Best of POWER

Welcome to the end-of-August issue of the Best of POWER, a bi-monthly e-newsletter from POWER magazine that provides important news and information that many in our audience have found to be must-reads.

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The POWER Interview: Using Home Batteries to Support the Grid | The Dell name is synonymous with technology and innovation, so perhaps it’s not surprising that a member of that famous computing family is working to solve the challenge of making electricity more reliable and resilient.

TVA Boosts Nuclear Funding with $150M for SMR Development at Clinch River | The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA’s) board of directors has approved an additional $150 million for the public power utility’s $200 million New Nuclear Program to boost continued design work and development of potential small modular reactors (SMRs) at TVA’s Clinch River site near Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Fuel Cells: What They Are, How They Work, and Why They’re Important | Fuel cells are not some novel new technology. In fact, most history books credit the invention of the fuel cell to Welsh chemist and physicist William Grove, who, in the late 1830s and early 1840s, conducted experiments proving that electric current could be produced from an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen over a platinum catalyst.

PJM Capacity Auction Prices Surge Over Nine-Fold, Signal Urgent Need for New Power Generation | Prices at PJM Interconnection’s 2025/2026 base residual auction (BRA) spiked to $269.92/MW-day for most resources in the wholesale power market, pointing to a tightening supply-demand balance that could have significant implications for the regional transmission organization (RTO).

LS Power Acquiring Renewable Energy Assets in $2.5 Billion Deal | A New York-based power and energy infrastructure group will acquire more than 3 GW of operating renewable energy assets, along with another 8 GW of projects under development, from a Canadian company in a deal valued at up to $2.5 billion.

In Case You Missed It: Landrieu: Natural Gas Is ‘Not the Enemy, It Is Part of the Solution’ to Achieving Climate Goals | Former U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who is now a senior policy advisor for the law firm Van Ness Feldman and co-chair of the Natural Allies Leadership Council, is keen on natural gas and believes it is part of the solution to reaching both domestic and global climate goals.

$2.2B for 13 GW of New Transmission Capacity: DOE Unveils Latest Boost for U.S. Grid Modernization | The Biden administration will invest $2.2 billion in eight projects under its Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership (GRIP) program to bolster the nation’s power grid with nearly 13 GW of new transmission capacity across 18 states.

China Approves 11 New Nuclear Reactors, Including Fourth-Generation Design | State-run China Energy News reported that officials on August 19 approved construction of 11 nuclear reactors across the country, part of a wave of new reactors that could see China surpass both the U.S. and France in terms of operating reactors by the end of the decade.

Another Fourth-Generation Nuclear Reactor Begins Construction in the U.S. | Construction of Hermes, Kairos Power’s 35-MWth iterative non-power demonstration molten salt nuclear reactor, has officially kicked off in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The effort marks another major step for the burgeoning advanced nuclear industry, which celebrated the groundbreaking of TerraPower’s Kemmerer 1, a pioneering sodium-cooled fast reactor demonstration, in June.

Chinese Group Deploying Largest Floating Wind Turbine Platform | A floating wind turbine platform developed by Mingyang Group is now sited at a Chinese offshore wind farm. OceanX, at present the world’s largest single capacity technology of its type, is supporting the 505-MW Yangjiang Mingyang Quingzhou IV project near Guangdong, China.