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.

The selloffs that keep flaring in the world’s bond markets are pushing yields toward key thresholds amid escalating worries about elevated inflation, tempestuous politics and swelling government debts. In the US, the 10-year Treasury yield rose as high as 4.73% and the 20-year yield hit 5%. In the UK, that yield hit 4.82%, the highest since 2008.

Issuance of green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds was 10% above 2023. 4,490 notes issued in 2024 were the most ever, thumping the old high of 3,729 set in 2023. Sales of green bonds, the largest category by volume, reached $571 billion, but issuance of controversial sustainability-linked bonds dropped for a third year.

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.

Corporate borrowing climbed by more than a third from 2023 to $7.93tn. While yields for investment-grade US corporate debt is at 5.4% compared with 2.4% three years ago, they are only 0.77 percentage points above government debt, the lowest level in decades. This convinced companies to pull forward bond issuance originally planned for next year.

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.

Investors poured record amounts into global bond funds as they bet on lower interest rates by major central banks and because equities, particularly in the US, have become increasingly expensive. Bond prices increased in summer and dropped at the end of the year on concerns that the pace of global rate cuts will be slower than previously expected.