A lot of this week’s energy news boils down to a familiar problem: the headlines say transition, but the grid still says constraint. Ember says solar and other clean sources met all global demand growth last year. A federal court just reopened the lane for a big slug of U.S. wind and solar projects. New England ratepayers are still fighting over transmission returns from more than a decade ago. And Gallup’s newest polling suggests the public is growing less sentimental and more practical. That usually happens when energy policy stops being abstract and starts showing up on a monthly statement.
The Lede
NEW REPORT
Ember Says Clean Power Met All Demand Growth. That’s True, But Incomplete.
Ember’s latest Global Electricity Review is full of genuinely important data, but some of its biggest headlines need a little unpacking before people start declaring a new era. The topline findings:
Global electricity demand rose 849 TWh in 2025, or 2.8%
Low-carbon generation rose 887 TWh
Solar alone added 636 TWh
Wind added 205 TWh
Fossil generation fell 38 TWh, or 0.2%
Renewables reached 33.8% of global electricity, just above coal at 33.0%
Those are real milestones. Solar growth in particular is stunning. It is now the dominant source of new generation globally, and batteries are beginning to make daytime solar more useful in the evening hours. But there are a few caveats hiding underneath the triumphalism:
A 0.2% fall in fossil generation is basically flat, not collapse
Gas generation still rose by 36 TWh
Nuclear rose only 35 TWh, but still remains one of the few major clean firm sources at scale
Coal fell globally, but the U.S. actually saw coal generation rise 85 TWh in 2025 because gas got more expensive
Asia is still the only region where coal remains above renewables, and it accounts for 82% of global coal generation
GridTake
Ember is right that solar is now the leading marginal source of new electricity. But that headline sits on a heavily shaped market. Wind and solar have enjoyed enormous policy preference, while firm generation has spent years fighting permitting drag, fuel politics, and in nuclear’s case, outright institutional hostility. Annual growth charts also flatter variable resources in ways real system operations do not. Even Ember’s own data shows how early the flexibility buildout still is: battery additions in 2025 were enough to shift only about 14% of the new solar generation added that year. The question is not whether wind and solar are scaling. It is whether a system built around favored intermittency and discouraged firmness can stay affordable and reliable once the hard hours arrive.
Things to Read
Heatmap on the odd new courtship between data centers and wind farms. The piece gets at a real tension in the market: hyperscalers want speed, developers want offtake certainty, and wind still has trouble pretending it is dispatchable.
Boston Globe on Massachusetts and the faint smell of a nuclear comeback. Less a real renaissance than an indication that in deep-blue states, the old anti-nuclear reflex is no longer as automatic as it used to be.
Interesting Engineering on a world-first non-nuclear lead-cooled reactor. Still very much in the “watch this space” category, but it is another reminder that thermal innovation is not limited to fission.
RealClearEnergy on how environmentalism’s “follow the science” posture has curdled into a politics of delay and anti-build reflex. A worthwhile provocation, especially for anyone who still thinks infrastructure fights are mostly about carbon arithmetic.
Grist on the Ember and IEA reports, and on the broader idea that we’ve entered an “age of electricity.”
Missouri Independent asks whether competition is the answer to Missouri’s rising utility costs. Answer: Yes.
Major Stories
POLLING
Gallup: Support for Solar and Wind Slips, Nuclear Gains Ground
Gallup’s latest poll shows Americans still prefer more emphasis on solar and wind, but the shine is wearing off a bit. Nuclear is the only major source clearly gaining support. The standout findings:
66% want more emphasis on solar
55% want more emphasis on wind
46% want more emphasis on nuclear, the highest Gallup has recorded
42% want more emphasis on natural gas
34% want more emphasis on oil
23% want more emphasis on coal
A few more useful cuts:
Democratic support for more nuclear rose to 42%
Republican support for more nuclear sits at 52%
That makes nuclear the narrowest partisan gap of any major energy source in the survey
Even so, 53% of Americans still oppose building a nuclear plant in their area, versus 45% who favor it
GridTake - This is what practical politics looks like. People love fashionable energy positions until the bill arrives. Then they start rediscovering the virtues of density, firmness, and actual output. Nuclear support is rising for the simplest reason in the world: voters are slowly remembering that electricity is not a moral accessory. It is infrastructure.
TRANSMISSION
New England Wants FERC to Move Faster on $1.5 Billion in Refunds
New England governors and utility regulators are urging FERC to reject a request by Eversource and Avangrid to delay about $1.5 billion in transmission refunds while litigation continues over allowed returns on equity. Key facts:
The underlying complaint dates back to 2011
FERC cut New England transmission ROE to 9.57% from 10.57%
Eversource utilities owe about $880 million
Avangrid’s New England utilities owe about $203 million
FERC already extended the refund deadline to May 20, 2027
Utilities want it pushed further to December 17, 2027
The utilities argue faster repayment would damage credit metrics, raise borrowing costs, and make future infrastructure investment harder. Regulators and governors respond that customers have already been overcharged for years and should not have to wait even longer for relief.
GridTake
Transmission has become the one part of the energy system almost nobody wants to criticize because the need is so obvious. That makes discipline even more important. If utilities can invoke urgency to defend premium returns forever, “build more transmission” eventually turns into “write a blank check.” Ratepayers are starting to notice the distinction.
RENEWABLES IN COURT
Court Blocks Trump Administration Moves That Put 57 GW at Risk
A federal judge in Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction blocking five Trump administration actions that had sharply constrained wind and solar permitting on federal land and offshore. The core numbers:
57.2 GW of wind, solar, hybrid, and offshore wind capacity had been delayed, canceled, or put at serious risk
Roughly $905 million had already been invested in affected projects
The threatened value of federal tax credits tied to those projects ranged from $8.4 billion to $25.6 billion
The court found the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on claims that the administration’s actions were arbitrary and capricious. The blocked actions included:
Interior’s expanded review memo
Restrictions on pre-permitting consultation tools
A land-order framework biased toward “high capacity density” projects
An Army Corps memo with similar prioritization logic
The Zerzan opinion that had effectively frozen new offshore wind
GridTake
This case is less about renewables than about process integrity. If the administration wants less wind and solar, it can try to change the subsidy stack, the tax code, or the broader market structure. What it cannot do, at least not cleanly, is invent a shadow permitting regime to slow one category of project while pretending it is neutral. That kind of administrative improvisation usually ends the same way: in court, and with more uncertainty for everyone.
POLITICS
Wright Walks Back Gas Price Forecast After Trump Rebuke
Energy Secretary Chris Wright spent Wednesday trying to clean up comments he made over the weekend suggesting gasoline might not fall below $3 a gallon until 2027. After Trump publicly called that timeline “totally wrong,” Wright told senators he had never said prices would stay above $3 until next year and had simply “left some uncertainty” in his answer.
The episode is more political than grid-related, but it’s still revealing. Energy prices have become sensitive enough that even a modestly cautious forecast from the administration’s own energy secretary now requires immediate cleanup. Wright also told lawmakers he does not know the future path of energy prices, while emphasizing that current pump prices remain below Biden-era levels.
GridTake
This is what happens when energy prices stop being background noise and become political weather. The administration wants to promise abundance, but real markets do not move on command, especially in the middle of geopolitical stress. That tension is going to keep surfacing.
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Quick Signals
Solar is no longer “emerging” — Ember’s data now makes it the central growth engine of the global power system, not a sidecar to it.
Coal lost the symbolic lead — Renewables overtook coal globally in 2025, even if coal still matters enormously in Asia.
Batteries are becoming price setters — not just grid accessories, but real market-shaping infrastructure in high-solar systems.
The courts are policing fuel favoritism — agencies can lean, but they cannot simply rewrite permitting law on the fly to kneecap disfavored technologies.
Transmission’s political halo is fading — the buildout case is strong, but regulators are starting to push back on the idea that any return can be justified in the name of urgency.
Nuclear is climbing back into public respectability — just not yet into people’s zip codes.
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