Welcome to Grid Brief! Here’s what we’re looking at today: What caused the fire at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, how AI is reshaping power market structures, and a global battery surplus.

Zaporizhzhia on Fire

On Sunday smoke was seen from one of the cooling towers of Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine following “multiple explosions,” according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The origins of the fire are still unknown with Russia blaming the incident on an unconfirmed Ukrainian drone strike. Kyiv, meanwhile has said that Russia intentionally started the fire to “blackmail” Ukraine. The fire has produced no increases in radiation according to the IAEA.

Zaporizhzhia is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and among the ten largest in the world. The plant is comprised of six 950-megawatt VVER-1000 (Soviet-made) pressurized light water reactors for a total output of 5,700 MW.

The plant has been under Russian occupation since 2022 and has not produced power in more than two years and its six reactors have been in cold shutdown since April.

How the AI Boom Could Reshape Power Markets

Electricity rates around the country are going up as utilities develop strategies to upgrade infrastructure and more data centers come online to accommodate the rise in AI. With these investments and the closure of baseload power production, consumers can expect to see a higher utility bill in the coming year.

These high costs could have serious implications for the power industry at large. While higher revenues may incentivize utilities to build more capacity, some states do not allow utilities to own power plants. Jinjoo Lee of The Wall Street Journal reports that this may change:

Meanwhile, states that were once bullish on data centers are pulling back. Georgia passed a bill to halt the state’s lucrative incentives for data centers for two years. The bill was vetoed by the governor. Virginia, meanwhile, is conducting a study to examine how its own data center subsidies are affecting the reliability of the grid.

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Conversation Starters

• China is making more batteries than the world needs (Bloomberg)

  China may produce as much as 4.3 terawatt-hours of battery capacity this year, far more than the 1.2 TWh of demand that the world needs, according to BNEF.

• Australia’s nuclear power ban sparks controversy (Financial Times)

  Peter Dutton, the leader of the center-right Liberal Party is advocating that Australia lift its decades-long ban on nuclear power as coal plants in the country begin to close. Anthony Albanese of the Labor Party has pushed back on this idea and has instead focused on a renewables-only approach.

• Shards of offshore wind turbine turn up in Nantucket (The Wall Street Journal)

  Vineyard Wind remains at a standstill following an accident that dropped a massive turbine blade into the ocean last month and washed chunks of debris onto Nantucket beaches.

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