The numbers: July marked the country’s hottest month ever documented—and over 170K households across states including CA, GA, IL, PA, and VA faced electric shutoffs by utilities. That’s according to data from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), which was shared with the Guardian. These states saw a 28% increase from July 2024.

The reality: Households “are cutting back on food or medicine or resorting to payday lenders because you need to get the power back on,” NEADA Executive Director Mark Wolfe told the Guardian. 

Zooming out: These stats don’t paint the full picture—utilities in 22 states aren’t required to report shut-off data. What we do know: Roughly one in six households are behind on their energy bills, NEADA noted. And because shutoff protections vary around the country, customers face differing degrees of risk.

Small nuclear: The permit (which arrived four months early) will allow TVA to build what could become the country’s first commercial SMR. But…TVA still needs to “make a final investment decision” and pin down the construction timeline, Bloomberg reported. 

Big nuclear: The NRC found that restarting the Crane Clean Energy Center (fka Three Mile Island) will have “no significant” environmental impact. It’s set to offer a total of 835 MW to the PA, NJ, and MD grids—and help fuel Microsoft data centers. 

Pump it up: Tomorrow, the startup’s $2B Cape Station facility in Utah is set to kick off commercial operations—a global first for a next-gen, utility-scale geothermal plant. It will offer its initial 33 MW of capacity to California-based retail power provider Shell Energy. 

Next steps: Fervo could sell Google up to nearly 1 GW of Cape Station Capacity by 2030.

The breakdown: The grid operator credits “a collective, region-wide approach to grid planning and management.” The net benefits include $3.1B from MISO’s competitive energy markets, $3.3B from “cost-effective” resource investments, and $1.6B from regional transmission planning. 

Only up from here? Membership costs will likely rise in the near-term, as MISO “adapts to the changing resource mix,” the report noted. But MISO also predicts that these net benefits could reach $16B in 2035. 

Plus, some homework: MISO has made key market reforms in recent years, according to its independent market monitor…but it still has some progress to make. Potomac Economics recently suggested that MISO reduce congestion costs and boost transmission utilization, among other tasks. This summer, regional congestion costs jumped 57% year-over-year to more than $650M.

The background: In a years-long legal battle, Potomac Edison fought the Maryland comptroller for a sales tax exemption on transmission and distribution equipment. This summer, the MD Supreme Court sided with the utility. 

The latest: Now, the state is set to pay a total of nearly $280M to Potomac Edison and other MD utilities (including Exelon subsidiaries). State Comptroller Brooke Lierman, who “strongly” disagreed with the court decision, is calling on energy companies to pass those refunds to customers. “This is ratepayer money,” she said.