Energy Evolution

Lithium-ion batteries dominate today's rapidly expanding global market for energy storage systems, fueled by hyperscalers and utilities scrambling to bring online new flexible capacity. But alternatives to lithium ion are fast emerging, perhaps none as quickly as its close cousin sodium ion. This episode features a recording from the American Clean Power Association's RECHARGE energy storage confe...

The Texas grid experienced record electricity demand in summer 2026 while posting some of the lowest power prices in nearly a decade. That might be good for customers, but it makes for a tough investment environment if you want to build a gas plant. And with surging demand projections and increasingly extreme weather swings, many believe Texas needs significant new dispatchable generation, mainly...

In this week's episode of Energy Evolution, host Eklavya Gupte takes stock of the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism nearly a year into its definitive phase, and asks a pointed question: Is it working? To answer it, he is joined by Alwyn Hopkins , director and sustainability leader for Industrials and Energy at EY UK; Dan Maleski , director at the EY Global Tax Center of Excellence; and Irina...

In this week's episode of Energy Evolution, host Camilla Naschert turns the spotlight on Big Tech as part of S&P Global Energy's annual series examining how the world's largest companies are faring on their paths to net-zero emissions. The AI infrastructure boom has driven the sector's energy appetite to new heights, and its carbon footprint is rising in tandem. Tech reporter Stefan Modrich of S&P...

Europe's increasingly digital power system faces a rapidly evolving mix of cyberattacks, physical sabotage and supply-chain vulnerabilities, with artificial intelligence amplifying both the risks and the defenses.  Host Camilla Naschert speaks with Eurelectric CEO Kristian Ruby and European Initiative for Energy Security Executive Director Albéric Mongrenier about how utilities are responding to A...

The US offshore wind sector is facing a new front in its battle with the Trump administration: lease buyouts. In this episode of Energy Evolution, renewables reporter Noah Schwartz tells host Camilla Naschert about federal deals that allow offshore wind developers to cancel leases in exchange for fossil fuel investment commitments and government reimbursement. S&P Global Energy offshore wind analy...

Dozens of North American private startups and established companies, state agencies and academic institutions are racing to develop and commercialize an advanced nuclear reactor. Whether these companies, and the advanced nuclear sector at large, can succeed depends on numerous factors, including the capital plans of large tech companies, favorable federal policy and the strengths of individual rea...

By most conventional metrics, the European refining sector is in rude health. The Middle East conflict has driven key fuel price benchmarks to unprecedented heights, and refiners are running flat out to plug supply gaps left by disruptions to key Gulf exporters. In this episode, host Eklavya Gupte speaks to Kelly Norways , senior editor at S&P Global Energy Platts, who explains why the current boo...

Alongside a surge in data center construction, a growing protest movement has emerged in the US, with locals voicing concerns over electricity and water usage. Protests have put around 12 gigawatts of data center capacity at risk, analyst John Murray from S&P Global Energy tells the Energy Evolution podcast. To address concerns, tech firms need to improve transparency and deliver clear local benef...

The EU wants to nearly double its electrification rate to 46% by 2040, a transformation that would slash fossil fuel imports by hundreds of billions of euros annually. In this episode of Energy Evolution, host Eklavya Gupte examines the EU's Electrification Action Plan and assesses whether Europe can realistically achieve it. Coralie Laurencin , director of European gas, power and carbon policy at...

Balcony or "plug-in" solar is rapidly gaining popularity, as it gives consumers who might not have easy access to distributed solar generation a straightforward way to deploy the technology and begin saving on their power bills. Meanwhile, as drivers transition to electric vehicles, the possibility of deploying the batteries as a flexible grid resource hooked up to bidirectional chargers is also g...

In April 2026, the European Commission adopted interim guidance stipulating that solar and battery storage projects using inverters or power conversion systems sourced from high-risk countries would be ineligible for EU funding, citing concerns over cybersecurity and grid resilience. Among the affected countries is China, Europe's dominant supplier of clean energy technologies. In this episode of...

On July 14, grid operator PJM released the results of its latest capacity market auction for the 2028-2029 delivery year. Prices hit the federally approved cap of $325/megawatt-day, but the amount of procured capacity came up short of PJM's reliability requirement by 6.8 gigawatts. In other words, prices went as high as they were allowed to go but still didn't incentivize enough generation to meet...

From his first day in office, President Donald Trump has exerted major shifts in US energy policy during his second term, including opposition to offshore wind projects, extending the lives of coal-fired power plants, withdrawing from climate treaties and war with Iran. But with the midterm elections approaching, Democrats have an opportunity to regain power in Congress. So how are Democrats talki...

Smart technology is rapidly redefining the debate over grid infrastructure. Rather than spending millions on new transformers, transmission lines and generation capacity, a growing consensus suggests the answer lies in using existing resources more intelligently. In this episode, host Eklavya Gupte speaks with Devrim Celal , Chief Flexibility and Marketing Officer at Kraken Technologies, about how...

Traditionally, European power systems were engineered around a single imperative: survive the winter "Dunkelflaute," those prolonged cold, dark, windless stretches that push demand higher while renewable generation collapses. But rising summer temperatures are dismantling this assumption. Heat waves are forcing a fundamental recalibration of infrastructure investment, operational strategy and mark...

The clean energy investment landscape has undergone a fundamental reset. The era of zero interest rates has given way to a more disciplined environment where transmission access and power market fundamentals determine success or failure. In this episode, host Eklavya Gupte speaks with Declan Flanagan , founder and CEO of Bluestar Energy Capital, about how his company is responding to these shifts....

Every day, power market participants in the Western US must determine how much electricity they need for the following day and where it's going to come from. In response, California's grid operator on May 1 launched its Extended Day-Ahead Market, or EDAM, giving power providers a better way to coordinate to find the cheapest electricity.  So how is it going so far? And what does it mean for grid r...

Much of the current discussion about nuclear power focuses on advanced technologies, from the potential for nuclear fusion to the development of various designs for small, modular reactors. But if we ask what new nuclear reactors have been built recently in North America and are up and running? The answer is the two reactors at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, which use Westinghouse Electric's AP1000...

After nearly four months, global commodity markets have shown both vulnerability and resilience amid the unprecedented disruptions caused by the Iran war. The European gas market is no exception. In this episode of Energy Evolution, host Eklavya Gupte examines the paradoxes shaping Europe's gas outlook. Gas prices in Europe have surged since the conflict erupted, yet remain far below the panic-dri...

It's hard to overstate how fast the battery energy storage industry is growing, and the impact that's having on the power sector. In 2025, US utilities and independent developers added 17.75 gigawatts of large-scale battery storage capacity, up 52% from 2024. Multiple forecasts suggest another 100 GW or more of large-scale battery capacity will come online in the US through 2030.   To the extent u...

The growth of data centers, and the amount of electricity expected to be required to meet that demand, is probably the biggest issue in the US power sector.  US grid power supplied to hyperscale, leased and crypto-mining data centers reached about 64.4 gigawatts in 2025, nearly tripling since 2020. And that growth is accelerating. In this episode, host Dan Testa speaks with Brandon Oyer , head of...

In this episode, host Eklavya Gupte sits down with Marijn van Diessen , CEO of STX Group, one of the world's leading environmental commodity traders. The conversation explores Europe's strategic pivot toward domestic energy sources, the explosive growth potential of biomethane as a gas substitute, and the surge in demand for renewable certificates driven by AI data centers — alongside the challeng...

In this episode, host Eklavya Gupte explores how the war in the Middle East has exposed Asia's deep reliance on fossil fuels while also accelerating the region's energy transition. Ruchira Singh , energy transition editor at Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, speaks with Nobuo Tanaka , chair of the steering committee at the Innovation for Cool Earth Forum and former executive director of the Inter...

The war in the Middle East has put energy security back at the top of Europe's political agenda. For many, it brings back uncomfortable memories of 2022, when Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered an energy crisis that forced governments to scramble for solutions. But this time, something is different. In this episode of Energy Evolution, host Eklavya Gupte speaks with Alex Blackburne , senior re...