Climate & Energy · Saturday, 29 August 2026

01 Briefing what happened

An emergency order targets the grid's foreign parts. It can reach the ones already installed.

Climate & Energy 1 min 58 sources

Trump declared a national emergency over foreign-made grid equipment and gave the Energy Department 120 days to write the rules. The order covers transformers, batteries, inverters and their software, and it can be applied to kit already bolted in.

80%+

of some grid equipment made in China

the IEA's figure, covering battery cells and some solar parts [1]

120 days

before the rules exist

the order directs the Energy Secretary to develop them [1]

countries whose suppliers may be caught

and the order can be applied to equipment already installed [2]

$1.1tn

US utility investment planned for 2025-29

against $1.3tn across the ten years before [1]

The lead story — what happened

President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday declaring a national emergency over foreign-made grid equipment. [1]
It covers transformers, batteries, inverters, and the software and digital products that go with them. [1]
The order reaches backwards. It lets the Energy Secretary set conditions on equipment bought or installed before the order was signed. [1]
Recharge called that a rip-and-replace risk for US wind, solar and storage, and reported the order could touch suppliers from 24 countries. [2]
The stated reason is dependence, not an attack. The White House said data centres, AI and defence production have made the country lean harder on electricity. [1]
China accounts for 80% or more of the world's production of certain grid equipment, including lithium-ion battery cells, on the IEA's count. [1]
The order names no country. It targets transactions with foreign nationals judged to pose a risk of sabotage or unauthorised access. [1]
Equipment makers say software is the hard part. NEMA's Bridget Bartol asked what it means for a digital product to be designed and developed by a covered foreign entity. [1]
She said the order updates and expands a 2020 order that focused on large Chinese power transformers. [1]
The Energy Department has 120 days to develop the rules that implement the order. [1]
It lands mid-buildout. Utilities plan $1.1tn of investment from 2025 to 2029, against $1.3tn across the whole previous decade. [1]
The utilities' trade group said it would work with the department to keep electricity reliable and affordable. [1]

What is pushing on this

Push to strip out foreign parts High↑

the order can reach equipment bought before it was signed [1]

Confusion about what counts Building↑

makers say a digital product's country of origin may be difficult to determine [1]

Demand on the grid High↑

the White House named data centres and AI as why this matters more now [1]

Room to swap suppliers quickly Easing↓

China makes 80% or more of some of this equipment [1]

Who is involved

The White House — declared the emergency and started a 120-day clock The US Energy Department — has to write the rules that decide who is covered Edison Electric Institute — speaks for the utilities that own the installed equipment NEMA — the equipment makers, asking what counts as foreign software

How it unfolded

2020 an earlier order targeted large power transformers from China [1]
Wednesday Trump signs an emergency order covering transformers, batteries, inverters and their software [1]
Thursday makers say they need more clarity on what counts as foreign software [1]
Within 120 days the Energy Department must publish the rules that implement it [1]

Where this points

Watch what the Energy Department's rules say about software. That one definition decides whether this is a purchasing rule for new equipment or a removal order for equipment already running.

The rest of the day

51 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

02
California sues over a cancelled wind lease

California's attorney general sued the Interior Department and Golden State Wind on Friday. The April deal killed a 2GW floating wind project off the central coast in exchange for a $120m federal reimbursement. The state says the money came from a fund meant for court judgments, though no lawsuit existed. [3]

Why it matters — It is the first test of whether Washington can pay a developer to hand back a lease it won at auction.
03
A wind buyout that pays a Trump donor

The administration's deal with RWE to buy out its offshore wind lease will benefit a top Trump donor. RWE is redirecting the reimbursed money into a stake in an LNG project owned by an Australian billionaire. [4]

Why it matters — Public money paid to stop a wind farm ends up buying part of a gas project.
04
East Coast offshore wind is fading

Offshore wind was the East Coast's best option for large new clean power, given congested lines and little spare land. The industry is barely surviving high construction costs and an openly hostile federal government. [5]

Why it matters — The region's electricity prices are rising and its emissions targets are slipping at the same time.
05
Australia opens its first offshore wind auction

Victoria opened Australia's first offshore wind auction, described in the trade press as a watershed moment after repeated delays, though there is scepticism it will hit the state's targets. [6][7]

Why it matters — It is a rare government opening a door to offshore wind while Washington closes one.
06
Clean power is about to pass gas

US renewable generation rose 10.9% in the first half of 2026 against a year earlier, led by utility solar up 21.6%. Gas grew 1.8%, nuclear 1.7%, and coal fell 11.3%. Wind and solar together made 22.3% of US electricity. [8]

Why it matters — The installed-capacity crossover is arriving on momentum built before the current policy turn.
07
Data centres are 9% of PJM's wholesale bill

PJM's market monitor put data-centre load at 9% of wholesale costs so far in 2026. Total wholesale power costs rose 46% to $116.53/MWh, or $56.7bn, over seven months, and the last four capacity auctions added $29.4bn tied to data-centre demand. [9]

Why it matters — It puts a number on who is paying for the AI buildout: everyone else on the same grid.
08
Data centres' own power plants slip the rules

New EPA guidance for power plants built to serve a single facility shows how little regulation covers them. Pennsylvania's governor has moved against any AI data centre that does not bring and pay for its own power. One New Jersey site has been running dozens of unpermitted gas generators. [10][4]

Why it matters — Telling a data centre to make its own electricity moves it out of the rules that cover the grid.
09
Two readings of the same transition

MIT researchers argue US power-sector emissions are still on track to fall substantially by 2035. The NRDC's modelling finds the country will achieve less than half the cuts it would have made under the previous administration. [12][11]

Why it matters — Both can be true: one counts the power sector, the other the whole economy.
10
Rooftop solar heads for a fifth smaller year

Wood Mackenzie projects new US residential solar capacity will fall 21% this year against 2025. Tariffs raised panel prices, and the main federal tax credit for rooftop systems has been phased out. [13]

Why it matters — The cheapest way for a household to escape a rising bill just got more expensive.
11
New York's grid is running short of room

The state's grid operator has used its paid demand-reduction programme far more often than in any year of the previous decade. The national reliability body warned in January that New York faces an elevated risk of supply shortfalls in extreme weather. [14]

Why it matters — Electric heating, chip plants and data centres are all being added to a system leaning on the country's oldest gas plants.
12
Arizona becomes the third battery state

Arizona built more battery capacity than any state except Texas over the first half of 2026, adding three projects of 250MW and 1GWh each, named Beehive, Catclaw and Pediment. [15]

Why it matters — Until now only Texas and California had sustained gigawatt-scale battery construction year after year.
13
Solar carried Europe through a broken summer

Record heatwaves and a drought cut output from nuclear, gas and coal plants that need river water for cooling, and stilled the wind. Solar performed better than normal and, with batteries, helped keep cooling running. [16]

Why it matters — The same weather that breaks thermal plants is the weather solar is best in.
14
Solar passed a tenth of world electricity

Solar generated just over 10% of global electricity in the first half of 2026, up from 8.9% a year earlier and 5.6% in 2023. It met more than a quarter of world demand between 11am and 2pm, and close to nothing between 8pm and 5am. [17]

Why it matters — The problem stopped being how much solar there is and became what happens after dark.
15
IEA expects demand to grow 3.6% a year

The IEA forecasts global electricity demand growing 3.6% a year to 2030. That is half again as fast as the previous decade. Emerging economies take nearly 80% of the increase, and China alone close to half. [18]

Why it matters — China is set to add demand equal to the entire European Union's current consumption.
16
The IEA wants demand to move too

A second IEA report argues power systems can no longer be built only on the rule that supply follows demand. It notes that disruption to almost 20% of global LNG trade this year pushed gas prices up around 50%. [19]

Why it matters — If demand can shift by the hour, a grid needs fewer plants standing idle for the worst one.
17
One in four new European cars is electric

Battery electric registrations across 16 European markets rose 13.6% year on year in July to 224,266 vehicles, a 25.7% share, with France and Germany offsetting weaker demand elsewhere. [20]

Why it matters — BYD is now growing abroad because home is a price war.
18
BYD's profit rises on exports

BYD posted its first quarterly profit rise in more than a year, up 30%, helped by exports offsetting weak domestic sales. Analysts had expected about 48%. [21]

Why it matters — France and Germany are carrying the European market while demand slips elsewhere.
19
Chinese carmakers court South Africa

Chinese manufacturers launched a run of electric, hybrid and pickup models at South Africa's biggest motor show, including BAIC's compact electric SUV. [22]

Why it matters — South Africa's biggest motor show has become a showcase for Chinese electric and hybrid models.
20
China orders its biggest-ever recall over door handles

Tesla and eight other carmakers are recalling about 4.3 million vehicles in China, the country's largest-ever recall. The concern is that electronic door handles could make it hard to escape in an emergency. [23]

Why it matters — A styling choice became a safety recall once enough cars had it.
21
OPEC+ has stopped moving the price

Six months into the Iran war, OPEC+ has seen its share of global oil production fall to 40% and its statements barely move markets. Reuters reports China has become the swing consumer because the group can no longer be the swing producer. [24]

Why it matters — Whoever can change their quantity fastest sets the price, and that is now the buyer.
22
Almost half of world oil comes from war zones

Countries affected by conflict now account for more than 43% of global oil production, and over 10% of the world's refining capacity is offline. Reuters calls it the largest oil supply crisis on record. [25]

Why it matters — Fuel prices are feeding into inflation and government borrowing worldwide.
23
Qatar's gas exports are down 96%

Qatar shipped 18 LNG cargoes against 509 in the same period a year earlier, losing $24bn in gas sales, roughly five months of state revenue. US exporters have raised sales, and EU gas stocks are at record lows for the time of year. [26]

Why it matters — Europe enters winter with less stored gas than usual and one fewer big supplier.
24
US refineries are running flat out

American refineries have operated near maximum capacity for the longest sustained stretch in more than 25 years, chasing wartime margins. Running plants that hard historically raises the odds of a major failure. [27]

Why it matters — The buffer absorbing the world's fuel shortage is itself being pushed toward breaking.
25
Russia's petrol output at 70% of demand

Russian gasoline production fell to about 80,000 tonnes a day against domestic demand near 115,000, after drone strikes halted refineries at Perm, Nizhny Novgorod and Yaroslavl. Russia expects about 270,000 tonnes of seaborne imports from Asia in August. [28]

Why it matters — An oil exporter importing petrol is what refinery damage looks like from the inside.
26
Alaska drilling may skip review

The Interior Department is preparing a categorical exclusion for winter oil and gas exploration in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve. It would speed permits for seismic surveys and exploratory drilling, based on findings from dozens of earlier reviews. [29]

Why it matters — A categorical exclusion does not weaken the standard; it removes the step where the standard gets applied.
27
Norway will drill the Arctic anyway

Norway will keep developing Barents Sea oil and gas whatever the EU decides about an Arctic moratorium. Its energy minister told Reuters the country no longer sees itself as Europe's green battery. Separately, the government asked the supreme court to overturn two lower-court rulings against three oilfields. [30][31]

Why it matters — Europe's most-cited clean-energy example is arguing in court for its oil licences.
28
Record oil lobbying in California

Oil and gas companies spent $10.3m lobbying in California in the first quarter of 2026, a record for the sector. They spent $6.8m more in the second. Much of it opposed a bill making them pay toward rebuilding after climate-intensified disasters. [32]

Why it matters — The money is aimed at who pays for the damage, not at whether the damage is happening.
29
Court orders climate grants released

Federal courts rebuked the administration's move to dismantle a $2.8bn programme funding climate and environmental work in Black, low-income and disadvantaged communities, which was terminated before any money reached recipients. [33]

Why it matters — Cities like Jackson, Mississippi have now waited three years for water money that was appropriated in 2023.
30
Boulder's climate case reaches the top court

The Supreme Court will hear a case brought by Boulder, Colorado against oil companies at the start of its autumn term, at the defendants' request. Nine years of similar state-court suits are still at preliminary stages, and none has reached trial. [34]

Why it matters — Jackson, Mississippi and cities like it have waited three years for grant money awarded in 2023.
31
Washington moves to retire a climate scenario

A proposed amendment to the Fifth National Climate Assessment would rule out the high-emissions RCP8.5 and SSP5-8.5 pathways. Findings resting on them could not be used as expected, baseline or policy-relevant futures for federal planning. The amendment calls them implausible. [35]

Why it matters — Changing which future counts as plausible changes what federal projects must be built to survive.
32
Europe's summer killed at least 35,000

At least 35,000 more people died during Europe's four back-to-back heatwaves than would normally be expected, from provisional figures covering barely half the continent and excluding August. Italy, France and Spain alone are past 25,000. [36]

Why it matters — The count is incomplete in a direction that only goes up.
33
The youngest get the most extra heat

More than 40% of children under ten already face at least 20 extra heat-stress days a year from climate change. That is more than any other age group. South Asia and west Africa are worst exposed. [37]

Why it matters — The people with the least ability to cool themselves are getting the largest increase.
34
Himalayan floods have killed 552

A torrent of rock, ice and mud through Himalayan river systems has killed 547 people in Nepal and five in Tibet, with almost 1,000 missing. Rescue work paused when a newly formed lake overflowed. [38]

Why it matters — The lake that formed during the flood is now the next hazard.
35
El Nino puts a million at risk in Peru

Peru's civil defence chief said El Nino could put more than a million people in vulnerable regions at risk, and is expected to intensify from November, bringing flooding and mudslides. [39]

Why it matters — The warning comes with three months to move, which is the whole point of issuing it now.
36
Drought talks split on a binding protocol

Countries at the UN desertification summit in Ulaanbaatar were divided over whether a global drought protocol should be binding, an issue unresolved since 2024. The conference was due to close on 28 August. More than $1.3bn was mobilised for land restoration, and indigenous representatives protested at being excluded from negotiations. [40]

Why it matters — A warmer ocean is the reservoir behind next year's heatwaves, not just this year's.
37
The oceans set a temperature record

Average global sea surface temperature reached 21.1C last weekend, the hottest on record, according to EU Copernicus data. Sea surface temperatures normally peak in March and April, and forecasters expect them to keep rising while this El Nino runs. [41]

Why it matters — A warmer ocean is the reservoir behind next year's heatwaves, not just this year's.
38
Algerian wildfires kill twelve

Twelve people died in wildfires across several Algerian provinces during a severe North African heatwave, with 54 burned and six in intensive care. Civil protection recorded 154 fires in a single day. [42]

Why it matters — The same exceptional heat is sitting over Tunisia and Algeria at once.
39
Heat and floods hit China's crops

High temperatures and heavy rain have battered China's corn, soybean and cotton regions since mid-July. The damage threatens yields and could raise imports of feed grain and cotton, including from the US. [43]

Why it matters — A weather loss in one country becomes a trade question in another.
40
Africa's solar boom is not in the statistics

Rooftop and small systems make up the bulk of new African solar, driving record additions that official statistics largely miss. Analysts used Chinese customs data to track the equipment because no register exists. [44]

Why it matters — Countries planning without that number risk buying fossil plants they will not need and skipping the batteries they will.
41
Latin America's storage forecast jumps

Wood Mackenzie now expects Latin American energy storage to reach 34GW by 2035, up from 2.5GW in 2025, having forecast only 23GW by 2034 a year ago. [45]

Why it matters — Grid limits and wasted renewable output are pulling batteries in faster than anyone modelled.
42
Egypt gets the region's first battery plant

Sungrow broke ground on 17 August on a $50m, 10GWh battery storage factory in the Suez Canal Economic Zone. Egyptian authorities call it the first specialised plant of its kind in the Middle East and Africa. Production starts in April 2027. [46]

Why it matters — Storage manufacturing is beginning to follow demand out of China rather than only exporting from it.
43
Ireland, India and Britain add solar

Ireland passed 3GW of solar, four years after its first utility-scale farm connected, with over 200,000 homes fitted. India added 3GW of open-access solar in one quarter. Britain approved a 400MW solar park at Sleaford sharing its grid connection with a 600MW battery. [47][48][49]

Why it matters — The Sleaford design matters most: the battery is bigger than the solar farm sharing its wire.
44
Wave power gets a US test site

The first large site in the continental US for testing wave energy technologies has opened off Oregon. It secured a federal approval from an administration that has cancelled grants and bought back leases to stop offshore wind. [50]

Why it matters — The same government blocking one ocean technology just cleared another.
45
Switzerland puts solar between the rails

A Swiss pilot laying solar panels between train tracks produced up to 16 megawatts, and the panels were undamaged after 11,000 passenger trains passed over them. The idea is spreading to Italy, France and Korea. [51]

Why it matters — It uses land that is already cleared, already owned and already wired.
46
Wildfire smoke is an unpriced solar risk

Research summarised in Nature argues wildfire smoke should be factored into the planning and financing of solar projects, drawing on a study of smoke effects on Alberta's solar output. [52]

Why it matters — A solar farm's forecast output assumes clear air, and fire season increasingly does not deliver it.
47
Carbon majors and the West's water

A study attributes roughly half of the climate-driven fall in western US snowpack and streamflow, and the matching rise in irrigation demand, to the largest emitting companies. About a third of the Central Valley's climate-driven groundwater loss from 2003 to 2024 is traced the same way. [53]

Why it matters — It converts a shared atmospheric problem into a list of named defendants.
48
Disaster money that arrives first

Anticipatory payments released when a forecast crosses an agreed threshold got cash to 150,000 people in Bangladesh a day before a cyclone landed, with no appeal or assessment. The approach is now being tried at national scale. [54]

Why it matters — The same money does more work before the storm than after it.
49
Ireland writes rules for giant loads

Irish grid operators documented four data-centre demand drops on the 220kV network, the largest 387MW. They proposed a grid code change requiring big loads to restore at least 90% of demand within 500 milliseconds of a fault clearing. It is still under regulatory consideration. [55]

Why it matters — It is the clearest published attempt anywhere to say what a data centre owes the grid it plugs into.
50
PJM's approved projects still must be built

PJM cleared a large backlog of clean projects for grid connection, some waiting since 2018, serving 67 million customers across 13 states. Anything not already through faces years more. [56]

Why it matters — Permission to connect is not a power plant, and the gap between them is where the shortage lives.
51
One in seven US students at a solar school

More than seven million US students now attend a school with solar panels. The number of solar schools has nearly doubled since 2016 and their combined capacity has more than tripled to over 2.4GW. One Virginia district expects to save $46.5m over 35 years. [57]

Why it matters — School roofs are one of the few large surfaces a public body can decide about on its own.
52
The Port of New York goes electric

APM Terminals Elizabeth, which handles nearly 30% of Port of New York and New Jersey container traffic, ordered 110 heavy electric machines including 34 electric gantry cranes. [58]

Why it matters — Port equipment runs on diesel next to dense housing, so the air quality gain lands locally.

02 Lesson why it matters

Safe and secure want opposite things

Many suppliers is what stops a grid breaking by accident, and it is exactly what makes a grid impossible to vouch for.

The twist

What keeps a grid running when a part fails is having many suppliers, and that is exactly what makes it impossible to vouch for.

How it works

A system can fail two ways: by accident, or by attack
Guarding against accidents wants many suppliers and spare parts
Guarding against attack wants few suppliers you can vouch for
So both defences pull the same dial, in opposite directions
Whichever failure happened most recently decides which way it turns
The cost arrives later, as the other kind of failure, blamed on something else

Where you've seen this

Seed varieties

one uniform crop is easy to certify and fails everywhere at once when a disease finds it

Hospital supplies

a single approved maker is easy to inspect and leaves nothing to reach for when its factory stops

Work laptops

a short list of allowed software is easier to secure and strands everyone when one tool goes down

The catch

The trade is not always real. Adding a second supplier you trust buys safety and security at once, and the two only start taking from each other when the trusted list gets short.

And the whole of it

Nobody on the grid chose which of the two failures to be protected from, and nobody will be told which one was traded away. The official writing the rule, the utility signing the contract, the household on the line: each sees one danger clearly and the other only as a cost. That is most of us, most of the time, sure about the risk we happen to have a name for.

03 Lab your turn

The Two Failures

Order twelve transformers across five suppliers and feel safety and security pull the same choice in opposite directions.

04 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

An order sold as protection against sabotage is also a decision to shrink the list of companies allowed to sell into the American grid. It arrives while that grid is short of equipment and being asked to carry data centres it was never built for.

Why it works on us — The order declares the emergency now and defines it in 120 days. So its strongest version exists only in people's heads, during the exact months when the purchasing decisions have to be made. [1]

Who gains

US and allied grid equipment makers — A rule that narrows who may sell transformers, inverters and batteries into the American grid removes competitors from a market where utilities plan $1.1tn of spending by 2029. [1]
Gas and other firm-power developers — NRDC's modelling has the US losing more than half of the renewables it expected to build, and that gap has to be met by something already buildable. [11]
A Trump donor with an LNG stake — Federal money paid to RWE for relinquishing an offshore wind lease is being redirected into buying a share of his liquefied gas project. [4]

Who pays

US wind, solar and storage developers — Their equipment is the most software-heavy on the grid, and software is the category the order's own drafters cannot yet define. The trade press has already named them as carrying the rip-and-replace risk. [2]
Anyone on the PJM grid — Wholesale power costs there rose 46% in seven months to $56.7bn, with the market monitor attributing 9% of it to data-centre load. That arrives as a household bill. [9]
Households that wanted their own panels — Rooftop solar is heading for a 21% smaller year after tariffs and the end of the federal credit, so the private escape from a rising bill got more expensive. [13]
Jackson, Mississippi and communities like it — A $2.8bn programme was terminated before any money was distributed, and it took federal courts more than a year to order it released. [33]

What nobody knows yet

Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.

01

Which countries and companies are actually covered.

The order names none. It targets transactions with foreign nationals posing a risk of sabotage or unauthorised access, and leaves the Energy Department 120 days to say who that means. [1]
02

How a piece of software gets a country of origin at all.

NEMA's Bridget Bartol asked publicly what it means for a digital product to be designed and developed by a covered foreign entity. She said there is a need for a lot more clarity. [1]
03

Whether anything already installed will actually be removed.

The order allows conditions on equipment acquired or installed before it was signed, and the trade press calls that a rip-and-replace risk. No equipment has been named. [1][2]
04

How much money RWE is redirecting from its wind lease buyout.

Canary Media's roundup says $900 billion, while the Washington Post piece it links to describes a $900 million payday. One of those figures is wrong by a factor of a thousand and we cannot resolve it from what was published. [4]
05

How many people Europe's heatwaves actually killed.

The 35,000 figure covers barely half the continent and excludes August entirely, so the number that eventually stands will be higher by an amount nobody can yet estimate. [36]
06

How much solar Africa has actually installed.

Most small systems are neither tracked nor regulated, so analysts are reduced to counting Chinese customs records of exported equipment. [44]
07

Whether PJM's newly approved projects get built.

Clearing the connection queue grants permission, not construction, and PJM's own backlog held projects that had waited since 2018. [56]
08

What the Supreme Court will do to nine years of climate cases.

None of the state-court suits has reached trial, and the court agreed to hear Boulder's at the defendants' request. [34]

05 Hope carry this

Solar carried Europe through a summer that shut down its cooling-water plants, and Ireland reached three gigawatts four years after connecting its first solar farm. The things we build quietly, in ordinary years, turn out to be the ones standing on the hard days.