 billion of oil investment materializes, World Oil reported.

Chevron has committed spending of more than $7 billion across the next five years, routed through its Venezuelan joint ventures. The company wants output above double its 2026 level, at roughly 600,000 bpd.

Eni is preparing a production increase in Venezuela as well, World Oil reported, describing the planned rise as significant.

Control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven reserves passes to the U.S. under the Trump administration's plan. Defaulted government and state oil company bonds have rallied on that structure, trading near a four-month high.

Bloomberg data cited by World Oil put sovereign notes maturing in 2027 at 54 cents on the dollar.

The liabilities dwarf the barrels. According to David Austerweil of VanEck, the restructuring could become the largest sovereign debt rework on record, with obligations of as much as $229 billion once commercial debt from state oil company PDVSA and local-currency claims are counted.

Guyana now pumps more than 900,000 bpd of crude, Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat said, and the government aims for roughly 1.7 MMbpd by the end of the decade as offshore drilling and exploration widen, World Oil reported.

A separate domestic power project, sized at approximately 300 MW, will draw gas from the offshore Stabroek Block to generate electricity while stripping out natural gas liquids.

Luis Pirela, Guyana country manager and board member at Lindsayca, said the Gas-to-Energy plant is targeting power generation before the end of 2026.