By Samuel Buckstein

Nuclear power is experiencing a resurgence worldwide and Ontario is no exception. The province has a long history with this awesome and terrifying energy technology, and it is once again turning to nuclear power in response to concerns over national sovereignty, economic growth, electrification and decarbonization.

The persistent shortcomings of nuclear power

Finding pathways out of Ontario’s hydro and climate mess

Looking back over Ontario’s troubled history with nuclear energy, it is concerning to see the Ford government stumbling back to the bar for another round of nuclear cool-aid. Yet Ontario’s plan shows little evidence of having done its homework. Contrary to the government’s claims, it is fiscally irresponsible, incapable of delivering the energy the province needs in the time required, and compromises Ontario’s energy security.

When it should be investing in much cheaper and more easily deployed renewables, the province is recklessly doubling down on nuclear despite the evidence against it.

A legacy mired in debt

To understand Ontario’s nuclear trajectory, it is helpful to reflect on its origins. When civilian nuclear power was commercialized after the Second World War, its advocates promised it would be “too cheap to meter.” Buoyed by encouragement and financing from both provincial and federal governments, Ontario Hydro duly invested in a fleet of 20 CANDU reactors at three nuclear power stations over the course of 30 years.

By the turn of the millennium, Ontario Hydro’s nuclear obsession had saddled it with $38.1 billion in debt — $20.9 billion of it stranded (unsupported by assets). This burden was so immense that it toppled the once proud flagship Crown corporation. Ontarians continue to pay for this nuclear hangover today. As of March 2023, ratepayers were still on the hook for $13.8 billion.

Even as late as 1989, with Ontario Hydro already buckling under its crushing debt, the utility was forecasting the need for 10 to 15 new reactors by 2014. Reality proved otherwise, with peak electricity demand in 2014 lower than it had been 25 years earlier.

After a generation of staggering cost overruns and catastrophic international incidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear power fell out of favour in much of the developed world. Cheaper, more flexible and faster-to-deploy alternatives took its place, first gas and then renewables.

Today, China is the only country in the world that can bring three to four new reactors online every year while steadily improving cost efficiency and construction timelines. China is also installing nearly 100 times more renewable capacity annually, accounting for more than half the world’s newly added generation.

Lessons from the U.K. and Ukraine

However, Ontario should learn from the United Kingdom, not authoritarian China. The experience of Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear power plant to be built in the U.K. in more than 20 years, should be a cautionary tale.

At least five years behind schedule and two times over budget, Hinkley Point C will likely be the most expensive nuclear power plant yet. The electricity generated by this colossal waste of rate-payer dollars will cost between two to four times more than renewable energy, which can be brought online in half the time. This is what the provincial government has in store for Ontario.

The scale of Ontario’s plan is immense. In addition to the CANDU refurbishments at Darlington and Bruce, Ontario has announced the refurbishment of Pickering B, one of the oldest and most urban nuclear power stations in the world.

Canada needs to accelerate its transition to renewable energy

Focus on renewables, not nuclear, to fuel Canada’s electric needs

Sovereignty concerns

Ontario has also contracted with GE Vernova Hitachi to build up to four small modular reactors (SMRs) at the Darlington site. It is unclear why the government has committed to building four SMRs before even the first is constructed. The greater concern with this arrangement is GE Vernova Hitachi is a U.S.-controlled company and the fuel supply chain is in the U.S. and France, not Canada.

To understand how fragile such a dependency can become, consider the situation facing Ukraine and its Soviet-built RMBK reactors. After Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and Donbas in 2014, Ukraine found itself dependent on its aggressor to fuel the reactors. At the time, nuclear power generated approximately half of Ukraine’s pre-war electricity, similar to the proportion of Ontario’s reliance on nuclear energy. Ukrainians are now facing severe energy insecurity, with freezing temperatures and blackouts.

As if this were not concerning enough, Ontarians are subsidizing the first commercial demonstration of an unproven foreign nuclear technology while the government continues to naively claim Ontario will remain the industrial base from which the U.S.-controlled company will scale. Given the trade policies of the current U.S. government, not least of all its efforts to gut Ontario’s auto sector, it is hard not to see this belief as a fool’s hope.

No price tag and no certainty it will pay

Despite these red flags, Ontario’s nuclear ambitions do not stop there. The government is also considering building two new large nuclear power stations at the Bruce site and at a new location near Port Hope. This despite the fact that, like the U.K., the domestic nuclear supply chain has all but vanished. This is precisely the kind of multi-billion-dollar, multi-decade infrastructure lock-in that bankrupted Ontario Hydro.

The government has been silent on how much this plan will cost. No one can predict whether demand will materialize to justify this massive supply expansion, or what electricity prices will be when these reactors finally come online. Committing to decades of investment in such an uncertain environment is sheer folly.

To top it all off, nuclear power is not even operationally flexible. Generation cannot be adjusted rapidly enough to follow demand, and the reactors can only be quickly turned off, but not back on again (it took Ontario more than a day to restore power after the 2003 Great Northeastern Blackout due to neutron poisoning in the reactors).

Renewable options

It does not have to be this way. Much has changed since the last wave of nuclear infatuation. Renewables are now the cheapest source of energy on a levelized basis. While renewables may be intermittent, they are reasonably predictable, and for the first time since the inception of the electricity industry, generation no longer needs to coincide perfectly with consumption. Rapidly falling battery costs have made energy storage a commercially viable reality.

It is true that China currently dominates the supply chains for solar, wind and batteries, but once the equipment is installed it is virtually impervious to foreign interference. Unlike the supply of nuclear fuel, the sun shines everywhere.

Ontario and Canada should be collaborating with other democratic allies to reduce dependence on Chinese suppliers. In the meantime, the fact remains that unsubsidized renewables and batteries outperform nuclear and gas on cost and deployment time. Sadly, instead of embracing this more affordable and distributed future, the provincial government remains stuck in an inflexible and fiscally reckless past.

Nuclear power can provide energy security, but only if it is supported and fuelled by a domestic supply chain, like the original CANDUs. Its unmatched energy density makes sense where land is scarce, but that is hardly the case in Ontario. It may even be a defensible form of industrial policy if you believe in that kind of state interventionism. But above all else, nuclear power is neither nimble nor affordable (outside China) and it’s about time the Ontario government stopped posturing otherwise.

More Policy Options articles on nuclear power:

• Ontario’s nuclear option is the wrong path to meet green energy targets
• Canada’s newest nuclear industry dream is a potential nightmare

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The report, Path of Most Resistance, argues the province’s proposed pathway to net-zero electricity emissions by 2050 depends largely on natural gas plants equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS), hydrogen fuel and future nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors (SMRs).

Those technologies could eventually play a role in reducing emissions, the Calgary-based think tank says, but relying on them as the backbone of the power system represents a series of “risky bets.”

The analysis comes as Alberta negotiates with Ottawa over the future of electricity regulation under a Canada–Alberta memorandum of understanding signed last November.

Under the agreement, the federal government has indicated it could suspend its Clean Electricity Regulations in Alberta if the province can demonstrate that its own policies would achieve equivalent emissions reductions.

Pembina says that outcome should depend on whether Alberta presents a credible and detailed alternative plan.

Heavy reliance on uncertain technologies

The report argues Alberta’s current strategy places a large share of its emissions reductions on technologies that remain expensive, uncertain or years away from widespread deployment.

Carbon capture has been demonstrated at only a handful of power plants globally. Small modular reactors are still under development, with most projects not expected to come online until the 2030s or later.

Hydrogen, which Alberta officials have promoted as a potential fuel for power generation, also faces significant economic and technical hurdles, including high production costs and transportation challenges.

According to Pembina researchers, relying on these technologies to decarbonize Alberta’s grid could delay emissions reductions and increase costs if they fail to scale as expected.

Renewable growth slowed by policy changes

At the same time, the report says provincial policy decisions over the past two years have slowed the development of wind and solar power.

In 2023 the Alberta government imposed a seven-month moratorium on approvals for new renewable energy projects while regulators reviewed land-use rules and grid impacts. The government later introduced new regulations governing renewable development.

Since the moratorium began, nearly 11 gigawatts of wind, solar and energy storage projects have left the Alberta Electric System Operator’s development queue, according to Pembina analysis.

That amount of capacity exceeds Alberta’s average electricity demand.

The province had been a national leader in renewable energy development earlier in the decade, attracting the majority of new wind and solar investment in Canada.

But analysts say regulatory uncertainty and shifting market rules have made developers more cautious about building projects in Alberta.

Government emphasizes reliability

The Alberta government has defended its approach, arguing intermittent power sources such as wind and solar must be balanced with reliable generation to maintain grid stability and keep electricity affordable.

Provincial officials have pointed to natural gas, nuclear and emerging technologies as key components of a reliable, low-emissions electricity system.

However, the Pembina report suggests Alberta could reduce emissions more quickly and at lower risk by accelerating renewable deployment while expanding grid connections with neighbouring provinces.

Greater electricity trade with hydro-rich provinces such as British Columbia and Manitoba could help balance renewable generation by using hydroelectric reservoirs as a form of large-scale energy storage.

Industrial self-generation — including rooftop solar, geothermal and on-site wind generation — could also help reduce demand on the grid while cutting emissions from heavy industry.

Negotiations with Ottawa could shape future

The negotiations between Alberta and the federal government could determine how the province’s electricity sector evolves over the coming decades.

If Alberta can demonstrate a credible pathway to reduce emissions while maintaining reliability and affordability, Ottawa may allow the province to regulate its electricity sector independently through an equivalency agreement.

But if the province’s strategy relies too heavily on technologies that take decades to scale, Pembina warns Alberta could risk missing emissions targets while other jurisdictions move ahead with cleaner power systems.

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By Gavin Pitchford

I was absolutely gobsmacked earlier this week by just how pervasive certain myths are, and realizing how much work we in the clean economy have to do before Canadians will believe we can make the transition.

And before a critical mass of Canadians see the clean economy as a real option that can displace the fossil fuel industry as an engine for prosperity, employment, improved health, a better environment, and also, a little climate action.

At the invitation of greenwashing expert Dr. Wren Montgomery (Clean50 2026), I took the clean economy show down Highway 401 to London, Ontario and Western University, my alma mater. I was addressing two fourth year Honours Business Administration (HBA) classes at Ivey, arguably Canada’s top business school.

Before I began my description of Canada’s clean economy, I asked both classes a lead-off question: What percentage does Canada’s oil and gas business contribute to our GDP?

Their answers blew me (and Wren) away.

The students came back with a wide range of responses. The closest, from just one of the ~20 students who answered, suggested 35%. Most of the others? Between 50 and 65%. One said 40% and a couple came in at 70%, with one outlier suggesting 90%.

It was literally breathtaking.

Murmurs of ‘Wow’

These are very sharp students. Some of them have already spent summers working for banks and consulting firms. And from all the attention we pay to the fossil fuel industry, the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) the industry spreads, and the amount politicians talk about it, students assumed its importance to Canada was literally 10 times bigger than it actually is.

Also of note, it’s only ~20% of Alberta’s GDP. Of course, if Premier Danielle Smith stopped making it impossible to roll out new wind and solar projects, that number would decrease quite rapidly.

My lecture then tabulated the clean economy numbers—clean/climate tech, renewable energy, green building, green fuels, biotech, venture investment, responsible investing, sustainability consulting. Counting only the numbers I could get with any accuracy, with lots of holes still to fill, the total for the clean economy was actually higher.

And so I was blessed to actually watch world views changing –and in real time!

We talked about where the fossil fuel industry is headed over the next 10 years (flat to down) vs. the clean economy (300% growth over next 10 years, if we keep pace with the rest of the world).

We talked about the incredible impact and massive risk of abandoned oil wells and the oil sands ($260 billion in estimated cleanup costs, with less than $2 billion held in reserve to do the job). How Big Oil offloads liabilities for cleanup by selling almost-depleted wells for pennies on the dollar to smaller companies that strip as much oil as possible—then abandon the business, the cleanup, and the liability, leaving taxpayers on the hook for yet one last VERY big subsidy.

To put this in perspective, the cleanup bill will get bigger, as 50% of existing wells are expected to become non-profitable/non-productive by 2030. And yet the cleanup tab is already half –HALF—of our federal budget for one year.

Solutions That Are Saleable World-Wide

They were dumbfounded all this information was not already well understood by Canadians. That no one had ever shared it with them. One perceptively compared the fossil industry’s misinformation to that previously spread by the tobacco industry.

And they wanted this information spread widely!

We had a couple of dissenting voices in the crowd. “I don’t want government support going to the oil companies—but I don’t want it going to clean tech, either,” said one. Several nods from the free market bros around the room.

So we talked about why clean tech companies should get government support and why oil companies should not: Because clean tech is in a start-up phase, because it’s where the jobs are and where many more will come from, and mostly because intellectual property is highly portable. Other countries want ours, and our best are being pursued with significant government support, matching and top-ups for building facilities, easier access to capital—the list goes on. It means tomorrow’s Canadian business leaders can be lured south to the United States, to Europe, and even to China. taking the jobs with them. And so Canada needs to keep pace with investment, or lose them.

Nods from the free market types. They got it now…

After a lot of further conversation, the students expressed genuine frustration that no one had ever shared these facts with them before, then asked what they could do.

And then they committed to calling their MPs. And I’m holding them to it!

If you want to add your comments, there’s a shorter version of this story posted on LinkedIn.

Gavin Pitchford is founder and executive director of the Canada’s Clean50 sustainability leadership award program and CEO of Delta Management. This post originally appeared in the weekly Clean50 newsletter, and has been edited to match Energy Mix style.

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EIA’s analysis shows that about 22 per cent of light-duty vehicles sold in the United States in 2025 were electrified in some form — including hybrids, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) — up from 20 per cent in 2024. However, the growth trajectory was uneven: hybrid electric vehicles continued gaining market share, while battery electric and plug-in hybrid sales declined over the year.

The divergence reflects seismic changes in tax policy. Two major incentives — the New Clean Vehicle Credit and the Qualified Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit, each worth up to US $7,500 — expired on September 30, 2025 as part of broader tax changes enacted by Congress. The credits had long been a cornerstone of U.S. EV policy, lowering purchase costs for consumers and supporting demand.

Industry analysts widely anticipated a drop in EV sales once those incentives ended. A market expert quoted by Reuters in September said the impending tax credit expiration would likely cause a “short-term dip” in EV sales as buyers rushed to close deals before the deadline.

Indeed, EIA’s figures show that BEVs reached a record share of 12 per cent of U.S. light-duty vehicle sales in September 2025, just before the tax credits disappeared. Afterwards, BEV sales fell to less than 6 per cent in each of the remaining months of the year, marking the first annual decline in battery electric vehicle sales and share in the United States.

Policy shifts and market reactions

Industry reporting confirms a sharp hit to EV demand post-credit expiry. A Yahoo Finance analysis found that EV sales at U.S. dealerships plunged by as much as 74 per cent from peak weekly levels after the federal tax incentive ended, highlighting the role subsidies played in consumer buying decisions.

Automakers have felt the impact. According to The Wall Street Journal, Ford Motor Co. saw electric vehicle sales decline sharply in November 2025, with BEV units down 61 per cent year-over-year as demand softened following the credit’s expiration. At the same time, hybrid sales — which were not eligible for the tax credit — increased, reflecting shifting buyer behaviour.

General Motors has also reported financial strain, with roughly US $6 billion in charges tied to declining EV sales and the loss of policy incentives, according to Associated Press reporting. GM’s ambitious electrification plans have been disrupted by a combination of subsidy cuts and looser emissions standards.

Why hybrids are gaining ground

Unlike battery electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles do not plug into the grid and rely on internal combustion engines coupled with electric motors. They were never eligible for the 2025 federal tax credits, yet hybrids continued to gain share throughout the year, buoyed by fuel-efficiency advantages and growing consumer comfort with electrified drivetrains.

Analysts point to price and convenience as key drivers. With federal incentives gone and many EV sticker prices remaining high — the average new EV transaction price exceeded US $60,000 in 2025 — hybrids have become an attractive alternative for mainstream buyers not ready to pay a premium for all-electric range.

Broader industry context

The U.S. trend contrasts with global EV markets, where overall plug-in sales continued to grow in 2025. Benchmark data indicates that global EV sales rose roughly 20 per cent, led by strong growth in European and Chinese markets, even as U.S. EV sales lagged due to fading incentives and weaker policy support.

China in particular remains dominant: EVs accounted for a majority share of the country’s automotive market in 2025, matched with aggressive local incentives and production scale. Those conditions continue to drive China’s outsized footprint in global EV manufacturing and sales.

Future outlook

Looking ahead, industry watchers say the U.S. EV market may stabilize or rebound if states, automakers, or future federal policy introduce new incentives or regulatory support. However, the 2025 experience highlights how sensitive EV adoption remains to public policy and cost incentives — a lesson likely to shape debates on electrification strategy and climate goals in 2026 and beyond.

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By Milosz Karpinski, Energy Analyst
Eléonore Carré, Junior Energy Security Analyst

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Contracted energy costs for wind and solar projects in Canada have fallen to half of what they were 10 years ago, new analysis shows.

“Now, they’re the lowest-cost form of new electricity generation,” write Pembina Institute electricity program manager David Pickup and senior analyst Will Noel, citing Ontario and Alberta grid operators and global analysts. The authors say the trend is expected to continue, with projections that wind and solar costs will fall another 25% to 50% over the next decade.

The cost decline comes at a good time, as demand for new electricity generation rises with the increasing adoption of electric vehicles, heat pumps, and other new technologies.

Plunging price trends make new wind and solar projects more affordable, and they can also be brought online faster than fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, Pickup and Noel add. “Getting more affordable electricity generation onto the grid— fast—underpins the competitiveness of the economy.”

Competitive procurement processes at the provincial level helped the wind and solar sectors expand by creating market certainty. The provinces that ran these procurements are now on track to bring online thousands of megawatts of renewable energy in the coming years. Quebec, for instance, has announced plans to develop 10,000 megawatts of wind and 3,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2035, and Manitoba is set to request proposals this March to procure 600 megawatts of wind. In Ontario, a technology-agnostic competitive bid process for up to 7,500 megawatts of new energy and capacity is under way, open to wind and solar developers, energy storage projects, and gas plants.

The Pembina analysts say provincial and territorial governments aiming to take advantage of low-cost electricity from wind and solar will need to plan their systems around a modernized grid.

“This means harnessing the latest technology—including interprovincial interties, demand-side measures, and long-duration energy

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By Tik Root

The logic behind electric vehicles benefiting public health has long been solid: More EVs means fewer internal combustion engines on the road, and a reduction in harmful tailpipe emissions. But now researchers have confirmed, to the greatest extent yet, that this is indeed what’s actually happening on the ground. What’s more, they found that even relatively small upticks in EV adoption can have a measurably positive impact on a community.

Whereas previous work has largely been based on modeling, a study published this month in the journal Lancet Planetary Health used satellites to measure actual emissions. The study, conducted between 2019 and 2023, focused on California, which has among the highest rates of EV use in the country, and nitrogen dioxide, one of the gases released during combustion, including when fossil fuels are burned. Exposure to the pollutant can contribute to heart and lung issues, or even premature death. Across nearly 1,700 ZIP codes, the analysis showed that, for every increase of 200 electric vehicles, nitrogen dioxide emissions decreased by 1.1 percent.

“A pretty small addition of cars at the ZIP code level led to a decline in air pollution,” said Sandrah Eckel, a public health professor at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine and lead author of the study. “It’s remarkable.”

The group had tried to establish this link using Environmental Protection Agency air monitors before, but because there are only about 100 of them in California, the results weren’t statistically significant. The data also were from 2013 through 2019, when there were fewer electric vehicles on the road. Although the satellite instrument they ultimately used only detected nitrogen dioxide, it did allow researchers to gather data for virtually the entire state, and this time the findings were clear.

“It’s making a real difference in our neighbourhoods,” said Eckel, who said a methodology like theirs could be used anywhere in the world. The advent of such powerful satellites allows scientists to look at other sources of emissions, such as factories or homes, too. “It’s a revolutionary approach.”

Mary Johnson, who researches environmental health at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and was not involved in the study, said she’s not aware of a similar study of this size, or one that uses satellite data so extensively. “Their analysis seems sound,” she said, noting that the authors controlled for variables such as the COVID-19 pandemic and shifts toward working from home.

The results, Johnson added, “totally make sense” and align with other research in this area. When London implemented congestion pricing in 2003, for example, it reduced traffic and emissions and increased life expectancy. That is the direction this latest research could go too. “They didn’t take the next step and look at health data,” she said, “which I think would be interesting.”

Daniel Horton, who leads Northwestern University’s climate change research group, also sees value in this latest work. “The results help to confirm the sort of predictions that numerical air quality modellers have been making for the past decade,” he said, adding that it could also lay the foundation for similar research. “This proof of concept paper is a great start and augurs good things to come.”

Eckel hopes that, eventually, advances in satellite technology will allow for more widespread detection of other types of emissions too, such as fine particulate matter. That could even help account for some of the potential downsides of EVs, which are heavier and could therefore kick up more tire or brake dust than their gasoline counterparts. On the whole, though, she believes the picture overwhelmingly illustrates how driving an electric car is better not just for the planet but for people.

Research like this, she says, underscores the importance of continued EV adoption, the sales of which have slumped recently, and the need to do so equitably. Although lower-income neighbourhoods have historically borne the brunt of pollution from highways and traffic, they can’t always afford the relatively high cost of EVs. Eckel hopes that research like this can help guide policymakers.

“There are concerns that some of the communities that really stand to benefit the most from reductions in air pollution are also some of the communities that are really at risk of being left behind in the transition,” she said. Previous research has shown that EVs could alleviate harms such as asthma in children, and detailed data like this latest study can help highlight both where more work needs to be done and what’s working.

“It’s really exciting that we were able to show that there were these measurable improvements in the air that we’re all breathing,” she said. Another arguably hopeful finding was that the median increase in electric vehicle usage during the study was 272 per ZIP code.

That, Eckel says, means there is plenty of opportunity to make our air even cleaner.

Correction: This story originally misidentified the pollutant studied. It is nitrogen dioxide.

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By Benjamin Wehrmann

The North Sea’s neighbouring states have launched a joint initiative to massively scale up offshore wind power production and international grid connections. By turning Europe’s famously windy northern maritime zone into a renewable energy reservoir, the countries aim to lower industry costs and provide the region with a reliable clean electricity source to help Europe reduce its dependence on fossil fuel imports. At the third North Sea Summit held in the northern German city of Hamburg, government representatives of Germany, France, the UK, Luxembourg, Iceland, Norway, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark, agreed to mobilise up to one trillion euros between 2031 and 2040.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz said all signatory states, which included EU members and non-EU states, shared the goal of achieving a secure and affordable energy supply. “For this, we need more cooperation,” Merz said, citing cross-border planning of offshore wind projects, hydrogen production, and grids as areas where this would be implemented. “I see great potential for better cost efficiency,” the chancellor said. He added that the protection against physical and cyberattacks on energy infrastructure in the region played an important role at the talks, which in addition to the EU Commission also featured representatives of the military alliance NATO. 

The plan aims to add 15 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity each year, reaching up to 300 GW in tens of thousands of installed turbines by 2050. Moreover, it provides for a fast increase of interconnectors that allow several countries to benefit from the electricity produced in the same wind farm and to develop the production of green hydrogen at sea.

“The world’s largest energy hub”

As of early 2026, a combined offshore wind capacity of 37 GW was installed across Europe. A recent analysis by the Boston Consulting Group found that North Sea countries would need to increase their expansion rate sevenfold in order to meet targets agreed at the 2023 summit, which aim for a capacity of 120 GW by 2030. Industry representatives have said that expansion has slowed in recent years due to rising investment costs and auction designs that create too much uncertainty for potential bidders.

“Our aim is to build the world’s largest energy hub,” said Germany’s energy minister Katherina Reiche. She said that Europe now can seize a major opportunity to attract capital, as investors are looking for stable conditions amid rising geopolitical uncertainties. “Every offshore wind project that connects Europe is making us more resilient,” Reiche said. She stressed that the multilateral agreement would provide Europe’s offshore wind industry with much-needed planning security to invest in production infrastructure, port capacity and specialised vessels.

The first North Sea Summit was held in 2022, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as a forum for developing joint strategies to make their energy infrastructure more resilient. Four years later, threats to Europe’s security remain acute as the war on Ukraine continues. At the same time, recent statements about the possible seizure of Greenland, an autonomous territory belonging to the Kingdom of Denmark, severely undermined confidence across Europe in the US under president Donald Trump as an ally. European governments have responded by intensifying collaboration in strategic fields, including energy.

“Europe stands together in stormy weather,” said German minister Reiche, adding that “we have to prepare” for possible external shocks. The European Union’s energy commissioner, Dan Jørgensen, said that “homegrown clean energy” was the only way to become more independent and cut the hundreds of billions of euros that EU states spend on fossil fuel imports each year.

Renewable energy clearest path to energy security in Europe – governments

With a view to ongoing security challenges, Danish commissioner Jørgensen said that “the Greenland question is on everyone’s mind” at the summit. An analysis warning that Europe’s move away from Russian energy over the past years is accompanied by a fast-rising dependence on US supplies of LNG released in the week before the summit only underlined the need for action. However, Jørgensen stressed that neither Denmark nor the EU were against trading with the US. “We do need LNG from America as it is now,” Jørgensen said. However, “in the long-run we want to become free of gas.” After phasing-out Russian energy, Europe should avoid replacing one dependence with another, he added.

UK energy secretary Ed Miliband said it was “absolutely in our interest” to cooperate with other European states on offshore wind. Renewable power would offer the clearest path to energy security and help the UK and the rest of Europe to “get off the roller-coaster of fossil fuels,” the energy secretary added.

Cooperation to cut costs

Miliband pointed at the country’s latest round of offshore wind auctions, in which 8.4 GW of capacity was awarded, marking Europe’s most successful tender to date. The auction “sent a message across Europe that offshore wind is the backbone of the future energy system,” Miliband argued. The auction relied on Contracts for Difference (CfDs), which guarantee operators a minimum price for their output while capping revenues when market prices are high. Under the North Sea investment pact, CfDs will become the standard remuneration model for offshore wind auctions, a step that Germany’s offshore wind industry has long called for.

According to industry group Wind Europe, the joint approach agreed in the investment pact should lead to cost reductions of up to 30 percent and create more than 90,000 additional jobs. A separate analysis conducted by research institute Fraunhofer IWES found that connecting wind farms internationally could significantly reduce costs. Spreading turbines over larger areas would reduce wake effects and increase average turbine output, the researchers said.

“We need more cross-border cooperation and optimisation to improve cost efficiency,” said Kerstin Andreae, head of the German Federation of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW). Simply increasing capacity would no longer be sufficient, she said, arguing that new turbines must be planned in a way that optimises both costs and output. “A key lever for this is less dense construction and using suitable areas in other countries’ waters that pay towards Germany’s national expansion target.”

Spreading turbines more evenly across the North Sea would also help reduce environmental impacts of offshore wind energy production, said Sascha Müller-Kraenner, head of Environmental Action Germany (DUH). “We absolutely support the newly announced cross-border cooperation projects, as the German government’s ambitious expansion targets do not all fit into the exclusive economic zone alone,” Müller-Kraenner argued. However, all member states had to ensure that the industry’s expansion respects ecologic limits and coordinate planning to minimise adverse effects on ecosystems. 

Germany’s offshore wind industry worried about ongoing uncertainties 

The mood in Germany’s offshore wind industry and elsewhere in Europe has shifted markedly in recent years. While bidders in offshore auctions in 2023 were ready to pay billions of euros to implement new projects, a subsequent auction round in 2025 failed to attract a single bid. “The high bids that we saw in the past in a way concealed the true situation that the industry finds itself in,” Hans Sohn, head of communications at offshore wind industry association BWO, told Clean Energy Wire.

The meagre expansion of less than 1 GW annually since 2020 was caused by a spike in investment and capital costs, for which CfDs would provide a possible remedy. “And then there’s uncertainty about the availability of skilled workers, special construction vessels, storage and processing capacities at sea ports and so on,” Sohn added. Industry representatives therefore called to delay a planned auction in February until the end of the year to reform the auction design, but Germany’s government has signalled it intends to keep the schedule.

Another major uncertainty for the industry is the expected power price in the next two decades, Sohn added. “Demand and price depend on the pace and scope of electrification, meaning the roll-out of electric cars, heat pumps and so on – but it also depends on the level of industrial production we will have in Germany in the future.”

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Toronto-based energy storage developer Hydrostor has secured permission to build a 500-megawatt compressed-air energy storage system in the Mojave Desert and is now seeking customers to contract the project’s full capacity.

Final permitting approval from the California Energy Commission (CEC) positions its Willow Rock project to be “shovel-ready in 2026,” Hydrostor said in a mid-December release.

The grid-connected advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) is designed to store and deliver enough electricity to power more than 400,000 average California homes for more than eight hours.

Willow Rock is also projected to deliver US$500 million in direct and indirect economic benefits regionally, “supporting thousands of jobs over the course of construction, with 700 workers onsite at peak construction,” Emily Smith, Hydrostor’s director of external affairs, told The Energy Mix. Once it goes into operation, the facility is expected to support 25 to 40 full-time jobs.

Unlike lithium-ion battery storage systems, Willow Rock will require neither critical minerals nor hazardous materials, Hydrostor says. The storage process begins at the point of its grid connection, where excess renewable energy, like that generated at mid-day by solar plants, spins compressors that produce heated compressed air.

The heat is captured and stored in tanks, while the cool compressed air is pushed 600 metres below ground into a water-filled cavern. As the air enters the cavern, the water is pushed up into a surface reservoir. The A-CAES system becomes a fully-charged battery when the cavern is full of air.

When power is needed, like during periods of peak power demand or when solar or wind production drops, the process reverses, using gravity to draw the stored water back down into the cavern, displacing the air and forcing it back up to the surface. The air is reheated using the heat stored in the tanks, then used to spin turbines to generate electricity.

Hydrostor has secured a retail supply agreement with the local water agency for a one-time water draw of 800 acre-feet, or around 987,000 cubic metres, Smith told The Mix. It’s a considerable volume of water—more than twice what’s used annually by a U.S. National Security Agency data centre in Utah, for example. But the draw will occur only once.

Willow Rock is in fact expected to be a net water producer, with the water generated as a byproduct of the compression process collected for reuse in the reservoir, Smith said.

The CEC approval comes almost three years after Hydrostor signed a 25-year contract with Monterey’s Central Coast Community Energy to reserve 200 megawatts of Willow Rock’s capacity for the non-profit utility.

With an additional 50 to 100 megawatts being negotiated, that “leaves 200 to 250 megawatts up for grabs,” reports Canary Media. The uncontracted capacity remains an obstacle to securing the US$1.5 billion in financing needed to begin construction, but Hydrostor has declared itself encouraged by the California Public Utilities Commission’s September recommendation that the state secure 10 gigawatts of long-duration storage by 2031.

“They’ve identified the need for very near-term procurement, so we’re looking forward to participating in that,” company president Jon Norman told Canary Media.

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By Daan Walter, Kingsmill Bond, and Sam Butler-Sloss

2025 was a year of new electric thinking. We saw many energy analysts and writers argue that there is more to the energy transition than just a shift from dirty to clean energy. It came in the form of McCormick and D’Amico’s The Electric Slide, to the IEA’s declaration of an Age of Electricity, to growing discussion of electro-industrialism, the rise of a New Joule Order, and the widespread use of the term electrostates, a term we introduced two years ago that gained broad uptake last year.

We laid out the facts in our September report, The Electrotech Revolution, which we also presented at DERVOS last fall. As we enter 2026, we compiled ten key insights from our work that we think are particularly important this year.

1. This is a technology revolution

The energy system is not just decarbonizing, it is entering a new technological age. A new generation of technologies is coming together: on the supply side technologies like solar and wind, demand technologies like EVs and heat pumps, and connection technologies like batteries, grids and software.

Each of these technologies is falling in price and rising exponentially in deployment. Individually, each is disruptive. But together, they form something more powerful. As supply finds demand and connections enable both, they reinforce each other on the way up. This is why we speak of not just a transition but a technology revolution.

This matters for 2026. Even as decarbonization slips down political agendas, the self-reinforcing nature of this technological transition does not stop. The revolution has its own momentum.

2. It brings energy abundance

Human history has seen only a handful of leaps in how much energy is at our disposal. Foragers relied on muscle and fire. Farmers unlocked the energy stored in crops and livestock, multiplying available energy by a hundred. Fossil fuels gave us another fifty-fold increase by tapping ancient sunlight buried underground.

Electrotech promises a similar leap. The sun delivers more energy to Earth every five days than all our fossil fuel reserves combined. As we move to tap into this solar resource, our energy system not only becomes more abundant, but also more immediate; moving from burning old sunshine to capturing it in real time. This is a shift from foraging fossil fuels to harvesting the sun.

As we are sure to see a year full of energy abundance debates in 2026, it is worth noting which path actually delivers on that promise.

3. It has been a long time coming

The rise of electrotech is not a recent trend. It has been coming for over a century. Electrification began in the 1880s, when electric lights and motors started replacing flame and steam. From there, electricity demand grew at 5-7% annually after 1900, as lights, industrial machinery, and household appliances spread across the developed world.

The mid-20th century brought televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines into homes. Then came the information age—semiconductors powering mainframes, then personal computers, then smartphones. The clean lab manufacturing techniques developed for chips eventually made mass production of solar panels and battery cells possible.

Now a century of evolution is turning the 2020s into a decade of revolution. This trend has been running longer than any administration or political setback. It comes with a century of momentum.

4. It inherits the momentum of the IT revolution

In many ways, electrotech is a child of the IT revolution. The precision processes that mass-produce chips and smartphones now build battery cells and solar panels. The same factories, often with the same workers trained by firms like Apple, now power electrotech’s rise. As McCormick and D’Amico argue in The Electric Slide, the tech stack underpinning electrotech is essentially the same as for digital technology. There is more in common between a laptop and a solar panel than between a solar panel and a gas power plant.

This explains why electrotech scales so fast: it inherits decades of manufacturing know-how and cost curves from IT.

It also reveals a strategic paradox visible in 2026. IT hardware and electrotech are the same industrial family. They share supply chains, manufacturing capabilities, network effects, and require the same abundant electricity. Building one without the other is incoherent. The current Trump administration push for AI datacenters and manufacturing automation while throttling EVs and solar exemplifies this disconnect. So does the EU’s embrace of electrotech even as it inhibits the AI rollout with complex regulation. Today’s new information technologies and electro technologies feed off each other. Those that starve one will weaken both.

5. The ceiling of the possible is far above our heads

We are nowhere close to the technical limits of electrotech. We already know how to run grids with 70-80% renewables at costs comparable to fossil fuels. We can electrify around three-quarters of final energy demand with technologies that exist today or are nearly commercial. Renewables and electrification could more than triple from current levels before reaching what we know is achievable.

And the ceiling keeps rising. As frontrunner regions push grids toward 90% renewables and innovators bring electrotech into aviation, shipping, and heavy industry, the technical frontier expands. By the time most catch up to today’s ceiling, the pioneers will have raised it once more.

In 2026, expect more narratives about slowing deployment in leading markets. But most of the world is still catching up. This catch-up dynamic alone sustains momentum for years to come.

6. The physics of change

Fossil systems are inherently wasteful, losing about two-thirds of their primary energy to heat and friction. Electrotech is built on efficient electricity: EV drivetrains convert around 80-90% of input into motion, while heat pumps deliver three to five times more heat than the electricity they consume. Wind and solar avoid thermal losses altogether. Physics itself tilts the system toward electrons.

This efficiency advantage extends to materials. Electrotech uses eternal sunshine and wind rather than one-time use fossil fuels; therefore it needs roughly 50 times fewer raw materials than fossil equivalents. This gap widens as innovation continues to improve efficiency and reduce material requirements. We should expect 2026 to be another year of such innovations and commercializations—sodium batteries being one example to watch this year.

7. The economics of change

Electrotech and fossil fuels follow opposite economic trajectories. As demand for electrotech rises, new, more efficient factories lower production costs through learning and economies of scale. Solar, wind, and batteries sit on learning curves with costs falling about 20% per doubling. Solar module costs have dropped 99% since 1980, wind by 80%, batteries by 99%.

Fossil fuels work differently. As demand rises, new, more expensive fields must be developed, driving prices up. After decades of these opposing trajectories, we have recently hit cost parity for key electrotech—solar, battery storage, and EVs. Today that means solar-plus-storage in India at $40/MWh and Chinese EVs below $10,000.

This matters acutely for 2026. Affordability is the dominant concern across politics and policy. Five years ago, affordability pressures would have pointed toward fossils. Today, they point toward electrotech. The crossover has happened. The cheaper path is now the electric path.

8. The geopolitics of change

Three-quarters of the world relies on fossil fuel imports. Get cut off, and your economy grinds to a halt. Countries have fought wars over energy access and structured foreign policy around securing supply.

Those risks are rising. Trade tensions are escalating. Geopolitical fractures are deepening. In this environment, every country is looking for alternatives.

At some point, they will look up. The sun delivers energy everywhere. 92% of countries have the potential to generate at least ten times their own energy demand from domestic renewables. With electrotech, every country can become energy independent.

If 2026 is indeed going to be a year of rising geopolitical tensions as many expect, we should expect countries to accelerate electrotech deployment as a strategic priority. Those that sow electrotech will reap sovereignty.

9. Electrotech is a tool for rapid development

For decades, development meant following the fossil path. Rich countries burned coal and oil to industrialize, and emerging economies assumed they would need to do the same. Electrotech allows them to skip that step entirely.

The fastest change is now happening in emerging markets. ASEAN leapfrogged the US in electrification in 2023. Solar deployment has surged across Asia, Latin America, and Africa. In many countries, solar has gone from the smallest to the largest source of new capacity in less than a decade.

The pattern makes sense. Some 80% of the world’s population lives in the sunbelt, where solar resources are abundant and cheap. For countries building energy systems from scratch or expanding rapidly, solar plus storage offers a faster, cheaper path than fossil infrastructure. Development no longer requires a fossil-first pathway. Electrotech is becoming the foundation for growth.

We should expect more emerging market leapfrogs in 2026 as well as a pullback from fossil fuels. As solar and storage costs continue to fall, emerging economies will increasingly look to exit expensive LNG contracts in favor of domestic renewables.

10. Electrification is the geopolitical differentiator today

The world is rapidly building new electricity supply. Solar and wind capacity is being deployed at record pace. But supply alone does not determine competitive advantage. Today, the differentiator is electrification; putting that new supply to work by electrifying transport, heating, and industry.

China has grasped this. It is scaling both supply and demand simultaneously: solar farms and EVs, wind turbines and industrial electrification. This approach, which we call the electrostate model, uses domestic markets to drive down electrotech costs and improve quality, then capture export markets with superior products.

The West is deploying substantial new supply. But electrification of demand has lagged. Solar and wind without EVs, heat pumps, and industrial electrification is an incomplete strategy. As we move through 2026, the question is whether Western economies will match China’s integrated approach, or continue building only half the system.

Entering the second half of the decisive decade

For the first time, humanity can harness the power of the sun directly, at scale, and in real time. After a century of evolution, electrotech is breaking through in a decade of revolution.

The 2020s are this decisive decade. This is the decade when manufacturing reaches global scale, when uptake s-curves enter their steep ascent, and when costs cross over from more expensive to cheaper than incumbents. We have just passed cost parity for solar, batteries, and EVs. From here, the economic logic only strengthens—as do the physics and geopolitics drivers of change.

Countries and companies that recognize this shift will shape the next era of global competition. Those who resist will find themselves left behind. The revolution has its own momentum. 2026 is another year deeper into it.

For more, watch the conversation from DERVOS on Energy Dominance and the Electrostate featuring Daan Walter.

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