Good morning. Wondering why electric planes haven’t really taken off? They’ve hit some turbulence: Batteries that pack enough capacity to power long trips are just too dang heavy. But that could soon change. An aviation battery from storage titan CATL recently became the highest-density tech of its kind to clear a key safety test. Now, the Chinese company could take e-planes to new heights. ✈️
— Molly, Carrie, and the Energy Central editorial team
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The Trump administration wants to rewrite a farmland rule—these revisions could hamper renewables and pipeline projects.
The details: The USDA is proposing adjustments to the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978, which orders companies to share info on foreign ownership of US farmland. Citing national security risks (sound familiar?), the agency wants the law to include sites like renewable energy facilities and pipeline corridors.
The pushback: The proposed changes could chill energy investment and treat allied capital like adversary-linked entities, according to five Democratic senators.
The irony: This change could create national security risks…by requiring energy operators to share geospatial data in a public database.
AES aims to stitch the country’s patchwork of connect-and-manage systems into a single standard.
The proposed Grid 2.0 standard, floated by AES SVP Chris Shelton and colleagues, took inspo from the rules that run the internet.
How it works: “New large loads, transmission, batteries, and clean energy assets voluntarily adopt orchestrated management of their grid participation in a real-time, permission-based paradigm,” according to a new report. This essentially codifies the “fragmented” processes introduced by grid operators around the country.
The math: If new loads accept 0.25% curtailment, it would free up 76 GW nationally from existing infrastructure, the report noted. “A small amount of flex unlocks a large amount of capacity on the system we already pay for as electricity customers,” Shelton wrote on LinkedIn.
The model: Shelton and his team expect to work with a few early adopters, then scale. For data centers already running workload schedulers, all that’s needed is software integration.
Electricity suppliers overcharged Massachusetts residential and small-business customers by $12.3B over the past decade, a recent report claims.
For context: Utilities like Eversource and National Grid don't generate power—they buy it from independent suppliers at a fixed rate locked in every six months, then pass it through to customers.
The finding: Research firm Synapse compared those fixed rates to real-time spot prices and found that Massachusetts basic-service customers paid a median 43% markup, or roughly $22 in extra costs per month. This added up to >$12B in premiums paid from 2015-2024.
The utility response: NRG claimed that the state's renewable mandates have contributed to cost spikes, while Eversource argued that suppliers must price in the risks of fixed rates and regional gas volatility.
The fix (and its risk): Synapse proposed a hybrid model—fixed-price contracts for part of predicted load, spot-market purchases for the rest. Eversource's counter? Spot markets cut both ways, and a bad winter could make today’s bills look cheap.
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CenterPoint is predicting $5B in savings for Texas customers over the next decade. The driver? New large-load additions.
The logic: CenterPoint has up to 14 GW of ERCOT Batch Zero-eligible large-load projects in its pipeline. And if more customers pay into the same infrastructure? That means lower costs per customer—a model CenterPoint says has already kept its infrastructure charges growing at just over 1% annually between 2014-2025 (they’re the lowest among Texas IOUs).
The backdrop: The utility just beat Q2 profit estimates and upped its 10-year capex plan to $66.7B. It also signed the White House’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, and says it has aligned with Gov. Greg Abbott's data center transparency push.
Geothermal could offer New Mexico's Indigenous populations ‘enhanced energy sovereignty,’ state officials say.
The opportunity: Lawmakers want leaders of NM’s 23 tribes, nations, and pueblos to take advantage of the state’s estimated 163 GW of potential geothermal capacity.
One idea: These communities could pool resources and form their own geothermal development group. In doing so, they could generate their own electricity, sell surplus power, and help modernize the state's aging grid.
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