The cause: Sparks from an out-of-service SCE transmission tower, which reached a “dry receptive fuel bed below,” according to a new report from the LA County Fire Department. The fire took off within seconds, and ultimately killed 19 people and destroyed over 9K buildings. 

The liability: SCE is required to “maintain and operate its electrical lines and equipment in a manner that would minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire posed by them,” the fire department noted. In Dec. 2025, Pedro Pizarro, CEO of parent company Edison International, said SCE’s equipment was likely to blame. So far, the utility has paid over $360M in claims related to the Eaton Fire.

Meanwhile, Edison International and PG&E have warned they’ll make moves to shield shareholders—including potential spending cuts—if California officials don’t limit the companies’ liability for equipment-sparked wildfires. One possible solution: California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has proposed capping the amount utilities must pay to hedge funds, insurance companies, and disaster attorneys.

The details: EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin axed these grants last year, and has called them “a clear-cut case of waste and abuse.” Now, a recent D.C. Circuit decision frees those funds (as long as the EPA doesn’t appeal to the Supreme Court in the coming days). 

The grants: In 2024, the Biden administration offered nonprofits $20B to fund renewable development and climate-friendly projects around the US—with a focus on disadvantaged communities that have lacked access to such funding.

The problem, according to Abbott: He noted that over 5M Texans (mostly in Austin and San Antonio) can only access a single municipal power provider “and cannot shop around for cheaper electricity rates.” But by enabling retail electric competition, he claims ratepayer bills could drop 10% in Austin and 13% in San Antonio, on average. Meanwhile, commercial customers could save almost 22%.

The plan: The governor is proposing legislation to open city monopolies and allow residents to choose their provider. (Abbott has previously tried to pass similar legislation.) He also wants to ban city utilities from collecting charges "unrelated to electricity delivery" and “prohibit using utility profits as a city slush fund."

The utility response? City-run Austin Energy and CPS Energy oppose Abbott’s plan—they claim it would increase households’ energy costs. CPS said it maintains the state’s lowest combined electric and gas residential rates, while Austin Energy said it offers ERCOT’s lowest residential electric bills (and ranks above the state reliability average). “The Governor’s proposal could actually increase Texans’ bills, while reducing the level of customer service they currently receive,” The Texas Public Power Association told KXAN.

On one condition: The utility “plans to refrain” from requesting another rate hike “until at least 2028”…but only if the Oracle data center comes online as scheduled by late 2027, DTE said in a statement. The utility plans to supply 100% of the data center’s power needs. The company has also signed an agreement with Google for a 1-GW data center (with 2.7 GW of new, grid-connected power).

Ratepayer relief? Amid all the hyperscaler collabs, DTE is upping its spending—it filed a $470M+ electric rate case in April. But the company claims its growing customer pipeline can benefit existing ratepayers by absorbing “a significant portion of fixed system costs.” The two data center contracts are expected to contribute $9B to upgrading DTE’s electric system through 2045.

The storage: Pattern Energy subsidiary Amanecer Puerto Rico will use these funds to deploy 220 MW of battery storage, providing backup power for over 100K customers during shortages. The batteries will help avoid roughly 13M customer interruption hours, according to the DOE. The loan will also pave a “pathway for the future development” of dispatchable gas generation, the agency said.

The savings: This funding is projected to save Puerto Rican households and businesses around $300M in electricity costs over the next 25 years. This relief arrives as ongoing grid disruptions hit customers’ wallets: A one-day, territory-wide interruption is estimated to cost customers $1B.

Zooming out: Puerto Rico residents pay 2X more for electricity than mainland US customers, and the grid still hasn’t fully recovered from Hurricane Maria in 2017. Meanwhile, federal relief efforts have been lacking. As of early July, Puerto Rico was waiting on $10B in undistributed federal assistance for its ailing grid.

Where’s the money going? Valar will use the new funds to produce “fleets” of its Ward 250 reactors “en masse,” the company said in a statement (it’s eventually targeting “thousands of reactors” per year). These reactors were the second in the DOE’s pilot program to reach criticality.

While we’re here: Startup Perimeter Compute wants to install AI chips in the basements and mechanical rooms of office buildings that have 0.5-20 MW of spare capacity. Half a MW can power 240 NVIDIA chips, Perimeter CEO David Hall told Latitude Media.