The time it takes to get hold of battery storage equipment is rising. UK energy minister told parliament of waits of up to 4 years for high-voltage- and 2 years for lower voltage equipment due to growing demand. A lot of it comes from China. Transformer prices have risen 40-60% over the past 3 years and lead times have tripled over the past decade.

Germany is still buying significant amounts of Russian liquefied natural gas via other EU countries despite turning away direct shipments to Germany. The EU set a nominal target of expunging all Russian fuel from the bloc by 2027. Most LNG is imported into the EU through Belgium, France and Spain and there is no official data, to where it flows.

The start-up raised $425mn to achieve its target of producing electricity from nuclear fusion in 2028. The start-up has now raised more than $1bn. Nuclear fusion creates no radioactive waste, but scientists have only been able to sustain a reaction of up to a second. Polaris declined to share details about the results of its Polaris reactor.

A fire ignited at the world's largest lithium battery storage facility, releasing a large plume of toxic smoke into the air and raising questions about the safety of the clean-energy storage industry. The battery storage is located 160km south of San Francisco. It is owned by the Texas-based Vistra Energy and has been the site of three other fires since 2019.

Nuclear energy companies led by Westinghouse's eVinci are trying to shrink reactors to the size of shipping containers in a bid to compete with electric batteries and diesel and gas generators used by everything from data centres to offshore oil and gas platforms. Microreactors have an output of up to 20MW and no control room or workers on site.

Opened in 2014, the Ivanpah plant was the world's largest solar-thermal plant. Nearly 350,000 mirrors reflect sunlight to boilers atop 140m towers producing steam to run turbines. But its output disappointed as the sun is shining less than expected. It cannot compete with photovoltaic technology, which has lower capital and operating costs.

On the morning of 27 December, wind power accounted for 6.2% of the electricity demand in Germany and solar for 0%. Wind provided less than 2.9 GW or 4% of the nominal installed capacity of 71.7 GW. Most of German power generation came from coal and natural gas. Germany was also heavily dependant on expensive electricity imports.

The EU’s storage levels are now at only 75% due to cold weather, low seaborne imports and less wind, which increases the demand for gas for power generation. Europe has faced more competition for LNG from Asia. The biggest supplier of LNG is the US. European gas prices are now 90% below the €300 per MWh during the summer of 2022.

EU has received 16.5mn tonnes of liquefied natural gas from Russia. In 2022, the EU decided to stop imports of any Russian fossil fuels by 2027. EU previously imported 40% of its gas from Russia. This is now down to 16%. Imports via pipelines have dwindled, but LNG from Russia has a “significantly lower” price than the gas shipped from the US.

Switch, a US-based provider of AI, cloud and enterprise data centres, has selected nuclear technology company Oklo to deploy 12GW of Oklo Aurora powerhouses by 2044 to supply its data centres. Oklo will be responsible for the development, construction and operation of the powerhouses. This long-term partnership is expected to support Oklo's growth.

Norwegian manufacturer of silicon ingot and wafer has struggled to compete with low-cost imports from China. Its Ardal factory has been shut since September 2023. In August 2023, its the ingot and wafer company Norwegian Crystals filed for bankruptcy and earlier in 2024, the cell and module manufacturer Meyer Burger shut down its plant in Germany.

Sweden’s energy minister said that the additional 700 MW connector planned to link the German and Swedish electricity markets would be postponed until Germany splits its internal market into bidding zones that would increase the efficiency and lower the prices. Due to German demand, prices in southern Sweden jump from zero to €1 per kWh.