Week ending October 23, 2026

Google is expanding its efforts to contract distributed capacity to help meet its power needs in the PJM Interconnection with the addition of 1,070 MW to an initial 100-MW virtual power plant agreement it signed with Voltus in June, the companies said Thursday.

Under the agreement, Google will pay Voltus to aggregate distributed resources from residential, commercial and industrial customers.

As electricity demand from artificial intelligence surges, the power sector is looking to the same technology for new ways to plan and maintain the grid more efficiently.

The utility industry is a long way from allowing large language models to take action affecting physical infrastructure, executives say.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management sold geothermal leases on 60 parcels of federal land in Nevada on Tuesday, netting nearly $4.83 million for 186,641 acres.

The sale included two parcels that overlap the site for NextEra Energy’s proposed 1-GW Sawtooth Energy Center solar project.

It’s crunch time for the electric power industry.

A surge in spending to meet the insatiable electricity demands of large-load data centers, as well as broader electrification, is fueling fierce competition for skilled labor, power generation equipment and grid components.

Demand from hyperscalers is reshaping the power purchase agreement landscape — but the Section 232 tariffs announced in early August could add $3/MWh to $7/MWh by the time they take effect later this year, Wolf said.

Much of the third quarter’s price increase is anticipatory — buyers are trying to secure new contracts before the tariffs take effect, she said.

The projects helped lift Kinder Morgan's natural-gas project backlog to a record level, underscoring the industry's efforts to expand infrastructure to serve the new demand.

Kinder Morgan would invest about $3.1 billion in Southern Natural Gas' Southeast Connector project and $1.6 billion in Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America's (NGPL) Permian Link project.

The funding will support locally driven projects across states, territories, and tribes to upgrade critical infrastructure, prevent power disruptions, and meet growing electricity demand while helping lower costs for American families and businesses.

The investment advances President Trump’s American energy dominance agenda.

Oil supermajors have been raking it in since the war in the Middle East began.

They are now set to report another robust quarter, even as some jurisdictions where they operate plan to slap windfall taxes on them.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith delivered a message of national unity, economic optimism and renewed determination to develop Alberta’s vast energy resources in a television address to Albertans following the historic October 19 referendum.

With approximately 76 per cent of voters choosing to remain in Canada, Smith declared that Albertans had delivered a decisive mandate to move beyond the separation debate and focus on building a more prosperous province within a stronger Canadian federation.