Happy Monday. Renewables have had a rough year…but they’ve certainly powered through. In the first half of 2026, solar, storage, and wind contributed 90% of all new US capacity (with Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona leading the pack).
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— Molly, Carrie, and the Energy Central editorial team
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The DOE is dishing out $500M for homemade critical minerals and batteries. 🥧
The funding is headed for seven projects, including $100M each for lithium extraction company Lilac Solutions and critical mineral refiner Nth Cycle.
The signal: President Trump wants the US to become the world’s “minerals superpower”—and reduce our reliance on China for the materials necessary for EVs, energy storage, and semiconductors.
Thousands of Indiana residents have gone nearly two weeks without power.
Left in the dark: Northern Indiana Public Service Co. customers are waiting on repairs after an intense Aug. 11 storm felled trees and power lines. As of Sunday evening, over 16K customers still lacked electricity. Some cities, like Gary and Porter, won’t get their power back until Tuesday, according to NIPSCO.
The criticism: Indiana Gov. Mike Braun called the prolonged outages “unacceptable” and urged quick restoration of power. NIPSCO’s response? “These aren’t simple repairs. These are systems that are being rebuilt,” said Melody Birmingham, executive VP of NIPSCO’s parent company NiSource, in a press conference. Meanwhile, a recently filed class-action lawsuit alleges that NIPSCO failed to maintain vegetation around power lines.
Progress so far: As of Sunday, NIPSCO had restored power to more than 350K customers. In the meantime, some schools remain shuttered, and many residents are relying on generators.
Will ERCOT’s data center audits delay other grid priorities?
Loads to do: ERCOT is aiming to audit “hundreds” of data center proposals by Dec. 10, following Gov. Greg Abbott’s moratorium on approvals issued earlier this month.
Ripple effects: These reviews could hold up other key items on the ISO’s to-do list, like its long-term load forecast and reliability assessment.
Meanwhile, in MISO and PJM: A private GOP memo warned that Democrats are gaining the upper hand in an Ohio Senate race by opposing data centers, Axios reported. And nearby, Michigan GOP Sen. candidate Mike Rogers just reversed his position, claiming he supports a state data center moratorium.
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Electric co-ops need more megawatts to power data centers. But gas plant emissions standards are holding them back, some orgs say.
The plea: The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, along with electric co-op execs, are urging the White House to repeal a Biden-era emissions rule for new gas plants.
The issue: Electric co-ops say they need more gas to offer data centers 24/7 power. But the EPA rule, which requires new large gas plants to install carbon capture tech, makes that much harder. “This is a significant threat to our ability to do our job,” said Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, at a press event last week.
To fill the next-gen nuclear workforce gap, SMR developer Kairos Power will host a training hub in Tennessee.
More nuclear know-how: Kairos Power, Oak Ridge National Lab, and other orgs are launching the Nuclear Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Precast, or NuCAMP.
What it’s all about: Participants can learn to build advanced nuclear reactors at Kairos’s Reactor Demonstration Campus. The effort will kick off with a year-long exploratory phase.
More battery storage might be headed to NY-ISO and MISO.
New funds: NY-based BESS developer Key Capture Energy closed a $300M loan last week to deploy its systems across the country.
The destinations: KCE has a “near-term focus” on NY-ISO and MISO, the company said in a statement. The projects will support “grid reliability and the evolving US power system.”
Bringing your own power plant used to require the resources of a company like Microsoft. Within a decade, it may require little more than a parking lot.
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✏️ Can data centers make the grid more reliable? Yes…but only if we plan correctly, NERC’s John Moura told us. Hear Moura’s take on how data centers can boost system resilience:
Thanks for reading. Have a magnificent Monday!