ClimateTech News and Headlines
ClimateTech News and Headlines
ClimateTech Pulse
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Daily
Every morning
Weekly
Tuesday recap
Archbald, Pennsylvania, a borough of under 8,000 residents, is poised to host five massive data centers that would together occupy 13 million square feet and demand up to 1.6 gigawatts of electricity. The borough council raised industrial building height limits from 55 to 90 feet to accommodate the projects, despite resident concerns about grid strain and higher power bills. Officials tout the development as a fiscal lifeline, estimating each center could generate more than $4 million in annual property taxes, potentially covering over 60% of the town’s budget. Pennsylvania’s generous tax incentives and abundant natural‑gas supplies have turned the state into a data‑center hotspot.
FranklinWH announced its residential battery system is now approved for virtual power plant (VPP) programs in New York and Washington. In New York, participants can receive up to $3,000 upfront and earn about $200 annually by allowing utilities to draw power during...
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved Southwest Power Pool’s Consolidated Planning Process, merging generation interconnection with transmission planning. SPP will launch its first CPP window in April and introduce the GRID‑C rate, giving developers upfront cost certainty for network upgrades....
Idemitsu Renewables’ Azalea Solar and Storage Project entered commercial operation on December 31, delivering 60 MW of photovoltaic generation and a 38 MW AC/152 MWh battery system in Kern County, California. The facility is tied to a long‑term power purchase agreement with Sonoma Clean Power...
Big Tech firms are rapidly scaling purchases of carbon credits to offset the soaring emissions from AI‑driven data center expansion. Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft increased permanent removal credits from 14,200 in 2022 to an estimated 68.4 million by 2025, according...
RWE’s Thor offshore wind farm, a 1.1 GW project off Denmark’s west coast, has begun feeding electricity into the Danish grid after the first turbine was installed. The venture, owned 51% by RWE and 49% by Norges Bank Investment Management, is...
British airport Bristol (BRS) announced a £10 million investment to build a new energy centre that will replace its gas boilers with air‑source heat pumps and an electric boiler. The modular facility will generate, store and distribute low‑carbon heat and cooling...
A partnership between the unnamed company and AMP targets the removal of 200,000 tons of CO₂ by 2030 by converting municipal solid waste into biochar. AMP’s AI‑powered sortation technology isolates organic material, preventing methane—a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than CO₂—from...
Origis Energy has placed its 210‑MW Wheatland Solar farm into commercial operation in Knox County, Indiana, under a 20‑year power purchase agreement with CenterPoint Energy. The project was financed through a mix of tax‑equity from J.P. Morgan and debt from...
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have created a polymer blend of polyetherimide (PEI) and PBPDA that yields a dielectric constant of 13.5, roughly four times the energy density of conventional polymer capacitors. The material remains functional up to 250 °C, far...
The Trump administration is drafting settlement agreements that would pay TotalEnergies nearly $928 million to cancel two offshore wind leases off New York and North Carolina. In exchange, the French firm would abandon the Attentive Energy and Carolina Long Bay projects and shift...
Goldbeck Solar Polska has secured financing for an 8‑MW/16‑MWh battery energy storage system in Przeworsk, Poland, marking one of the country's first standalone BESS projects. Construction is slated to begin in Q2 2026 with grid connection and commissioning targeted for early...
New South Wales has adopted a preferred underwriting framework for solar‑battery hybrid projects as it readies two massive tenders totalling 5 GW of new capacity later this year. The AEMO subsidiary ASL favoured an export‑based long‑term energy supply agreement (LTESA) that...
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is moving from niche to mainstream in business aviation, offering a drop‑in replacement that cuts lifecycle carbon emissions by 75‑80%. At NBAA‑BACE 2025, Avfuel and Bombardier highlighted that a 30:70 SAF‑jet fuel blend delivers significant emissions...
Shanghai‑based startup XFuel Technologies announced it can produce synthetic petroleum by converting atmospheric CO₂ and water into liquid fuel at low cost. The firm plans to construct large‑scale plants across China, aiming to reduce the country’s reliance on imported crude....
Moody’s forecasts that the six largest U.S. hyperscalers will spend about $700 billion on capital expenditures in 2026, roughly six times the 2022 level. The spending surge is driven by exploding demand for AI compute capacity to train models and support...
Ann Arbor is piloting a city‑run Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU) in the Bryant neighborhood, offering residents solar panels, battery storage and other clean‑energy assets while remaining connected to the existing grid. The program, approved by 80% of voters, will be...
Spain’s government warned the European Union that suspending the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to curb soaring energy prices would be counter‑productive. Madrid argues the carbon market is a cornerstone of the bloc’s climate agenda and that a pause could...
Australia’s remote communities, home to about 500,000 people, rely on diesel generators for electricity, making them highly vulnerable to global fuel price shocks. Recent federal actions—temporarily relaxing fuel standards and releasing domestic reserves—aim to ease supply pressures for regional farms,...
Researchers have demonstrated a perovskite‑perovskite‑silicon triple‑junction solar cell that reaches a certified 30.02 % power conversion efficiency on a 1 cm² substrate. The breakthrough combines a non‑volatile additive, 4‑hydroxybenzylamine, which aligns crystal growth and suppresses non‑radiative recombination in the wide‑bandgap top cell,...
The One Big Beautiful Bill (OB3), enacted in July 2024, reshapes renewable energy tax credit eligibility by adding prohibited foreign entity (PFE) and foreign entity of concern (FEOC) restrictions. Treasury’s interim guidance (Notice 2026‑15) introduces a material‑assistance cost ratio (MACR) for...
Equatic, a Santa Monica carbon‑removal startup, secured $11.6 million Series A funding to build a 100‑kiloton ocean‑based CO₂ capture plant that also produces green hydrogen. The technology electrolyzes seawater with renewable power, generating base that pulls carbon from the air while the...
Clēnera, the U.S. arm of Enlight Renewable Energy, secured US$304 million to fund the 120 MW Crimson Orchard solar‑plus‑storage project in Idaho. The development pairs 120 MW of photovoltaic capacity with 400 MWh of battery storage and is under construction in Elmore County. Clēnera...
Critical Loop, founded in 2023 by Bala Ramamurthy, Andrew Grinalds and Lydia Maher, creates mobile microgrids that can deliver megawatts of power within weeks. The company targets energy‑desert locations such as islands, remote military bases, and high‑demand industrial sites. Falling...
Arbor Energy, founded in 2021 by Brad Hartwig and Andres Garcia Clark, secured a $55 million Series A round to accelerate its modular, turbine‑centered power stations. The company’s 25‑megawatt, fuel‑flexible units aim to supply clean baseload power for AI‑driven data centers that...
Art Data Centres secured final approval for a €1.6 billion, 200 MW data‑centre campus in County Clare after a six‑year legal battle involving environmental challenges and judicial review. The project, approved in 2022 and upheld through appeals, will feature six halls, off‑grid...
Hive Digital Technologies announced a four‑fold expansion of its Buzz HPC liquid‑cooled data‑center campus, raising total Canadian capacity from 4 MW to 16.6 MW. The rollout adds a new 5 MW colocation facility in British Columbia with an optional 7.6 MW boost, enabling support for...
Reliance Industries Limited has signed a binding 15‑year supply agreement with South Korea’s Samsung C&T to deliver green ammonia, a deal valued at over $3 billion and slated to begin in the second half of FY2029. The contract ranks among the...
Sentinel Data Centers, via developer JGT2 Redevelopment, plans a 1 million‑square‑foot data center on the former International Paper mill in Jay, Maine. The project, slated to begin construction in July, promises 800‑1,000 construction jobs and 125 permanent positions, with a proposed...
Data center cooling is becoming a strategic priority as AI‑driven and hyperscale workloads push power densities higher, forcing facilities to manage heat more aggressively. The global cooling market is forecast to grow at roughly 14% annually through 2033, with U.S....
RWE reported 2025 adjusted EBITDA of €5.1 bn and net income of €1.8 bn, landing at the top of its guidance range despite a dip from 2024. The German utility announced a €35 bn net investment programme through 2031 aimed at adding roughly...
Japan’s largest offshore wind farm, the 220 MW Kitakyushu Hibikinada project, began commercial operation in early March 2026. The facility comprises 25 turbines of 9.6 MW each and is expected to generate about 500 million kWh annually, enough for roughly 170,000 households. Operated by...
Dutch research institute TNO has spun off Perovion Technologies to industrialise lightweight, flexible perovskite solar cells. The company aims to construct the first roll‑to‑roll perovskite manufacturing line in the Netherlands by 2030, targeting applications where glass panels are impractical. A...
Chinese firm Arctech Solar has launched the Star Shine I, a 38 kg autonomous dry‑cleaning robot for utility‑scale photovoltaic plants. The robot can travel 10‑18 m per minute, covering up to 3 km round‑trip (9 km one‑way) and achieves more than 99.5 % cleaning efficiency....
CIEMAT has launched a large‑area multispectral solar simulator designed for precise electrical characterization of full‑size photovoltaic modules. The system delivers better than 0.4% spatial irradiance uniformity, 500 ms LED illumination pulses and dynamic I‑V acquisition, enabling single‑pulse testing of high‑capacitance modules....
Schneider Electric launched two variable‑speed HVAC drives, the ATH200 and ATH600, promising more than 30% energy savings and robust operation in temperatures from –10 °F to 60 °F. The drives are built for OEMs serving commercial and mission‑critical buildings, featuring native Modbus...
Ormat Technologies announced that its 80 MW/320 MWh Shirk battery energy storage system in Visalia, California, entered commercial operation on March 12, 2026, meeting the City of Riverside’s 15‑year resource adequacy contract deadline. The project qualifies for a 40% investment tax credit, which Ormat...
European Commission's AI Continent Action Plan proposes tripling data‑centre capacity in five to seven years via the draft CAIDA regulation. The draft fast‑tracks permits for land, water and energy, sidelining local communities and environmental safeguards. Critics cite ongoing conflicts in...
Bell Canada announced a 300 MW data‑center campus near Regina, Saskatchewan, slated to begin construction this spring. The facility, Bell’s largest investment in the province, will be pre‑leased to AI cloud provider CoreWeave and wafer‑scale chip maker Cerebras. The first data...
Google announced a $1 billion investment to expand its Lenoir, North Carolina data center, which already supports core services such as Maps, Photos, Search, Workspace, and YouTube. The expansion will add roughly 60 acres to the 337,000‑square‑foot campus, though detailed timelines...
Back‑contact (BC) solar modules from Aiko Solar and Longi captured over 50% of Switzerland's rooftop PV market in 2025, driven by a premium on module efficiency rather than price. The report notes a gradual decline in the AC/DC ratio to...
Pii Energy has introduced the Edge 2000, a plug‑in solar‑plus‑storage kit aimed at renters and apartment dwellers. The system pairs 1.2 kW of photovoltaic panels with a 2 kWh battery, ten smart outlets, and a Raspberry Pi‑driven controller. Priced at roughly $2,400, it...
Europe achieved its first cumulative 100 GW of energy storage by the end of 2025, split evenly between lithium‑ion battery systems and pumped hydro facilities. Jacopo Tosoni, deputy secretary‑general of Energy Storage Europe, highlighted upcoming EU policy shifts to increase domestic...
Finlight and Atrato Onsite Energy have merged under the Finlight brand, creating one of Europe’s largest distributed‑generation operators. The combined entity now manages 700 MW of commercial‑industrial solar and 23,000 residential projects across the UK, Spain and Portugal. Finlight will invest...
India’s power regulator, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, drafted stricter grid‑supply rules for wind and solar producers, including hefty penalties for missing commitments. After developers warned the measures could erode revenues and deter clean‑energy investment, the government asked CERC to...
Infrastructure Investor’s weekly briefing highlights three major developments: data centre operators are positioning themselves to drive down electricity costs, the European Climate Platform’s sixth fund (ECP VI) has closed at $3.7 billion, and private‑equity firm EQT has entered the UK water market....
North America’s power grid is confronting a rapid demand surge, driven by a data‑center boom, reshoring of manufacturing, and broader electrification, pushing load growth to 2‑3% annually. Utilities are scrambling to replace retiring baseload plants while adding intermittent renewables, creating...
Cambodia has commissioned a 500 MW/1 GWh grid‑forming battery energy storage system in Pursat province, the country’s first and largest of its kind. Developed by local firm SchneiTec, the BESS uses grid‑forming inverters to provide inertia and voltage support, bolstering grid reliability...
Ukraine enacted Law No. 4777-IX, overhauling 15 energy‑market statutes and creating a dedicated solar‑plus‑storage auction track. The new framework extends renewable support to 2034, mandates a minimum 10% quota for solar‑plus‑storage, and sets a €0.12/kWh price ceiling. It also eases...
Adform’s near‑term science‑based emissions‑reduction targets have been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). The company pledges a 42% absolute cut in Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse‑gas emissions by 2030, using 2024 as a baseline, and a 51.6% intensity reduction in...
