J1. Green Tech Industry & Utilities

Demand for key grid hardware has soared since 2019, due to large load growth, integration of new energy generation resources, and investment to modernize the aging grid. This demand is driving up equipment lead times and prices. In fact, if you need a large power transformer, you may have to wait up to four years. The stakes are high for American businesses and consumers: the grid supply chain crunch is already impacting utility bills, threatening reliability, and stalling critical projects, from power plants and data centers to new housing construction.

While recent investment announcements in domestic grid component manufacturing will help ease shortages in the coming years, these developments on their own are not enough to secure America’s grid supply chain. Policymakers can leverage a range of proven industrial policy tools to boost the capacity, coordination, and competitiveness of US grid component manufacturing. Addressing the gridlock is an opportunity to reinvigorate domestic manufacturing, strengthen US energy security, improve energy affordability, and propel economic growth.

The post Solving the Gridlock: America’s Electric Supply Chain Opportunity appeared first on RMI.

A big battery project being proposed for construction by a group of farming landholders and a local renewables developer has been waved through EPBC approvals.

The post Landholder-led 4-hour big battery gets federal environmental all-clear in just over four weeks appeared first on Renew Economy.

Fortescue's green grid rides through bushfire-caused transmission failure with just solar and batteries and no spinning machines - defying conventional thinking.

The post “I thought this was impossible:” Fortescue green grid rides through transmission failure with no fossil fuels appeared first on Renew Economy.

Listed fund hopes to press go on its first big wind and storage projects soon, with an extension to the Victoria Big Battery likely first to go.

The post Fund nears financial close for wind and storage projects, with Victoria Big Battery extension first to go appeared first on Renew Economy.

Opposition plan to review state transmission roadmap and pause major network upgrades has been called out as "wedge" politics and could lead to blackouts, state energy minister warns.

The post “Definitely not good policy:” Experts skewer LNP plan to pause major transmission upgrades appeared first on Renew Economy.

A new species of wasp has been named after Sir David Attenborough as the naturalist celebrates his 100th birthday.

The post “Completely overwhelmed” Attenborough feted on 100th birthday, new wasp species named after him appeared first on Renew Economy.

Clean Energy Finance Corporation will underwrite a transmission project crucial to the connection of Marinus Link, in a move it says will slash costs to consumers.

The post Federal green bank backs contentious state transmission project, to “significantly lower costs to consumers” appeared first on Renew Economy.

Smart Energy Council's John Grimes on the death of coal power in Australia, panel by panel, home battery by home battery. He joins to discuss what's next. Plus: Twiggy's green grid, W.A.'s renewables rush, and other news.

The post Energy Insiders Podcast: The man who saved solar and helped kill coal appeared first on Renew Economy.

Built around a 7kWh modular foundation and engineered for daily dual-cycling, the XE shatters the industry's long-standing "bigger is always better" mentality.

The post Beyond ‘Bigger is Better’: Anker Solix unveils XE, the next-gen dual-cycle home battery appeared first on Renew Economy.

New boss at Smart Energy Council, and Powerlink, board movements at Synergy, plus movements at Celero, Origin, WestWind and Arena.

The post Grid Connections 2026: Who’s going where and doing what in Australia’s green energy transition appeared first on Renew Economy.

Chemicals play a critical, though often overlooked, role in modern society. They provide many of the key building blocks for the construction industry, support agriculture by increasing crop yields, and offer novel materials for a range of products from automobiles to new energy technologies. In fact, chemicals are everywhere, present in 96% of manufactured goods, including 75% of the energy technologies that will be needed to navigate the energy transition.

While chemicals are deeply embedded in modern society, it is equally important to acknowledge the challenges they pose. Among these are the need to reduce reliance on fossil inputs, develop better end-of-life management for chemical products, and lower emissions even as production is projected to grow up to 43% by 2050. More effort is needed across all these fronts, but addressing the 2 billion metric tons — or roughly 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions — from chemical production annually requires particularly urgent action given the long timelines to commercialize new production methods.

Despite these challenges, technologies are emerging to enable low-emissions chemicals production. While many of these technologies show technical promise, few have moved beyond the pilot or early demonstration phase. Scale-up of these technologies is often not held back by technical feasibility so much as by commercial barriers, including uncertainty about demand for low-emissions products and risk-aversion among participants spread across long and complex chemicals value chains.

Clear demand signals from companies that use chemicals in their products and novel mechanisms to bridge chemicals value chains are critical to overcoming these roadblocks and unlocking investment. The Center for Green Market Activation (GMA) and RMI are actively working to establish demand signals by aggregating buyers of low-emissions chemicals and by developing a book and claim system to enable chemical producers to transact directly with downstream companies that have committed to lowering supply chain emissions and are willing to pay a premium to do so.

Scaling low-emission technologies in the chemicals sector is uniquely challenging. Chemical production assets are highly capital-intensive, with investment horizons that span decades. Existing plants, many of which are fully depreciated and can produce at a low marginal cost, leverage processes that have been optimized over many years and produce at enormous scale. The result is constant cost pressure that reinforces the competitiveness of conventional production methods. As a result, even when low-emission alternatives exist, buyers and suppliers alike often default to the legacy status quo.

The diversity of chemical products — and the resulting complexity of value chains required to produce them — results in an additional challenge. Unlike other industries with relatively standardized products, the chemical sector encompasses thousands of molecules, intermediates, and derivatives. This often results in long value chains with multiple layers of intermediaries separating a primary chemicals producer, generally responsible for the majority of emissions, from the better-known companies at the end of the value chain that have made net-zero commitments and are closer to consumer demand. In the middle are specialized producers of intermediate chemicals or products that often operate with thin margins and limited visibility.

In this environment, intermediate producers operating with thin margins have few incentives to source lower-emissions, higher-cost inputs unless they have certainty that their customers are willing to pay an equivalent price premium. The result is an enormous coordination challenge. Multiple parties within a value chain must simultaneously close both procurement and offtake contracts at a material premium to market prices. And all of this needs to occur at a volume that gives the primary chemical producers certainty that customers will pay a premium for most of their output over an extended time horizon. While this may be possible in rare cases where large buyers directly purchase from primary chemical producers, it will be all but impossible in most chemical value chains.

Breaking the deadlock requires both credible demand for low-emissions chemical products and mechanisms to bridge companies across long, complex value chains. GMA and RMI believe that two critical interventions, pursued in tandem, have the potential to address these challenges and unlock investment in low-emissions chemical production: demand aggregation and book and claim.

Demand aggregation is the first necessary intervention. As in many industrial sectors, low-emissions production will come at a price premium, particularly given that novel technologies often operate at small scale and with less historical process optimization than their fossil-intensive counterparts. While new technologies have the potential to decrease costs as they scale, the ability to achieve initial traction in highly price-sensitive markets is often a challenge for these production methods. The presence of buyers willing to purchase at a premium is a critical proof point for projects seeking capital to invest in low-emissions production.

But why is it necessary for multiple buyers to act together in order to provide this proof point? Because chemical assets operate at such a significant scale and because their lifetimes are so long, the purchasing volume required to unlock investment in a new facility can be enormous. By pooling demand, multiple buyers can provide the necessary volume to support an investment decision, thereby decreasing the cost and risk that any individual company would otherwise have to take on.

In cases where physical offtake of low-emission chemicals is constrained, Book and claim systems provide a mechanism to aggregate larger demand volumes through the use of Environmental Attribute Certificates (EACs). Under this chain of custody approach, chemical producers generate an EAC for each unit of low-emission product, such as a ton of ethylene, that reflects the reduced emissions intensity associated with production. This certificate is then sold separately from the physical product, which continues through the value chain as a traditional commodity with a baseline emissions intensity. This separation enables chemical producers to receive revenue from EAC sales to cover the premium associated with low-emission production, providing the financial certainty needed to finance capital-intensive projects. At the same time, buyers gain verifiable, traceable progress toward climate commitments through certificates that are independently verified and tracked through a registry system.

The result is three benefits that can dramatically alter the viability of low-emissions production:

1. Value Chain Bridging: Perhaps the most significant impact of book and claim systems is the ability for interested parties to transact efficiently. By enabling standardized transactions between downstream brands willing to pay for value chain decarbonization and upstream producers that most heavily influence emissions, the challenge of aligning multiple intermediaries around price and volume in complex value chains can be avoided.
2. Geographic Aggregation: Book and claim provides an additional benefit, particularly in the early innings of the net-zero transition when access to low-emissions products remain Creating an EAC distinct from the physical product means that a producer is no longer constrained to finding customers willing to pay a premium for a low-emissions product near its production plant. Instead, they can sell the physical product locally at commodity prices and cover the green premium by selling an EAC to any downstream user of the product, regardless of geography.
3. Product Aggregation: By focusing a book and claim system on high-value chemicals, a third benefit can be realized. A traditional demand aggregation approach would need to find buyers procuring identical products. However, book and claim enables demand aggregation across any product that contains a particular molecule. For example, demand for low-emissions ethylene can be aggregated across apparel companies using polyester for textiles, pharmaceutical companies sourcing polyethylene for syringes, and personal care companies using multiple types of plastic for everyday household goods. By focusing on a common and consistent upstream input, substantially more demand can be aggregated and transacted in a single procurement.

Given the immense challenges associated with decarbonizing chemical production, leveraging novel mechanisms to catalyze investment in low-emissions production will be essential. Combining demand aggregation with book and claim in the form of a buyers alliance for EACs offers a unique opportunity to reduce risk for both buyers and suppliers, while driving real investment decisions.

An emerging initiative from GMA and RMI to procure low-emissions high-value chemicals leverages these approaches to tackle emissions in the chemicals sector. Multiple downstream brands that use chemicals in their products have come together to procure environmental attributes for low-emissions ethylene, with plans to expand this approach to other molecules in the future. In the process, they will provide demand certainty for low-emissions projects while simultaneously finding a pathway to address upstream Scope 3 emissions that had previously been out of reach due to complex, multi-tiered value chains.

Prior efforts from GMA and RMI to pool advanced commitments for low-emissions products in heavy industry sectors have demonstrated how aggregated demand can generate confidence for suppliers and investors. Sectoral buyers alliances such as the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA), managed by Environmental Defense Fund, GMA, and RMI, have shown how standardized frameworks and collective purchasing can accelerate the deployment of next-generation technologies. Launched in 2021, this effort has evolved from one-year advanced commitments to purchase bio-based sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to a scaled marketplace and targeted 5+ year offtakes at scale for next generation fuels.

Without credible demand signals and effective mechanisms to translate that demand into firm offtake agreements, the transition will stall. GMA and RMI are working to bring these pieces together—aggregating demand and developing mechanisms to more efficiently enable offtake—to ensure that novel pathways to produce low-emission chemicals are developed. Together with active engagement from buyers and support from the broader ecosystem, these actions can provide the demand certainty needed to unlock investment and enable the chemical sector to accelerate its transition to a net-zero future.

If you are interested in learning more about the GMA-RMI low-emissions chemical procurement spotlighted in this article, please reach out to chemicals@rmi.org,

The post Harnessing Green Demand to Drive Sustainable Chemicals Production appeared first on RMI.

Headline News:

• “AI Data Centers Need Big Batteries But Lithium Isn’t Fit-For-Purpose” • As AI-driven data centers scale, the grid challenge is no longer simply how much electricity they consume. Their demand is unpredictable, coming in bursts. They need a system with enough buffering for sudden power surges and dips. They are hard on lithium-ion batteries. [CleanTechnica]

Google data center in Oregon (Tony Webster, CC BY-SA 2.0)

• “German Parliament Rejects Return To Nuclear Power” • The Bundestag rejected returning to nuclear energy as an alternative to overcome fuel-related crises, most notably the war with Iran and tensions in the Middle East. The Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy said that the proposal to return to peaceful nuclear reactors was rejected. [Gulf Times]
• “How Do Solar Batteries Work And Are They Worth The Investment?” • With the war on Iran, home-grown renewables help cushion European households from fossil fuel shocks. The UK is the latest European country to greenlight the commercial sale of plug-in solar panels. Interest in batteries has grown apace. Battery costs have fallen 90% since 2010. [Euronews]
• “Sierra Club Endorses Tom Steyer For California Governor” • The Sierra Club has announced its endorsement of Tom Steyer for Governor of California. Doing so, it is backing a candidate with a long record of investing in climate solutions, taking on Big Oil, and helping build the coalitions needed to win significant environmental fights. [CleanTechnica]
• “IEEFA Warns Germany Over Hydrogen Costs” • Germany risks overbuilding its hydrogen network and wasting tens of billions of euros by relying on overoptimistic hydrogen demand projections, research from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis shows. It says German hydrogen demand is likely to fall short of official projections. [reNews]
• “700 MW Power Link Celtic Between France and Ireland Progressing” • Construction of the planned Celtic Interconnector power link between France and Ireland continues to advance on both sides. With the start of key infrastructure works in Brittany, the 700 MW large-scale project is entering a new phase in its implementation. [Renewable Energy Industry]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Regulator says surge in home battery and rooftop PV installations puts the 82 pct renewables target back in reach because it reduces the burden on large scale projects.

The post “Blows your mind:” Regulator says boom in home batteries and PV puts 82 pct renewables within reach appeared first on Renew Economy.

The post The Geothermal Supply Chain Is America’s to Gain — or Lose appeared first on RMI.

Nuclear power plants won’t be built, however, without long-term federal financial support and hyperscaler offtake agreements, said Ralph LaRossa, Public Service Enterprise Group CEO.

TVA’s interim CEO Mike Skaggs said he wants to “[establish] clarity on our position around new nuclear technologies,” and “work with the federal administration and our board of directors to clarify TVA's path going forward.”

The additions bring the company’s total executed agreements with data centers to 7.6 GW, “nearly two-thirds of which are already under construction,” President and CEO Harry Sideris said. Duke’s $103-billion capital plan remained unchanged from 2025.

American Electric Power’s review of its market options comes amid a surge in customer demand across its multi-state footprint. Its utilities have contracts for 63 GW of new large load by 2030.

Headline News:

• “Zambia Blasts The US Over A $2 Billion Health Deal In Exchange For Critical Minerals” • Zambia is accusing the US of tying a $2 billion deal for critical health assistance to access to the southern African nation’s rich mineral assets. The country calls the outgoing US ambassador’s allegations of corruption “mischievous” and “undiplomatic.” [ABC News]

Zambian Zebra (Henning Borgersen, Unsplash)

• “Turbine Prices ‘Surge As Supply Tightens'” • A Rystad Energy report said Europe’s offshore wind sector is facing a structural supply constraint as turbine prices have risen 40-45% since 2020. GE Vernova paused new offshore wind orders, Rystad Energy said, leaving Siemens Gamesa and Vestas to fill nearly all orders for turbines for European developers. [reNews]
• “Record Long Turbine Blades Arrive At Mill Rig” • The longest turbine blades installed at a UK onshore wind farm have arrived at the 33-MW Mill Rig Wind Farm in South Lanarkshire. OnPath Energy said the 80-meter blades will be fitted to six turbines that will power more than 45,000 homes annually and displace about 27,000 tonnes of CO₂ each year. [reNews]
• “The UK Sees A Surge In Solar Power Adoption” • An increase in installations, along with government initiatives, shows that even in a changing global landscape, the UK is moving forward with cleaner, more secure energy sources. March 2026 was a notable month for UK solar energy, with more than 27,000 installations completed. [Open Access Government]
• “Average US Gas Prices Top $4.50 Per Gallon, The Highest In Nearly Four Years” • As the war in Iran drags on, US drivers are feeling pain at the pump. In the US, the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas jumped to $4.51, the highest it has been since July 17, 2022, according to GasBuddy, a company that helps consumers find the cheapest gas. [ABC News]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Survey finds most Australians support cap for diesel fuel rebate, and most didn't even know mining companies pocketed so many billions from the policy.

The post Survey finds most Australians support fuel tax credit cap, and didn’t know miners pocketed so many billions appeared first on Renew Economy.