PJM, ERCOT, and SPP All Set New Summer Peak Electricity Demand Records This Summer

The summer of 2026 tested the U.S. electric grid with record heat and rising demand. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Hourly Electric Grid Monitor (based on Form EIA-930 data), three major regional transmission organizations (RTOs) set new peak hourly load records.⁠Eia PJM (serving roughly 65–67 million people across all or parts of 13 […]

Continue Reading

Global Diesel Crisis Boosts Petrobras’ Hot-Button Refining Plan — Just Like the US, It Depends on the Election

A worldwide diesel crunch, driven by wartime disruptions, is giving fresh political momentum to Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras and its long-debated push for greater domestic refining. The same supply tightness is exposing the United States’ own refining constraints—constraints that have accumulated for decades and are heavily concentrated in states with stricter environmental rules. In […]

Continue Reading

NatGas Spikes As Major West Virginia Pipeline Declares Force Majeure

TC Energy’s Columbia Gas Transmission (TCO) declared force majeure Thursday after an unexpected mechanical issue on the Mountaineer XPress (MXP) system forced an immediate pressure reduction on Line 100 between the Mt. Olive Compressor Station in Jackson County and the Saunders Creek Regulator Station in Cabell County, West Virginia. The restriction takes the MXPSEG MA42 […]

Continue Reading

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 […]

Continue Reading

Largest US power grid PJM escalates emergency actions to avoid blackouts

The largest U.S. regional transmission organization, PJM Interconnection, escalated emergency measures on July 3, 2026, issuing a federal alert to cut electricity consumption across its vast territory amid generator outages, overloaded high-voltage transmission lines, and surging air-conditioning demand from a prolonged heatwave. PJM, which manages the electric grid for approximately 67 million people, activated demand-response […]

Continue Reading