Buried in paperwork: In October, Energy Sec. Chris Wright called on the agency to kick off these reforms amid the intensifying data center buildout. Now, FERC says it'll act by the end of June—around two months late—citing 3,500+ pages of public comments and ongoing stakeholder meetings. 

Also on the docket: FERC Chair Laura Swett knocked PJM's proposed Mar. ‘27 timeline for its recently announced emergency capacity auction. To avoid a shortfall, governors and the White House want new supply by Sep. ‘26. "We are in a make-it-or-break-it year for the market," she said.

A day after Iran’s military shut the Strait of Hormuz again, President Trump said the US had seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship. US officials claim talks with Iran are still scheduled for today in Pakistan…but it’s unclear if the Iranian side will show up.

The deal: A 3-page MOU recently under discussion would unfreeze $20B in Iranian funds in exchange for Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile. But plenty of specific details (like the length of the possible moratorium) have yet to be ironed out.

Meanwhile, gas prices aren’t likely to dip under $3 per gallon until next year, Energy Sec. Wright claimed. As they say, “oil prices rise like a rocket and fall like a feather.”

SunZia is online: After nearly two decades in development, the country's biggest renewable project has started spinning out electricity. The 3.5-GW SunZia Wind development is testing its 916 turbines in New Mexico and sneakily feeding power to California over a 550-mile line…but neither developer Pattern Energy nor CAISO formally announced the milestone. 

Vineyard Wind will keep its turbine supplier: A MA judge blocked GE Vernova from walking off the $4.5B project after developer Vineyard Wind declined to pay the $360M GE says it’s owed. Judge Peter Krupp’s take: the idea of swapping in new contractors for GE's specialized knowledge is "fanciful."

Sunrise Wind got its first turbine: Ørsted confirmed the first turbine installation at its NY offshore project, keeping it on track for commercial ops in the second half of 2027. Once online, it's set to power nearly 600K homes.

In a Feb. letter recently shared by an Indiana advocacy group, CenterPoint discouraged DOE from renewing an order to keep Unit 2 online at its F.B. Culley coal plant (which represents <1% of the regional grid’s installed capacity). This move would require millions in upgrades and lengthy outages for “an inefficient and increasingly unreliable asset,” CenterPoint wrote. 

DOE’s counter: The agency claimed the unit proved essential during this winter’s extreme weather. Last month, DOE extended the order through June 21.

The bigger picture: DOE's push to keep aging coal plants online is running into more utility resistance. But Energy Sec. Chris Wright told a House committee Thursday that these orders are essential to power factories and data centers, blaming grid reliability issues on intermittent renewables. 

That’s the headline from the IEA’s freshly updated Energy and AI report. Global hyperscaler spend topped $400B last year and is expected to leap another 75% this year (much of it’s driving the data center buildout). The world’s data center electricity demand grew 17% in 2025, and AI-focused data centers surged 50%.

US grid implications: Some 15-27 GW of onsite gas could end up powering US data centers by 2030. This means overbuilding generation infrastructure 30-70% above demand, the IEA warns…hardly a shortcut amid tight turbine supply.

While we’re here: Fermi America's (hypothetical) 17-GW Amarillo data center has no tenant, no buildings…and now no CEO. Cleanview's satellite tracker shows construction hasn't meaningfully advanced at the world’s biggest planned data center since Feb., not long after a $746M IPO.

The context: The US solar cell maker went bankrupt in 2017, citing Chinese dumping. Now, the SC plant is slated to come online in Q2 2027, pushing Suniva's total domestic capacity >5.5 GW. This will make it the largest merchant solar cell manufacturer in the US, the company claims.

Why it matters: Cells, wafers, ingots, and polysilicon remain the import-reliant pieces of the domestic solar stack, even as module production has grown 7X to 56.5 GW since 2022. The factors boosting the value of reshoring? 1) AI-driven power demand 2) stricter tax-credit qualification rules and 3) trade enforcement, according to Deloitte's Keith Adams.