Energy & Climate

Treasurer Jim Chalmers's 2026-27 budget pivots clean-energy policy from industrial subsidies toward consumer-side regulation, funding a new Clean Energy Regulator body for distributed solar, batteries, and EVs while cutting Hydrogen Headstart, Solar Sunshot, and Battery Breakthrough.

Ford on May 11 announced Ford Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary backed by roughly $2 billion that will build a 20-foot containerized BESS at a repurposed Kentucky plant, with first customer deliveries in late 2027.

A team at the Institute of Metal Research engineered a new iron-complex electrolyte that ran 6,000 cycles at 80 mA per square centimeter with no capacity decay and a 99.4 percent average coulombic efficiency, opening a possible low-cost route to long-duration grid storage.

California batteries discharged 12,000+ MW in late March 2026, equal to 12 nuclear plants and over 40% of state demand, as installed capacity climbs past 16 GW.

Volkswagen launched its ID. Polo entry-level EV on April 29 with pre-orders for the 155 kW Life trim starting at 33,795 euros, while a 25,000 euro base version is set to follow later this year.

Ontario Power Generation has placed the foundation module for the first BWRX-300 small modular reactor at Darlington, clearing the construction licence's first hold point and beginning above-ground reactor work on what is on track to be the G7's first commercial SMR.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems has filed a generation interconnection request with PJM for its 400 MW Fall Line plant in Virginia, the first time a fusion developer has formally entered a major US grid queue.

The three-year agreement, equal to half of CATL's 2025 storage shipments, signals that sodium-ion has cleared its mass-production hurdles and is moving from pilot projects to grid-scale deployment.

Rolls-Royce SMR and Czech utility ČEZ signed an early works contract on April 24 to begin design, licensing and site work for the country's first small modular reactor at Temelín, targeting up to 3 GW of capacity and grid connection in the late 2030s.

Fervo Energy, the Houston enhanced geothermal developer behind Utah's Cape Station, filed an S-1 with the SEC on April 17 to list on the Nasdaq as FRVO, with banks led by J.P. Morgan and a private valuation around $3 billion.

China Huaneng Group fully energized the 504 MW Shandong Peninsula North L offshore wind farm on April 7, 2026, installing 42 twelve-megawatt turbines on jacket foundations in 52 to 56 meters of water — the deepest fixed-bottom offshore wind project ever built in China.

A Nature Energy paper from Nanchang University achieves 26.61% certified efficiency with cesium doping, while a private Chinese cell surpasses all single-junction silicon cells at 27.98%.