Where the math is defensible.
Long-form research on live enterprise decisions. Publication is selective. Every number traces to a named source. No takes without evidence.
The 2026 Grid Capex Supercycle: Wires, Transformers, and the Cost of Connection
US transmission and distribution capex has tripled in a decade, EU TYNDP commits EUR 600 billion through 2034, and the binding constraint has moved from generation siting to transformers, conductor steel, and an interconnection queue measured in years.
Investor-owned utilities in the United States will spend more than USD 170 billion on transmission and distribution in 2026, up from a roughly USD 50 billion average across the early 2010s, according to the EEI Annual Capex Survey tracker. The drivers are a measurable step change in data center load, slow but real industrial reshoring, we...
Long duration storage 2026: the four day battery becomes bankable
The LDES Council target of 4 day median duration, the IRA Section 48E investment tax credit at 30 to 50 percent, and Form Energy's first commercial iron air block in Lincoln Maine pulled long duration storage from a thesis into a procurement category.
Long duration energy storage (LDES) became a bankable asset class between 2024 and 2026. The LDES Council 2024 update set a 4 day median discharge target for the technologies that would matter, defined as 10 to 24 hour systems for daily firming and 100 hour systems for multi day reliability. Form Energy energized its first commercial iron...
Spain's renewables surplus and the Iberian export problem in 2026
Spain has crossed 64 GW of installed solar plus wind capacity and routinely produces more clean electricity than Iberia can absorb, but the binding constraint is no longer kit, it is wires, market design, and the 2.8 GW pipe to France.
Spain ended 2024 with roughly 32 GW of installed solar PV and 32 GW of wind on the peninsular system, according to Red Electrica de Espana (REE) operating data, and tracked toward the PNIEC 2023 update targets of 76 GW solar and 62 GW wind by 2030. The buildout is now generating an Iberian surplus that the market cannot fully clear. OMIE ...
Texas, ERCOT, and the AI Siting Reset
Senate Bill 6, the ERCOT large-load study, and a 30 to 40 GW interconnection queue are forcing hyperscalers to rethink West Texas, behind-the-meter gas, and the price of speed.
Texas became the default home for marginal United States AI compute through 2024 and 2025 because ERCOT offered the only grid in North America that could absorb gigawatt-scale loads on a multi-year horizon rather than a multi-decade one. That window is closing on its own terms. The ERCOT December 2025 long-term load forecast now carries r...
The grid wakes up: AI demand, FERC 1920, and the PJM, MISO interconnection cliff
After two decades of flat US electricity demand, AI driven data center load is forcing a transmission and capacity build that the queue, the auctions, and the courts were not designed to deliver. The 2026 to 2030 window is where the gap closes or the bills break.
US electricity demand is growing again. The Energy Information Administration's Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO) for 2025 projects retail sales growth of roughly 2 percent year on year, against a 2014 to 2023 average closer to 0.4 percent. The PJM 2025 to 2026 capacity auction cleared at 14.7 billion dollars, up from 2.2 billion the year ...
AI capex met the grid: when the megawatt curve breaks
Hyperscaler capital spending crossed 500 billion dollars across 2025 and 2026 while the average US interconnection wait sits above 4 years. The constraint is no longer chips. It is megawatts on a calendar.
AI infrastructure capex has cleared 500 billion dollars across 2025 and 2026 between the four hyperscalers, NVIDIA, Oracle, and the new wave of neoclouds. The chips are arriving. The grid is not. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab puts the active US interconnection queue above 2,600 gigawatts, with median wait times above 4 years and rising. ...