#seasonal-storage

#seasonal-storage

"These are mega-rich people who are not here to do charitable things. They don't love Joliet. I'm here because I love Joliet, and I don't want to see my utilities go up."

To fuel our bodies, we must eat other living things, killing them in the process. However, most plants and algae are autotrophs. They bootstrap their biomass without the barbarism of eating others: using photosynthesis, turning sunlight, water, and carbon into energy.

Noor, meaning light in Arabic, is a solar facility that produces enough energy to power more than a million homes, utilizing concentrated solar power instead of traditional PV panels.

"A stellarator is a thing that is objectively very difficult to design, objectively very difficult to build, but if it works, it can control the burning hot plasma better than a tokamak."

Private investment in fusion energy has surged dramatically, with funding jumping from $10 billion to $15 billion in just a few months, reflecting a newfound confidence in the sector.

"We were considering multiple forms of capital when we started. It just felt like the opportunity is so large that venture capital gives us the opportunity to take those risks upfront and have the possibility to generate an outsized return."

Charging from 10 to 98 percent took just six minutes and 27 seconds. The more standard 10-80 percent time takes just three minutes, 44 seconds. Only have a minute to plug in? Still sufficient to get from 10 to 35 percent state of charge.

The most consequential shift for anyone considering rooftop solar in 2026 is the expiration of Section 25D, the Residential Clean Energy Credit. That 30% credit, which was worth up to $9,000 on a $30,000 system, is no longer available for home solar installations. The One Big Beautiful Bill, signed July 4, 2025, accelerated the phase-out that the Inflation Reduction Act had originally extended through 2034.

Data centers accounted for around 50% of all electricity demand growth in the U.S. last year, according to the IEA, far surpassing the rise in electricity usage in the residential, industrial, and transport sectors.

The group points out, correctly, that the grid is designed for brief bursts of high demand; most of the time there's lots of capacity that goes unused. Utilize thinks that should change. The group argues that smarter ways to use that capacity already exist. Utilize name checks a number of those solutions, including battery storage, demand response, and virtual power plants, all of which have emerged en masse over the last decade, but remain under utilized.

The pioneering technology means one of the oldest forms of energy storage, hydropower, can be used to store and release renewable energy using even gentle slopes rather than the steep dam walls and mountains that are usually required. The design means the principles of hydropower could be used as a form of long duration energy storage in many more locations across the UK, and the world, than traditional hydropower dams. The projects could be quicker and cheaper to build too.

"A more decentralized energy system, with a growing share of renewables and more market players, is structurally more resilient. Countries that invested in the energy transition are weathering this crisis with less economic damage, as they boost energy security, resilience and competitiveness."