Current conditions: It’s pouring in Boston today, with temperatures that could feel as low as 47 degrees Fahrenheit • Severe flooding in Turkey’s Samsun province has sent a dozen people to the hospital • Bear season in Yellowstone has started earlier than usual, raising the risk of more violent encounters between hikers and grizzlies.
THE TOP FIVE
1. Trump kicks off summit with Xi Jinping in China
President Donald Trump formally began talks with Chinese president Xi Jinping today as the leaders of the world’s two largest economies seek some kind of rapprochement after more than a year of escalating battles over trade. The discussions are expected to cover a range of topics, including Taiwan’s sovereignty and the market dominance over critical minerals that Foreign Policy called Beijing’s “most potent” tool in the trade negotiations. Indeed, China’s control over critical minerals means Xi “will have the upperhand,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations, which noted that Trump folded last year in his trade battle with Xi once Beijing threatened to restrict flows of rare earths.
While Trump may have hoped that the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz would put Beijing in a more desperate position by the time the summit started, China’s oil market has shown “signs of resilience” that “should concern U.S. officials” as efforts to prop up the domestic supply provide more buoyancy than expected, Semafor reported.
2. Fervo made a gangbusters stock market debut
Fervo Energy, until now the hottest startup in the next-generation geothermal industry, is now the hottest stock on the market. On Wednesday, the Houston-based company’s stock began trading on the Nasdaq, where share prices surged nearly 40% by market close. “Geothermal is so hot right now,” Sarah Jewett, Fervo’s senior vice president of strategy, told me in a Q&A for Heatmap. “The IPO is not a finish line for Fervo. It is a financing milestone that facilitates the build out of more clean, firm, reliable, affordable energy. That is what we are most excited about as we ring the bell in Nasdaq. As we celebrate, we are more excited than anything to get back to work, to put clean megawatts in the grid.”
The company, she said, expects to start making overseas development deals soon, and indicated that Fervo may build its first geothermal plants on the East Coast, where hot rocks have historically been too deep to tap into, within a decade.
3. NYC’s biggest electricity project comes online early, shoring up the grid ahead of summer heatwaves
Nearly 16 years after it was first proposed, New York City’s biggest new source of clean energy has come online, meaning its 1,250 megawatts of capacity will be available to shore up the grid as summer heat waves roast the nation’s largest metropolis. Until recently, New York State regulators had planned for the Champlain Hudson Power Express to enter into service in August. But last weekend, the 339-mile project stretching from Lake Champlain down the Hudson River to the electrical substations in northwestern Queens managed to complete testing just before the state’s hard deadline of May 10 at 5 p.m. ET, after which the developer would have to wait two months before finishing the bureaucratic process to start the clock on the contract between the state and Hydro Quebec, the French-speaking Canadian province’s state-owned utility. That means if prices soar high enough between now and the end of May, Hydro Quebec could choose to bid into the market. But the real milestone is that, starting June 1, the utility’s contract will take effect.
“We didn’t think it was possible. The state didn’t think it was possible. We were counting on capacity coming online in August, but that’s way too late,” Peter Rose, the senior director of stakeholder relations for Hydro Quebec, told me on a call last night. “We have heat waves in July. It’ll be good for New York City to count on that 1,250 megawatts of capacity going into July.” Since the Blackstone-backed project’s inception, its proponents have suggested hydropower from Quebec would ultimately supply 20% of New York City’s power needs. But two weeks ago, when Hydro Quebec ran 13 hours of trial runs to stress test its equipment, the line provided more than 33% of the city’s power for a part of that duration. That, Rose cautioned, was probably due to relatively low load. Still, he said, “Unbeknownst to everybody during the testing regime, a third of our consumption in New York City was coming from this project. Those were specific conditions. But still pretty remarkable.”
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4. Solar is overtaking coal in Texas
Solar is now the third-largest electricity source in Texas.EIA
Texas, newly-crowned the nation’s No. 1 solar market, has installed enough panels that the state is now generating more electricity from photovoltaics than coal for the first time. Solar generation is expected to reach 78 billion killowatt-hours in 2026 in the grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, according to the latest forecast from the Energy Information Administration. That comes to just 60 billion kilowatt-hours for coal. As Texas’ solar boom continues, the federal researchers projected that about 40% of all solar installations in the U.S. this year will occur in the Lone Star State. Among the developments poised to come online this year is the solar and battery megaproject Tehuacana Creek 1 Solar farm. The 837-megawatt project will be the largest solar facility of its kind to enter into service this year. Meanwhile, Texas has no current plans for new coal plants.
The U.S. is going to need a lot more projects coming online. New forecasts from the National Electrical Manufacturers Association project U.S. electricity demand to surge 55% by 2050. Data centers are the biggest source of near-term demand growth, with a projected 300% surge in electricity demand over the next 10 years. But electric vehicles of all kinds are on track to keep the party going by spiking power demand 2,000% by the middle of the century. To meet that demand, storage, wind, and solar generation are on track to increase by 300% as renewables start making up a majority of the generation in the American West, New York, and the Southeast.
5. Belgium goes in with the Dutch on new nuclear power
As I told you two weeks ago, Belgium is not only abandoning its plans to phase out its remaining nuclear power stations, it’s nationalizing the fleet. Now Brussels is entering into a deal with the pro-nuclear neighboring Netherlands to work together on building new reactors. The memorandum of understanding — signed Wednesday at a binational summit by Belgium’s energy minister Mathieu Bihet and Dutch climate and green growth chief Jo-Annes de Bat — establishes periodic meetings between the two nations, where the Netherlands can tap into Belgium’s existing knowledge from operating a larger fleet of reactors, and the Belgians can in turn garner tips on building new reactors as the Dutch embark on a construction program.
THE KICKER
Pakistan’s solar boom has so far insulated the country from the full effects of losing access to oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz. Now Islamabad is going all in. Pakistan is now targeting 95% renewable electricity by 2040, and 60% by 2030, according to a document seen by the business news site ProPakistani.
Solar is now the third-largest electricity source in Texas.EIA
