SwitchedOn Podcast: Opening the Front Door to Sustainable Homes
Helen Oakey, CEO of Renew, highlighted Australia’s shift toward retrofitting and electrifying homes ahead of Sustainable House Day. The event showcases real‑world upgrades—insulation, heat pumps, batteries, and all‑electric renovations—demonstrating how older housing can become healthier, more comfortable, and cheaper to run. Homeowners share what worked, what didn’t, and lessons learned, providing a practical snapshot of the nation’s energy transition. The podcast underscores growing consumer demand for resilient, low‑carbon dwellings.
China Names Largest Methanol Dual-Fuel Boxship Expanding Green Shipping
Chinese shipbuilder COSCO Shipping christened OOCL Wisdom, the world’s largest methanol‑dual‑fuel containership at 24,168 TEU and 225,000 dwt. The vessel is the first of a 12‑ship order valued at just under $2.9 billion, slated for delivery through 2028. Equipped with dual‑fuel engines,...
Success Stories: Algorithmic Approach
Researchers at Virginia Tech have created advanced mathematical algorithms that simultaneously reduce data‑center power consumption, boost system performance, and strengthen security. By redesigning workload distribution and resource allocation, the technique lowers operating costs while accommodating the expanding demand from AI...
Science Talk: Asia Is Underinvesting in Its Most Cost-Effective Carbon Markets
Asia’s most carbon‑dense ecosystems—Indonesia’s peatlands, Philippine mangroves, and Borneo forests—remain severely under‑financed despite delivering the cheapest climate mitigation. Global nature‑based carbon finance totals roughly $84 billion a year, far short of the $300 billion needed to protect these assets. After a slump...
Wealthy People Were the First to Buy Electric Vehicles. The Current Boom Risks Entrenching Inequality
Australia’s electric‑vehicle market is accelerating, but early adoption is heavily skewed toward affluent households. Research on New South Wales registrations from 2017‑2021 shows wealth as the strongest predictor, with each income tier roughly doubling EV uptake. About 85% of registrations...
Fox ESS Celebrates Strong Momentum at Smart Energy 2026
Fox ESS used its platinum sponsorship at Smart Energy 2026 to showcase a full suite of integrated solar‑storage and EV‑charging solutions for Australian homes. The company highlighted market momentum, reporting more than 25,000 battery installations in April and a No. 1 ranking...
China's Solar Boom Has Created a Massive Oversupply Problem
China now produces more than twice the global demand for solar components, driving a price war that has left many manufacturers indebted. Industry leaders and the government have convened to launch a $7 billion buy‑out of inefficient plants, impose capacity caps,...
Reconstruction of Interfacial Charge Topology in S‐Scheme Heterojunction for Enhanced CO2 Photoreduction
Researchers integrated plasmonic gold nanoparticles with a Cs3Bi2Br9 quantum‑dot/BiOCl S‑scheme heterojunction, fundamentally reshaping its interfacial charge topology. The Au‑decorated ternary catalyst achieved a CO evolution rate of 115.4 µmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹, 57.7 times higher than pristine BiOCl and 2.3 times above the binary S‑scheme counterpart....
US High School Economics Class: The Great American Data Centre Divide
Artificial intelligence is driving a wave of new data centres across the United States, with a majority now sited in rural areas to exploit cheaper land, abundant power and lower taxes. Pew Research shows roughly 70% of planned facilities will...
Colorado River Flows Will Reach Historic Lows This Summer
Colorado River inflows to Lake Powell are projected to fall to just 13% of the historical average this summer, the lowest on record. The shortfall follows an unprecedentedly weak snowpack in the Rocky Mountains, compounded by a March heatwave that...
Evening Peak Power Demand Exposes Gaps in India’s Energy Transition: Citi
Citi’s latest research warns that India’s power grid is now strained by evening and night‑time peaks as solar output wanes, even though overall shortages have fallen. Peak demand has surged from about 119 GW in 2010 to nearly 250 GW in 2025,...
The Breakaway Climate Conference Challenging the COP Process
The first Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels Conference convened 57 nations in Santa Marta, Colombia, to draft concrete roadmaps for phasing out coal, oil and gas. Co‑hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, the summit positioned itself as an action‑focused complement to...
Greenlane Expands Electric Truck Charging, Plans Chargers In Texas
Greenlane announced the rollout of high‑power electric truck charging stations in Texas, targeting Houston and Dallas along Interstate 45. Each site will host six to eight pull‑through lanes equipped with CCS connectors and megawatt‑scale chargers for Class 8 rigs. The rollout supports...
The Latest GHG Protocol Proposal Raises the Bar for “100% Renewable” Reporting in Data Centers
The GHG Protocol has issued a draft update to its Scope 2 accounting standards that would require data‑center operators to match renewable electricity on an hourly basis rather than by annual totals. U.S. data‑center power consumption has tripled since 2014 and...
Startup Wants to Run AI Inference From Space
Orbital Inc., a Los Angeles startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz, announced plans to build a constellation of low‑Earth‑orbit satellites that run AI inference workloads. The company envisions up to 10,000 fridge‑sized satellites, each delivering roughly 100 kW of solar‑powered compute via GPU...
“Cannot Be Explained” – New Ultra Stainless Steel Stuns Researchers
University of Hong Kong researchers introduced SS‑H₂, a stainless‑steel alloy that resists corrosion at voltages up to 1700 mV, enabling seawater electrolysis for green hydrogen. The material employs a sequential dual‑passivation strategy, adding a manganese‑based protective layer atop the conventional chromium...
Masers Are the Future of Clean Energy – According to Quaise
Quaise Energy is pioneering a new geothermal drilling method that uses high‑frequency maser (millimeter‑wave) beams to ablate and melt rock, eliminating the need for conventional drill bits. Demonstrations in Texas have achieved a 387‑foot borehole using a 100‑kW gyrotron, the...
India May Soon Increase Ethanol Blending in Petrol to 25%. Here’s What Consumers Should Know
India is weighing a jump from a 20% to a 25% ethanol blend in petrol, a move accelerated by West‑Asia tensions that have spiked global crude prices. The existing 20% blend has already saved roughly 45 million barrels of crude and...
Scania, Unicon and Liebherr Launch Fully Electric Concrete Transport Solution
Scania, Unicon and Liebherr have unveiled a fully electric concrete transport solution in Denmark, pairing a battery‑electric Scania truck with an integrated electric mixer. The truck carries a 400 kWh battery delivering about 200 km of range, while Scania’s ePTO powers the...
Hidden Heat Pump Insulation Faults Could Be Costing UK Homes £74 a Year
Industry modelling presented at the CIBSE Decarbonisation Conference shows that missing or damaged insulation on external heat‑pump pipework can waste roughly $94 per household each year, amounting to about $25 million nationwide. The loss stems from heat escaping before water reaches...
Anthropic Signs SpaceX Colossus 1 Data Center to Boost Capacity
Anthropic announced a deal with SpaceX to lease the entire compute capacity of the Colossus 1 data center, which has expanded to 220,000 NVIDIA GPUs. The agreement follows recent Claude Opus service disruptions caused by insufficient capacity, prompting Anthropic to secure additional...
A Data Center Drained 30M Gallons of Water Unnoticed — Until Residents Complained About Low Water Pressure
A QTS data‑center campus in Fayetteville, Georgia siphoned nearly 29 million gallons of water without billing, prompting a $147,474 retroactive charge after residents complained of low pressure. The county utility missed two industrial hookups because of a procedural mix‑up during its...
Contact Between 2D and 3D Perovskites Reshapes Crystal Order, Lifting Efficiency to 26.25%
Researchers at Korea University, University of Toledo and Seoul National University introduced a contact‑induced crystallization (CCI) technique that merges 2D wide‑bandgap and 3D halide perovskite layers. By applying heat after the layers touch, the 3D FAPbI₃ film attains near‑ideal lattice...
How to Take Control of the AI Data Center Boom and Built It Into Your Own Home in the Future
Home‑based micro data centers are emerging as a niche solution to the AI compute surge, with builders like PulteGroup partnering with Nvidia and Span to install fractional nodes on new houses. Proponents cite land savings, energy‑efficiency and waste‑heat reuse, while...
AI Data Center Bans Rapidly Spread Across US as Communities Resist New Mega Facilities
AI data‑center bans are accelerating across the United States, with 78 active bans, moratoriums, or pending measures recorded by May 2026. Communities cite soaring electricity costs—up 267% over five years—water strain, and limited long‑term job creation as reasons to curb hyperscale...
Bihar Govt to Roll Out EV Charging Network Across Highways
The Bihar government will install electric vehicle charging stations along national and state highways at dhabas, hotels, motels and petrol pumps. Transport secretary Raj Kumar met with auto, petroleum and OEM representatives to set technical standards and operational guidelines. The...
New Technique Radically Boosts Biogas Yields From Sewage Sludge
Washington State University researchers unveiled the Advanced Pretreatment and Anaerobic Digestion (APAD) system, which triples biogas yields from sewage sludge and slashes disposal costs by nearly half. The two‑stage process combines high‑temperature wet oxidation with a novel methanogenic bacterium, Methanothermobacter...
Navrattan Cement to Invest ₹250 Cr to Set up Green Cement Manufacturing Plant in Punjab
Navrattan Cement Industries LLP, a Navrattan Group subsidiary, announced a ₹250 crore (≈$30 million) investment to build a green‑cement manufacturing plant in Rai Majra, Rajpura, Punjab. The facility will employ advanced low‑carbon technologies aimed at cutting emissions and boosting energy efficiency versus conventional...
JUSNL Move to Curb Power Cuts in 7 Districts
Jharkhand Urja Sancharan Nigam Ltd (JUSNL) has commissioned a 220 kV Govindpur‑Dumka single‑circuit line‑in‑line‑out (LILO) at the North Karanpura Transmission Ltd (NKTL) substation, unlocking up to 450 MW of power for the state. The line currently supplies about 103 MW to Dumka and...
Sungrow Expert Christos Tsegkis: “The Combination of PV, Storage, and Charging Is Highly Attractive”
Sungrow, a Chinese power‑electronics pioneer, is leveraging its Munich hub to roll out a full suite of EV‑charging solutions across Europe. Its portfolio now spans AC wallboxes from 22 kW to 3.5 MW, DC chargers up to 480 kW, and the ultra‑fast ChargeStack 1000...
Grid Operators May Reduce Renewables Penetration if Data Center Growth Continues Unchecked, Says ENTSO-E
The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO‑E) warned that unchecked data‑center growth could compel grid operators to limit renewable energy penetration across Europe. In an 8 May report, ENTSO‑E highlighted the flexibility potential of data centres but stressed...
First Bus Uses Electric Bus Depots to Support the Grid
First Bus has launched the UK’s first smart‑charging trial for its electric‑bus fleet, beginning at a Glasgow depot and slated to expand to Great Yarmouth. Partnering with Optimo Energy, the trial uses a platform that synchronises charging with real‑time grid...
Argentina Sees Strong Growth in Solar Distributed Generation Amid Electricity Price Hikes
Argentina’s distributed generation (DG) market is booming, with over 4,000 user‑generators and 143 MW installed by March 2026, up sharply from just 67 in 2019. The surge is driven by recent electricity tariff hikes, historic lows in inverter and panel prices,...
Solar PV Accounted for 29% of Electricity Generation in Chile in March, with Instantaneous Peaks Reaching 75%
Chile’s solar photovoltaic output reached 2,141 GWh in March 2026, representing 28.7% of total electricity generation and hitting an instantaneous peak of 75.1% on March 14. Operational solar capacity stood at 11.9 GW, with another 2.8 GW under construction, while battery energy storage systems...
Spain Supports 4.2 GW / 8 GWh of Pumped-Hydro Storage with €165 Million
Spain will soon finalize a €670 million ($789 million) allocation under its Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, with €165 million earmarked for seven reversible pumped‑hydro storage projects. The Boralmac II program will add more than 4.2 GW of power capacity and over 8 GWh of storage...
U.S. Solar Panel Manufacturers Need to Learn to Solder
The Intertek CEA Global PV Manufacturing Quality Report 2026 reveals stark yield gaps between U.S. and Chinese solar panel factories, with some U.S. sites delivering as low as 30% yield versus near‑100% in mature Chinese plants. Soldering defects dominate the...
Sponsored: Can You Engineer Around Human Friction? Why ‘Social Interconnection’ Is the New Site Selection Priority
The data‑center boom is hitting a new bottleneck: community opposition, or the loss of a social license to operate. Developers now treat sentiment as a fourth engineering constraint alongside land, power and fiber, quantifying its impact on project lead‑times. By...
Bolivia Presents New Law to Boost Renewables, Private Investments
Bolivia’s Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Energy has submitted a draft Electricity and Renewable Energies Law for formal review, launching technical, legislative and public consultations. The proposal retains the state‑owned utility ENDE as system operator but places it in a competitive...
Home Batteries: A ‘Gamechanger’ for Cutting Energy Bills?
UK households are confronting a surge in energy bills as Middle‑East conflicts push wholesale prices higher, prompting a wave of green retrofits. Falling home‑battery costs—down 90% since 2010—are seen as the key lever to maximise savings from heat pumps, solar...
Energy Expo Highlights Solar Expansion, AI-Driven Energy Sys
The Uttar Pradesh Energy Expo 2026 showcased the state’s aggressive push to scale solar power and embed artificial‑intelligence‑driven energy management across its grid. Policymakers and industry leaders discussed utility‑scale solar parks, rooftop solar under the PM Surya Ghar Yojana, and agrivoltaic models linked...
REALLY Quick Charge with Range Energy Electric Trailer at ACT Expo 2026
Range Energy showcased its production‑ready electric semi‑truck trailer at the ACT Expo 2026. The battery‑powered eTrailer can cut fuel consumption by up to 70% and double as on‑demand grid storage. After a multi‑year winter testing program, the company validated performance...
China Donates 5,000 Solar PV Systems to Cuba Amid Energy Crisis
Cuba’s National Electric Union is installing 5,000 two‑kilowatt photovoltaic systems donated by China to alleviate a severe energy crisis. 2,671 units will power essential municipal facilities such as hospitals, banks and radio stations, while the remaining 2,329 will serve isolated...
Application of Dynamic Adjustment Strategy of Map Service Resources Combined with Reinforcement Learning in Power Supply Network Visualization
The paper introduces a dynamic map‑service resource adjustment framework that blends transformer‑based forecasting with reinforcement learning to manage modern power grids. By integrating the FEDformer model for demand prediction and an RL agent for real‑time resource allocation, the system can...
China’s Electric Concrete Mixer Boom Is A Warning To Slow Heavy Truck Markets
Battery‑electric ready‑mix concrete trucks have exploded in China, moving from under‑2% market share in 2021 to nearly 44% of new mixer sales in 2024 and projected 70% by 2025. In Q1 2026, 5,125 new‑energy mixers were sold, 99.5% of which were...
A Solution to Our Data Center Woes? Covering California’s Canals with Solar Panels Could Generate a Staggering 13GW of Clean...
A University of California study proposes covering 4,000 km of California canals with solar panels, which could generate about 13 GW of clean electricity and save roughly 63 billion gallons of water each year—enough for two million residents. The Nexus pilot on the Turlock...
How Renewable Energy Software Supports Greentech Development and Scalable Digital Solutions
Renewable‑energy software is transforming the sector from centralized plants to a network of distributed resources such as rooftop solar, home storage and wind farms. Real‑time IoT monitoring, predictive‑maintenance analytics and digital‑twin simulations keep assets running efficiently, while Virtual Power Plant...
How to Choose a Reliable Solar Inverter in Australia
Australia now hosts over four million rooftop solar systems, with 300,000 new installations added in 2024, cementing solar as a mainstream energy source. The surge in installations has multiplied the variety of solar inverters, making compliance with Australian standards—particularly AS/NZS 4777.2:2020 Amd 2:2024—a...
Supermicro’s New AI Campus Embodies the Industrialization of AI Infrastructure
Supermicro unveiled a 714,000‑square‑foot AI Campus near its San Jose headquarters, the company’s largest U.S. site covering 32.8 acres. Branded as a Data Center Building Block Solutions (DCBBS) hub, the campus combines design, domestic manufacturing, testing, service and global distribution...
Balcony Solar Bill Dies in Illinois After Union Voices Opposition
Illinois lawmakers abandoned Senate Bill 3104, which would have cleared the way for plug‑in balcony solar panels, after a union‑driven amendment raised safety concerns. The amendment would ban all such panels until the National Electrical Code updates, a change not...
Drone Test Destroys Historic Solar Plane Solar Impulse 2
On May 4 2026 the Solar Impulse 2, repurposed as an autonomous solar‑drone by Skydweller Aero, crashed into the Gulf of Mexico after a sudden loss of power during a routine test from Stennis International Airport, completely destroying the historic carbon‑fibre airframe. The accident...