Get it right
Data Centers are not the cause of higher electric bills.
There is no serious energy crisis. Feds actively solving.
Renewables + storage same price or cheaper than gas and almost always the right choice.
Electric supply increasing faster than demand almost everywhere. Not a limit on AI.
AI Energy solved
FERC Demands More
Flexibility, Storage
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2025 Wholesale Power Prices in the 20 Largest Economies
From about 3¢/kWh in Alberta to 13¢ in Italy. The five priciest wholesale markets among the 20 largest economies are all European.
What’s going on
Rates did go up $50B in 3 years on East Coast USA PJM as generator giants raised capacity charges ten times. Blamed data centers but the proximate cause is an obsolete auction system. FERC issued Show Cause Order to add flexible connections and storage in grid system. Fully implemented, more than enough to fix “crisis.” Georgia rates already falling. California has excess capacity.
Falling prices for renewables + storage now the same or less in most locations. New economics inspire so much new supply that prices are going down in much of the world. PJM urged to delay auction that would lock in extraordinary rates for 15 years.
Much more coming.
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U.S. Prices By State
Real-time energy averaged $65.89/MWh in New England and $36.94 in Texas. Add capacity charges and the gap gets wider.
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The grid was never designed for a customer that never sleeps.
Transmission planner — replace per storyReconductor or Rebuild?
When a transmission corridor runs out of capacity, a utility has two basic options: string new, higher-capacity wire on the towers already standing, or build an entirely new line on a new right-of-way. The first option…
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100+ GWh Tesla Megapacks Ready to Transform U.S. Grid
Elon turned on the Brookshire, Texas plant on August 6. It will add 50 GWh a year to U.S. battery capacity. Half of that would be enough to drastically reduce, at a fraction of the cost, the roughly $16 billion…
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PJM Backstop Auction Could Lock in $20B/Yr Cost
PJM has asked FERC to approve a one-time capacity auction to buy roughly 6.8 GW of new generation at up to $555/MW-day on 15-year contracts. Docket ER26-3380-000. No FERC order yet.
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Eos’s Biggest Customer Frontier Power Is Controlled by Eos’s Lender Cerberus
Claude Backgrounder. Doublecheck rverything before using. What it is: a long-duration storage IPP created by a battery manufacturer to buy its own product, controlled by that manufacturer’s secured creditor, and made financeable by a Lloyd’s insurance wrap standing in for an operating…
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ERCOT’s Permian Blackout Math Assumes the Batteries Are Empty
The Permian Basin is at risk of rolling blackouts. That much is on the record from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, repeated through a chain of hearings, wire stories and legislative fights since July. What has not been reported…
Sources
Filings, reports and datasets the reporting rests on.