Wednesday, 9 September 2026

Argentina's commercial and industrial (C&I) distributed generation capacity grew 101.4% year-on-year from a base of 65.6 MW in July 2025, according to pv magazine, with 66.5 MW added over the following 12 months.

The C&I segment now represents nearly 80% of the 165.5 MW registered under the national distributed generation scheme, pv magazine reported.

Users in the segment grew more slowly than the megawatts they installed. C&I prosumers went from 1,205 in July 2025 to 2,089 in July 2026, a 73.4% increase, according to pv magazine. Average installed capacity per C&I user rose from approximately 54.4 kW to 63.2 kW over the same period, an increase of about 16.2%, pv magazine reported. Larger systems, not just more of them, drove the capacity gain.

Across all user categories, Argentina counted 4,891 user-generators with 165.5 MW connected through bidirectional meters in July 2026, against 3,034 users and 82.4 MW a year earlier, according to pv magazine.

Monthly additions ran at almost 6 MW between June and July 2026, lifting the national total from 159.5 MW to 165.5 MW, pv magazine reported, citing the Secretariat of Energy.

Developers in the United States lost 22 renewable projects to cancellation in 2025, together carrying nearly 9.8 GW of capacity, according to pv magazine, citing the Sabin Center report.

That capacity figure is the largest recorded in a single year, well above the previous high of 3.26 GW in 2024, per pv magazine.

The single biggest loss was the 6.2 GW Esmeralda 7 Solar Project in Nevada, which the Bureau of Land Management canceled in October 2025, according to pv magazine.

The Sabin Center tracker counts 888 state and local restrictions on renewable development and 567 contested projects nationwide, pv magazine reported. Of those 567 contested projects logged since 2004, at least 227, or roughly 40%, have been canceled.

New ordinances and rules are being adopted at a slowing pace. At least 70 new state and local restrictions were added in 2025, according to pv magazine. That follows 165 new restrictions in 2023 and 112 in 2024.

Opposition is concentrated in two states. New York accounts for 52 contested projects and Virginia for 40, the highest counts in the country, pv magazine reported.

Australia's Waratah Super Battery injected what RenewEconomy described as a massive and unprecedented amount of power into the grid across a two-hour period, in what the outlet said appears to be the first full test of the asset's shock-absorber capacity.

RenewEconomy describes the installation as the country's most powerful battery.

The shock-absorber role is the function being proven here: the battery is held in reserve to soak up a sudden network disturbance rather than to trade energy through the day. The two-hour discharge tested that capability at full extent, according to RenewEconomy.

A federal court has vacated the Tennessee Valley Authority's decision to build the Kingston Gas Plant, ruling that the utility broke the law in approving the project, CleanTechnica reported.

The court found the decision contained what it called "fundamental" errors, according to CleanTechnica.

The plant was planned at the site of the 2008 coal ash spill, CleanTechnica reported.

Greater electrification of transport could reduce Europe's import dependency by nearly a quarter by 2040, according to CleanTechnica.

The figure lands as Europe prepares to set the shape of its renewable energy framework for the decade after 2030, CleanTechnica reported. That decision ties the pace of road transport electrification to a supply-security question rather than to emissions accounting alone: electricity drawn from domestic generation displaces imported energy, and CleanTechnica puts the scale of that displacement at close to one quarter of the continent's import dependency.

Global oil prices jumped to nearly $100 per barrel after Iranian-backed Houthis hit Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure on Tuesday, Inside Climate News reported.

That leaves global crude 33 percent higher than during the July pause in Middle East hostilities.

U.S. gasoline prices rose to an average $4.14 per gallon heading into Labor Day weekend, 4 cents above the previous week, according to Inside Climate News.

Brown University's Iran War Energy Cost Tracker counts more than $101 billion in higher fuel costs paid since the conflict began on Feb. 28, or more than $771 per U.S. household.

The U.S. military said on Saturday it struck three Iranian oil tankers in retaliation for missiles launched at U.S. Navy ships.

Chinese oil consumption for transportation fell 16 percent from April through June, with rapid electrification of vehicles the most important factor, Inside Climate News reported.

South Korea's Ministry of Climate, Environment and Energy issued a summary of the 12th Basic Plan for Long-term Electricity Supply and Demand on 26 August 2026, setting a target of 45GW of offshore wind by 2040, according to IEEFA.

The gap between that target and the installed base is wide. Offshore wind project development in the country has produced only about 365MW of realized capacity over the past decade, IEEFA reported.

A separate Medium-term Plan sets the auction cadence intended to close it. IEEFA said the program seeks to auction roughly 4GW of capacity each year from 2026, reaching 10.5GW under construction by 2030 and 25GW by 2035.

Permitting has been the binding constraint. Under the original regime, developers had to secure 42 separate approvals spread across several government bodies, according to IEEFA.

The Offshore Wind Special Act addresses the dispute side of that process by creating a stakeholder reconciliation body in which at least 50% of members are project-affected parties, including fishing communities, tasked with negotiating and resolving disputes, IEEFA said.

For comparison, IEEFA noted that Europe had 39GW of operating offshore wind capacity at the end of 2025, built after nearly two decades of learning across project development, finance, and supply chains.

VinBus, a Vingroup-owned public transport operator, has put 50 electric school buses into service in Quang Ninh City, Vietnam, according to electrive.

The free service began on 5 September, the first day of the 2026-2027 school year, and Quang Ninh City says it is the first locality in Vietnam to introduce such a scheme, electrive reported.

Operations run on six main routes from Monday to Friday, with Saturday service on some routes, and cover around 2,000 students from 22 educational institutes, per electrive.

The vehicle chosen is the VinFast EB 6, described by electrive as the smallest electric bus in the VinFast line-up at 6.2 metres long, 2.2 metres wide and 2.9 metres high.

Each bus carries a 179.5 kWh LFP battery pack and a single rear-mounted motor rated at 140 kW and 420 Nm, according to electrive. The pack accepts charging at up to 120 kW and needs 70 minutes to go from 20% to 80% state of charge.

Range is up to 340 kilometres on a single charge, with a top speed of 90 km/h, electrive reported.

Qatar recorded a second-quarter budget shortfall of 21.2 billion riyals, or USD 5.8 billion, almost double the deficit of the preceding quarter, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Fitch Ratings affirmed the country's AA sovereign rating last week but held its outlook at negative, citing the prolonged disruption to exports through Hormuz.

Several Qatari LNG tankers are sailing toward the Gulf, which suggests expectations that shipments could resume soon, Bloomberg reported.

South Africa's economy shrank 0.2% in the second quarter of 2026, ending 18 months of growth, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Mining, trade and manufacturing bore the weight of weakened demand and higher fuel prices caused by the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, Semafor Net Zero reported.

Goldman Sachs cut its 2026 South Africa growth forecast to 1.2% from 1.6%, per the same report.

The country's central bank raised its main interest rate in May to forestall the war's inflationary impact, and is due to hold its latest rate-setting meeting this month. Capital Economics said the tightening cycle is "most definitely over".

The quarterly contraction marks the end of the steady recovery that followed the formation of the coalition government two years ago, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Dangote is aiming to complete a planned refinery in Lamu, Kenya by 2030, according to Semafor Net Zero. The project carries a price tag of USD 16 billion.

Funding is the sticking point. An analyst told Semafor Net Zero that raising the money for the Kenya project "could become a formidable challenge," pointing to Dangote's concurrent plans to double the capacity of the Lagos refinery.

Crude supply is a separate question, and the company plays it down. A Dangote Industries executive told Reuters that it does not foresee challenges with securing crude for the project. Kenya currently imports nearly all of its oil from the Middle East.

Aliko Dangote has been talking up the product side of the economics. He told Bloomberg he felt "extremely bullish" about diesel refining margins over the medium term.

The Lamu timetable stands at 2030.

B2U Storage Solutions has begun commercial operation of its Bexar Martinez battery energy storage system near San Antonio, Texas, delivering 28 MWh of grid services to ERCOT, according to the company's GlobeNewswire release.

The site is built entirely from repurposed electric vehicle batteries, housed in B2U's patented BESS cabinets, and is the second Texas project the company has developed on that basis.

B2U said the addition takes its total portfolio providing grid services to ERCOT in Texas above 50 MWh.

Across Texas and California, the company reported managing more than 5,000 repurposed EV batteries and operating roughly 100 MWh of storage in both solar-paired and stand-alone configurations.

B2U expects to deploy an additional 50-plus MWh in ERCOT over the next 6 months, according to the release.

African solar panel manufacturing output will reach around 3.5 GW in 2026, according to a report from Ember and Africa Tech Futures Lab cited by pv magazine, with new plants in Egypt and Tanzania geared predominantly towards US export.

A further six countries account for a smaller share of that base. Panel manufacturing capacity across Morocco, South Africa, Algeria, Tunisia, Nigeria and Kenya is expected to reach around 1 GW, pv magazine reported.

The factory build-out sits against a supply chain that remains overwhelmingly Chinese. Up to 94% of the panels installed in Africa today are still imported from China, according to the report.

Installations are running well ahead of local production. A record 17 GW of solar will be installed in Africa this year, and 36 of Africa's 54 countries are on track to install a record amount of solar in 2026, pv magazine reported.

Rooftop and off-grid systems have carried most of the recent growth. Of the estimated 26 GW of solar added in Africa between 2023 and 2025, distributed solar accounted for 20 GW, according to the report.

The import bill remains small in absolute terms. Africa imported just $2.4 billion of solar panels in the last 12 months, according to Ember chief analyst Dave Jones.

Scania will equip 40 of its trucks with Toyota's current fuel cell system, according to electrive, which reported the two companies are expanding their hydrogen fuel cell partnership.

Operation of the first Scania hydrogen fuel cell trucks carrying Toyota technology is set to begin in the first quarter of 2027, electrive reported.

The retrofitted vehicles will go to logistics companies for use under real-world conditions through Scania's 'Pilot Partner' programme, according to electrive.

Drillers logged roughly 25 metres of oil-bearing sandstone at 22% porosity in the Vicango East-01 borehole, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. The well marks a fresh hydrocarbon find for ExxonMobil in Block 15, offshore Angola.

Water depth at the site was 940 metres, and the target sits some 370 kilometres northwest of the Angolan capital, Luanda. The Valaris DS-9 drillship carried out the work.

Count the well as number 20 among Block 15 finds across the last 30 years, a stretch during which the acreage delivered upwards of 2.7 billion barrels, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Operatorship rests with Esso Exploration Angola (Block 15) Limited on a 36% stake. The remaining equity splits between Azule Angola Limited at 24%, Azule Angola BV at 18%, Equinor Angola Block 15 A.S. at 12%, and Sonangol E&P at 10%.

Paulino Jeronimo, chairman of ANPG, credited investor terms for the continued drilling, pointing to the Block 15 licence running to 2032, Decree 8/24 covering Incremental Production, and Decree 5/18, which governs exploration inside and near development areas. In his account, the well follows "adjustments to the legal framework" plus state incentives offered to investors.

Councillors in Bluewater, a municipality in Huron County, Ontario, voted 9-0 against the Bayfield and Stanley compressed air energy storage project on Aug. 13, according to ESS News.

The developers, Bedrock Energy and Capstone Infrastructure, had planned to bid the scheme into Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) Long Lead-Time (LLT) request for proposals, a procurement program for long-duration storage, at 382 MW/3,056 MWh, ESS News reported.

In their presentation to council, the two companies estimated a minimum of CAD 1.5 million a year in municipal revenue from property taxes and community benefit payments, adding up to roughly CAD 90.6 million across a proposed 40-year operating life.

The LLT RFP closes to proposals on Nov. 26 and is the only procurement window currently open for long-duration energy storage in the province, per ESS News.

Switzerland's largest battery storage facility to date has entered service at Gurtnellen, in the canton of Uri, according to pv magazine.

The site pairs two separately owned systems. Axpo operates the larger of the pair at 50 MW of power capacity, alongside an 8.4 MW system belonging to Energie Uri, pv magazine reported. Fluence supplied the battery systems for the project.

Axpo's pipeline extends well beyond the Swiss site. The company has further battery storage projects under construction in France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Romania, with a combined power capacity of more than 300 MW, according to pv magazine.

SLB and Shearwater GeoServices have started a 3D multi-client seismic survey offshore Amapá, in Brazil's Equatorial Margin, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The survey area sits roughly 130 kilometers from the Morpho exploration well, OEDigital reported.

Work is split between the two companies. Shearwater will acquire high-density broadband data with its Isometrix marine seismic technology aboard the vessel Amazon Warrior, while SLB handles processing and imaging through workflows that include elastic full-waveform inversion, according to OEDigital.

SLB called the project one of its most significant investments in exploration data across the deepwater Atlantic Margin.

Financial close has been reached on a 15 MW / 60 MWh battery energy storage system at Windpark Greenport Venlo in the Limburg region of the Netherlands, ESS News reported.

The retrofit carries an investment of nearly EUR 12 million, with ING financing a significant portion of that amount, according to ESS News.

The battery will share the wind farm's existing grid connection through a cable-pooling arrangement, operating alongside the nine-turbine, 39 MW Windpark Greenport Venlo.

Project developer Green Energy Storage expects the battery to be operational in the summer of 2027. Green Energy Storage handles development of the battery, including contracting battery supplier Alfen.

The owner, WGV-EOS, is a partnership between Greenchoice, ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund and Windunie, per ESS News.

Nearly USD 74 billion in manufacturing investment is still moving ahead in the Southeast, Grist reported, even as federal policy has turned against electric vehicles.

The Trump administration ended federal EV tax credits and imposed tariffs on battery packs, charger hardware and other components, according to Grist. The same report says the administration loosened rules on emissions from gas-powered cars and ended the Biden administration's push to electrify government vehicle fleets.

Product plans at existing sites have shifted. Hyundai has added hybrid production to the lineup at its plant near Savannah, a facility originally built to make EVs, Grist reported.

Utility spending in the region has moved the other way. EV-related investment by utilities across the region rose 14% this year, according to the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy as cited by Grist.

Enforcement action has also hit the sector's workforce. Federal immigration agents raided an electric vehicle battery plant in Georgia a year ago and arrested more than 400 people, most of them South Korean workers who were there to help get the new factory off the ground, Grist reported.

Rivian broke ground on its manufacturing plant near Atlanta in 2025, according to the same report.

Vallourec has signed an agreement with Saudi Aramco covering the supply of Oil Country Tubular Goods (OCTG), according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. The two companies concluded the deal during the French-Saudi Investment Roundtable Meeting in Paris, a step Offshore Engineer OEDigital reports is intended to strengthen their commercial, industrial and technological cooperation.

The new contract extends a supply relationship that dates back to 1962, when Vallourec and Aramco first agreed on deliveries of early generations of VAM connections for OCTG pipes, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Vallourec moved production into the kingdom in 2011 with the creation of Vallourec Saudi Arabia and the opening of an industrial site in Dammam handling pipe heat treatment and the threading of premium VAM connections, according to the same report. That local footprint underpinned a long-term deal signed in 2022 for the supply of locally manufactured premium OCTG pipes to Aramco, on which the latest agreement builds.

Philippe Guillemot, Chairman and CEO of Vallourec, said the agreement reflects the mutual trust between the two industrial groups and further strengthens their ties.

Larsen & Toubro Energy Hydrocarbon Offshore (LTEH Offshore) has been awarded an offshore Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Installation, and Commissioning (EPCIC) contract by India's Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) covering the Additional Development of Ratna-I (ADR-I) and the NLM-14 project off India's west coast, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Offshore Engineer OEDigital put the value of the award in a band between USD 263 million and USD 527 million, or 25 billion to 50 billion rupees.

The work scope runs to three new well-head platforms and one riser platform, according to the same report, together with multiple subsea pipeline and cable segments and brownfield modifications to installations already standing offshore.

ONGC's stated purpose for the development is to raise production and carry forward work on the operator's existing offshore assets in that part of the west coast, per Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Virginia legislators preserved the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act earlier this year, according to Canary Media.

The state has stood by its landmark climate targets even as data centers spike energy demand and electricity rates rise, Canary Media reported. Other states, from New York to Hawaii, have wavered, according to the outlet.

Canary Media describes Virginia as the data center capital of the world.

POSCO and BHP signed a HyREX Collaboration Agreement on September 3, 2026, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The agreement covers validation of hydrogen-based steelmaking using Pilbara iron ore at POSCO's Pohang Steelworks, with the stated aim of advancing near-zero emissions steel production, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Under the partnership, the two companies intend to run POSCO's hydrogen reduction ironmaking process on Pilbara ore in new pilot and demonstration plants.

Green Maritime Infrastructure (GMI) has signed German systems integrator eCap Marine to fit two additional bulk carriers with hydrogen energy technology, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The order lifts GMI's fleet to four vessels, all intended to move heavy dry bulk cargo such as asphalt and gravel along the Norwegian coast, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Hydrogen Fuel News described the expansion as consistent with Norway's Green Shipping Programme and as a move from trial runs to full fleet operations.

Beyond Aero and Aeroports de la Cote d'Azur are planning phased hydrogen refueling infrastructure at French Riviera airports to serve hydrogen-electric business jets in the early 2030s, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The build-out centers on compressed gas, fixed dispensers, and mobile refueling, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Three airports fall within the partnership's scope: Nice Cote d'Azur, Cannes Mandelieu, and Golfe de Saint-Tropez. The work described by Hydrogen Fuel News is aimed at the practical steps needed to fly hydrogen-electric aircraft from those sites.

Hanwha Ocean has received basic design review certification from the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) for a standardized floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) design built for deepwater work in South America and West Africa, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

The certified scope is the shipbuilder's front-end engineering design (FEED). ABS examined the technical standards and core documentation behind systems that include the hull, the topsides and the mooring arrangement, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

ABS separately granted approval in principle for the FPSO, a design built to meet SUSTAIN-2 notation requirements, and issued a Statement of Fact on Hanwha Ocean's Project Sustainability Execution Plan (PSEP), the outlet reported.

A pre-FEED that Hanwha Ocean completed earlier for deepwater oil and gas fields in West Africa also holds ABS approval in principle.

Enverus Intelligence Research (EIR) puts the ceiling on Western Canadian oil output growth at 2-3 MMbpd into the late 2030s, based on the takeaway capacity that planned pipeline expansions and new export routes would add, World Oil reported.

The firm's base case has Western Canada Sedimentary basin (WCSB) production adding roughly 200,000 bpd each year through 2035. Oil sands account for about 1.3 MMbpd of the additional barrels over that period, on EIR's numbers.

Around 1 MMbpd of the new takeaway capacity counts as firm in EIR's tally. Three sources feed it: debottlenecking on lines already in service, wider system buildouts, and the proposed Prairie Connector-Bridger project. Shippers have already signed for 465,000 bpd on that project under 20-year terms.

Second in EIR's ranking is the proposed West Coast Oil Pipeline, which at more than 1 MMbpd would top every other project on the list for size.

EIR expects Western Canadian Select (WCS) to keep trading at a discount of roughly USD 12 to USD 15 per barrel to West Texas Intermediate (WTI).

Heavier oil sands volumes also pull diluent demand up. EIR sees incremental condensate requirements rising by some 500,000 bpd by the mid-2030s as those barrels come online.

Albania's government has agreed with Argent LNG to study an onshore import terminal on its coastline, sized at up to 5 MMtpa of storage and regasification capacity, under a non-binding memorandum of understanding, according to World Oil.

Buyers outside Albania are the target. The terminal would supply the Western Balkans and Southeastern Europe first, not the domestic Albanian market, World Oil reported.

Pipeline links under study include the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the Ionian Adriatic Pipeline (IAP) and the Fier-Vlorë gas corridor.

Enea Karakaçi, Albania's minister of infrastructure and energy, said regasification and storage capacity in the country would give the region "greater flexibility in managing periods of high demand and potential supply disruptions".

Two earlier memoranda preceded the Albanian deal: Argent signed with Ukraine's Naftogaz Group in July and with Romania's Transgaz in August, per World Oil.

Argent's export leg is a proposed 25-MMtpa terminal at Port Fourchon, Louisiana. Work on the Albanian facility would be timed against the company's target of a first Port Fourchon cargo in 2030, World Oil reported.

Saipem has won a contract from GOE Petrol Sanayi covering commissioning services for the Osman Gazi floating production unit (FPU), the vessel supporting development of the Sakarya gas field offshore Türkiye in the Black Sea, according to World Oil.

The scope is expected to run for approximately eight months, World Oil reported.

Sakarya is being developed by Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) about 170 km offshore Türkiye, in water depths of around 2,150 m, per World Oil. The field was discovered in August 2020.

The commissioning award follows earlier work by the same contractor on the project. Saipem was awarded operations readiness and assurance support for Sakarya in April 2026, according to World Oil.

Toyota is recalling roughly 10,000 electric C-HR vehicles in North America, according to Electrek.

The action covers certain model-year 2026 C-HR units, and the remedy is a software fix rather than a hardware replacement: technicians at Toyota dealerships will update the battery electronic control unit (ECU) software on affected cars, Electrek reported.

Owners will be contacted in early November 2026, per Electrek.

TotalEnergies and its partners will spend USD 10 billion in Angola over the next five years to lift production across several projects, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The French oil major is Angola's largest oil operator, pumping around 450,000 barrels per day in the country and working to hold that level, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Central to the spending programme is Kaminho, a USD 6 billion development roughly 100 km off the Angolan coast, which is expected to begin production in 2028. The company took a final investment decision on the project in 2024.

TotalEnergies has also signed two new exploration licences covering offshore Block 17 and Block 32, in partnership with Exxon Mobil, according to the same report.

The Southern African country is striving to keep national output at around 1 million barrels per day.

Moment Energy's battery energy storage system (BESS) passed a third-party legal review of its foreign entity of concern (FEOC) exposure, according to Solar Builder. The review examined the company's corporate ownership, effective control and debt financing structure, and was carried out by what Solar Builder described as a Top 10 U.S. law firm.

The product is manufactured in North America, at sites in British Columbia and in Texas.

The review responds to tighter rules on FEOC and prohibited foreign entity (PFE) status. Solar Builder reported that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act tightened those requirements for companies seeking to qualify for federal Investment Tax Credits (ITC), and that non-compliance can expose projects to clawbacks during a 10-year recapture period.

The U.S. Treasury has issued interim guidance through Notice 2026-15 to help taxpayers work through the new rules, according to Solar Builder.

Moment Energy will host a webinar on Sept. 17 covering the Treasury guidance, supply chain considerations and practical steps for protecting ITC eligibility.

Spending under China's Belt and Road Initiative has passed USD 1.5 trillion since 2013, according to the Green Finance & Development Center at Fanhai International School of Finance in Shanghai, cited by Inside Climate News. The total covers lending from Chinese banks, construction contracts awarded to Chinese firms and other investments.

Inside Climate News reported that China has helped build a global fleet of coal power plants that hampers the ability of governments to meet their climate targets.

The investigation also documents environmental damage tied to individual projects. In Zambia, a Chinese state-owned copper mine spilled millions of gallons of toxic waste into the country's rivers, including the Kafue, according to Inside Climate News.

In Indonesia, Chinese companies own, financed and are building a hydroelectric dam inside the habitat of the Tapanuli orangutan, the outlet reported. The ape was identified as its own species in 2017, when fewer than 800 remained.

Lidl will put GBP 10 million into its UK electric vehicle charging network in the current financial year, according to electrive.

Around 100 new rapid chargers will go in at existing Lidl stores in the UK under that spending, electrive reported.

The retailer calculates that its lower charging rate could save drivers about GBP 4.41 per session against the market average, which it puts at roughly GBP 529 a year for regular users, according to electrive.

Rapid charging is currently available at about one-third of Lidl GB stores, per electrive.

Lidl owns its charge points outright rather than relying on third-party operators, electrive reported.

Suniva has closed a USD 835 million capital raise to fund a 4.5 GW solar cell plant in Laurens County, South Carolina, according to pv magazine. The cells will be made inside a 620,000 square-foot building now under construction.

The project itself carries a total cost of USD 600 million, pv magazine reported, and Suniva expects to need 564 manufacturing workers once the plant is fully operational.

Suniva says the site is expected to open in late 2027, with production ramping toward full capacity the following year.

Added to the company's existing 1 GW plant in Norcross, Georgia, the new line takes Suniva's annual cell capacity to 5.5 GW, per pv magazine.

The buildout lands against a tightened import regime. Under the Section 232 trade action, imported solar cells face a minimum import price of 22 cents per watt, with ad valorem tariffs of 15% stacked on top, according to pv magazine.

Enercity and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles have logged their first successful trading result from a vehicle-to-grid pilot in Hanover, according to electrive, with revenue in the low three-digit range after several months of shadow trading.

The pilot uses twelve VW ID. Buzz vehicles drawn from Enercity's service fleet, electrive reported. The partners are testing whether electricity held in the vans' batteries can be fed back into the public grid and sold on the electricity market.

Fleet size is what makes the trading leg possible. "Our twelve ID. Buzz vehicles together provide more than 0.1 megawatts, putting us above the required minimum size," the project said, per electrive.

Moving from a single fleet to wider deployment runs into administrative plumbing rather than hardware. Von Butler said more than 700 grid operators will have to adapt their billing systems, metering point operators need to supply suitable meters, and installers must put the required infrastructure in place for customers, according to electrive.

Kiwa PVEL's 2026 PV Module Reliability Scorecard recorded failures at 87% of manufacturers and 61% of bills of materials (BOMs) tested, the highest rates in the Scorecard's history, according to Solar Builder.

Module breakage led the failure categories again, with 60% of manufacturers logging at least one breakage failure, Solar Builder reported.

Kiwa PVEL reports that failures are showing up across nearly every test sequence, which it describes as signaling a systemic issue with module quality and reliability.

Hail testing accounted for a sizeable share of the results. Solar Builder reported that 23% of BOMs experienced a Hail Stress Sequence failure, and that 61% of 2.0 mm glass // 2.0 mm glass modules broke from 45 mm hail in Kiwa PVEL testing.

Cell interconnection design also separated the results. Zero-busbar BOMs showed Thermal Cycling power loss spanning 0.6% to 8.4%, a wider range than BOMs using traditional cell busbars, per Solar Builder.

Encapsulant thickness tracked with the weaker Thermal Cycling outcomes: more than 70% of BOMs with power loss above 2% after TC600 used front encapsulants whose area weight fell in the lower quartile range, according to Solar Builder.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has urged Ford to reconsider its partnerships with Chinese firms, including battery manufacturer CATL and Geely, according to electrive.

The pressure came in a letter to Ford CEO Jim Farley, in which Duffy expressed "deep concern" about the automaker's ties to Chinese companies, electrive reported.

One of the arrangements under scrutiny is at BlueOval Battery Park Michigan, where Ford will produce lithium iron phosphate cells using technology licensed from CATL, according to electrive.

Ford's response, as reported by electrive, draws a line around ownership: the Michigan plant is fully owned by Ford, controlled by the automaker, and operated by its own employees. The company describes the CATL arrangement as a limited technology and service agreement rather than a joint venture or a production facility under Chinese ownership.

The Geely link runs through vehicle assembly rather than cells. Starting in 2028, two electric SUVs from Geely will be built at Ford's plant in Valencia, electrive reported.

Twenty-five class 8 battery-electric semi trucks will run the Houston-Dallas freight corridor as part of a planned 63-truck fleet that Google calls the largest known development of class 8 battery zero-emission trucks in Texas, according to electrive.

Google expects the full fleet to cover roughly 11 million miles (17 million km) each year and to avoid 92,000 metric tons of CO2, electrive reported.

The operating roles are split between two partners. Nevoya will act as the carrier running the trucks, while Greenlane Infrastructure builds the charging network along the route.

Nevoya has been on the lane since January, when it started rolling out 40 battery-electric Freightliner eCascadia trucks under GMA's first procurement programme, according to electrive.

Greenlane set out its side of the corridor in May, announcing dedicated electric truck charging sites in Houston and Dallas. Each site is planned with six to eight pull-through charging lanes handling both CCS and MCS charging, electrive reported.

SolarEdge and Infineon have extended their collaboration on solid-state circuit breaker (SSCB) technology for high-voltage DC distribution in AI and hyperscale data centers, according to Solar Builder.

SolarEdge is leading the design of the SSCB solution, Solar Builder reported, while Infineon supplies the silicon carbide (SiC) JFET technology sitting at the core of the protection devices.

The design target is speed. SSCBs are built to interrupt faults within a few microseconds and carry no mechanical contacts that have to separate, per Solar Builder.

Solar Builder also reported on the companion piece of hardware: SolarEdge's solid-state transformer (SST), designed to convert medium voltage of 13.8-34.5 kV directly to 800-1500 VDC at more than 99% efficiency.

Lifetime power costs for North Sea offshore wind fall as much as 28% by 2050 in DNV's high-volume case, provided turbine designs converge on a standard and project pipelines stop lurching between boom and pause, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Eight suppliers and developers from Europe's offshore wind sector took part in the DNV-led joint industry project behind the numbers. DNV set it up after a run of rising project costs, uneven auction outcomes and stop-start development schedules.

The modelling splits into three cases. Keep growth moderate and end the current turbine platform's production run early, and levelized cost of electricity (LCoE) drops roughly 5% by 2035. Stretch those production runs while leaving growth unchanged, and the saving widens to about 14% by 2035 and 25% by 2050. Sustained deployment at the top of the range delivers around 19% by 2035, reaching 28% by 2050.

DNV built the model around a roughly 15 MW machine on monopile foundations. That platform serves as a reference point only: DNV does not present 15 MW as the optimum size, nor as a ceiling on what comes next.

European factories can broadly meet near-term demand at that 15 MW scale, DNV found.

Four projects will share USD 73 million from the Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI) at the U.S. Department of Energy, money routed through the Mine of the Future initiative to build domestic testing grounds for new mining technologies.

DOE's Advanced Mining and Mineral Processing Technologies Office entered award negotiations with Innovative Wireless Technologies, Inc., the University of Arizona, Curators of the University of Missouri, and Southern Methodist University.

Southern Methodist University will build an advanced drilling and sensing test facility at Navasota, Texas, housing what DOE calls the world's first synthetic mine, a setting for trialling next generation mining methods before field use.

Innovative Wireless Technologies runs its headquarters in Lynchburg, Virginia, and lists project work at Julian, West Virginia, Idaho Springs, Colorado, and Blacksburg, Virginia, per the DOE announcement.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said the spending on "moving cutting-edge mining technologies out of the lab and into the field" would, in his words, help "unleash America's vast mineral resources".

Saudi Arabia may grant the UN nuclear watchdog greater inspection powers as it works to win approval for a nuclear deal with the US and blunt criticism that the agreement does too little to limit proliferation risks, Semafor reported.

Saudi officials are in talks on a bilateral arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that would add monitoring and verification obligations, according to Semafor.

The kingdom has not signed the Additional Protocol, which gives IAEA inspectors sweeping access.

The Saudi-US deal is expected to permit enrichment of uranium to nearly 20%, according to documents sent to US lawmakers reported by The Wall Street Journal.