Wind Energy Market at a Crossroads

The wind industry is approaching a structural inflection point. Early fleets in Europe and the United Kingdom are aging faster than advertised, composite blade waste is outrunning recycling capacity, and decommissioning liabilities are coming due just as subsidy structures change. Two recent posts by Peter Clack capture the twin problems: rapid performance decay well short […]

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Britain’s £150 billion grid rebuild is being sold as the price of cheap, clean power. The more useful question is whether the country is paying to lock in an expensive, weather-dependent system after already shutting the firm plants that used to keep prices and industry competitive.

The National Energy System Operator’s figures put transmission investment at about £64 billion through 2030 and another £89 billion after that—more than £150 billion in all. The Guardian’s mapping of official recommendations points to well over 4,000 miles of new power lines by 2041, plus subsea cables and converter stations to move Scottish and offshore […]

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South Korea’s Hyosung Heavy Industries has locked in ₩386.5 billion (about $277–$287 million) in ultra-high-voltage transformer contracts with two unnamed U.S. Big Tech companies for new AI data centers—one in the South and one in the North.

The award is smaller than some of Hyosung’s earlier 2026 utility mega-deals, but it is strategically important: hyperscalers are now buying grid hardware directly, and Hyosung is one of the few firms that can deliver 765 kV equipment from a U.S. factory. The split is ₩220 billion of 765 kV transformers for the southern site […]

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U.S. utilities and grid operators are urging households to prepare for tighter electricity supplies, possible rolling blackouts during extreme weather, and new risks from large loads like data centers

Kind of Ironic that we lost power over the holiday and had a great dry run. Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. As we had company, a storm rolled in on us, and only 900 people in our county were without power. As you have heard me say, it is better to prepare […]

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Net Zero wanted to shut coal down. Net Zero now extends coal.

Australia’s official grid planner has rewritten the script. The Australian Energy Market Operator’s 2026 Integrated System Plan still describes renewables, storage, transmission and gas backup as the “least-cost” path to 2050. The same documents show coal staying until 2049, wind delivery falling well short of earlier ambition, transmission scaled back after cost blowouts of up […]

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What Is the Reason for the 1000% Increase in Power costs to Consumers?

American electricity customers are facing sticker shock that goes far beyond ordinary inflation. In the nation’s largest grid region, PJM Interconnection—serving 65 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C.—capacity prices have risen from roughly $29 per MW-day in the 2024/2025 auction to $270, then $329–$333 per MW-day in subsequent auctions. That is an increase […]

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