The Duck Curve

News on power generation, grid and home storage, and electrification, reported from the filings, dockets, and data. Today's duck curve, live from CAISO

News · Oct 6, 2026

Google backs 890 MW of Constellation nuclear uprates at 11 PJM units

Constellation calls the 20-year deal a direct response to PJM's bring-your-own-power proposal; both companies have asked FERC to reject PJM's pending large-load filing except its registry.

Two men talk in a nuclear plant control room in front of panels of gauges and switches labeled for steam generators and feedwater pumps
Architectural rendering at dusk of a long, curved, lit glass building labeled Infinity One beside a landscaped drive and a highway with passing cars, wooded hills behind News · Oct 6, 2026

Type One Energy raises $200M Series B for its Tennessee fusion plant

Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Clutterbuck Capital co-led the round, which the company says follows the fusion-specific license Tennessee issued on August 31 for Project Infinity at TVA's Bull Run site.

 A flatbed trailer loaded with strapped wooden shipping crates and white metal frames, parked beside tall corrugated metal buildings under a clear sky News · Oct 6, 2026

DOE clears MARVEL microreactor's final safety analysis for dry criticality

The test reactor's sodium-potassium coolant system reached INL's TREAT facility in mid-September, and INL anticipates a dry, near-zero-power criticality in December 2026.

 Brief · Oct 6, 2026

Australian BEV share eases to 24.2% in September on FCAI's count

Electric cars outsold petrol for a second straight month by The Driven's tally, 26,087 to 26,018, while the Electric Vehicle Council puts the BEV share at 24.9%.

 Workers in hard hats on a blue boom lift and scaffolding inside a large open steel vacuum vessel sector studded with bolts, in a factory hall, with another worker on an orange lift beside it News · Oct 6, 2026

ITER's ninth and final vacuum vessel sector arrives from Europe

With sector #2 on site, ITER says every component of its core tokamak is now delivered; six of nine sector modules already sit in the pit, and the last is targeted for mid-2027.

 Brief · Oct 6, 2026

Renew Home, now Everyday Electric, buys connected-car platform Smartcar

The residential VPP operator is extending beyond thermostats to EVs, chargers, batteries and solar, and says energy partners pay on resource performance rather than platform fees; it disclosed no deal terms.

 An Ampol service station with a Foodary store under a red Ampol canopy, fuel pumps in the foreground and a man standing at an electric vehicle charger beside a white hatchback on the right News · Oct 5, 2026

Ampol agrees to buy Evie Networks and its 1,031 charging bays for A$225M

The fuel retailer's public charging network would grow from 393 bays to about 1,425 at more than 400 sites, with completion targeted for the first half of 2027 subject to ACCC clearance.
Aerial view of Beaver Valley Power Station: two cooling towers releasing steam plumes beside two domed reactor containment buildings, with a switchyard to the right, water and a bridge at lower left, and wooded hills behind. News · Oct 5, 2026

DOE offers Vistra conditional loan of up to $4.2B for nuclear uprates

The 433 MW of new capacity at Beaver Valley, Perry and Davis-Besse matches the uprate output Meta agreed in January to buy; Vistra must meet conditions before DOE signs financing documents and funds the loan.

 A group of about fifteen people in white hard hats and yellow high-visibility vests stands on a concrete deck in front of a tall white cylindrical reactor shield building topped by a narrower drum, with a tan turbine building and a steam plume to the left under a blue sky. News · Oct 5, 2026

US and Korea earmark up to $120B for eight reactors, with no sites named

Seoul caps the money at $30 billion per two-unit plant, and a $10 billion year-end advance for reactor vessels and other long-lead items still needs a review and a National Assembly report.

 A black SUV on a test road with a receiver unit visible under its front bumper and red dashed outlines on the asphalt marking buried ground units, labeled in Japanese. News · Oct 5, 2026

Honda and Taisei test in-road wireless charging built for 20-ton trucks

Taisei says the system is designed for up to 150 kW, but neither company reports a power level measured on the test road; a public expressway trial alongside a Toyota, Denso and Obayashi team is planned from fiscal 2027.

 Orange industrial robot with a multi-finger gripper above conveyor lanes carrying rows of blue cylindrical battery cells News · Oct 5, 2026

BMW opens Irlbach-Straßkirchen plant to assemble Neue Klasse batteries

Series production started on two shifts at the roughly €1 billion Bavarian site, which builds sixth-generation packs from bought-in cylindrical cells for the new BMW i3 made in Munich.

 A tall grey sonnen home battery cabinet with a small display stands in a corner against a pale blue wall, beside a wooden door, a window with three potted plants and a cushioned bench. News · Oct 4, 2026

Germany's MiSpeL rules let home batteries mix grid and solar power

The EEG premium on stored solar survives only in direct marketing, which excludes systems on the fixed feed-in tariff, and the one-meter option for arrays up to 30 kWp waits on EU state-aid approval.

 Two white Tesla home battery units mounted on an indoor wall, linked by metal conduit to a small gray disconnect box between them News · Oct 4, 2026

Berkeley Lab: batteries paired with 37% of new US home solar in 2025

California's attachment rate rose to 74% and the other states' combined rate to 17%, while median home battery discharge power nearly doubled to 11.4 kW, which the lab attributes to the Powerwall 3.

 White outdoor unit of an air-source heat pump mounted on brackets against a red brick wall beside a window, with grass and stones below. News · Oct 4, 2026

National Grid's winter heat pump rate clears the DPU at $0.02476 per kWh

Two September 30, 2026 orders allow the PBR adjustment and the October 1 rate summaries carrying the November-April distribution charge for customers enrolled in the optional heat pump rate, against $0.06777 per kWh on the default rate.

 White wall-mounted indoor unit of a ductless heat pump below a ceiling, lit from above, with its louver open and its control panel visible. News · Oct 4, 2026

South Coast AQMD adds $60.2 million to GO ZERO with lower home rebates

The October 2, 2026 vote funds a second round of rebates for heat pumps, and now solar water heating, from furnace and water heater mitigation fees, after the $21 million pilot's single-family portal closed on September 4, 2026.

 Brief · Oct 3, 2026

Texas drilling permit issued for Deep Isolation's borehole disposal pilot

The company said on October 1, 2026 the permit lets its full-scale, non-radioactive Commercialization Pilot advance toward construction and field activities; a February 3, 2026 Form 8-K puts the test well at Halliburton's Cameron site.

 A worker in a white hard hat and grey hooded sweatshirt attaches a chain hook to a horizontal grey steel cylinder resting on a cradle beneath a yellow 20-ton spreader bar, outside a light-coloured industrial building in sunlight News · Oct 3, 2026

NANO Nuclear agrees to buy NRC license for unbuilt New Mexico DUF6 plant

The $9.5 million cash and $4.0 million stock deal for Radnostix's Lea County deconversion assets needs NRC consent to a license transfer; a transfer to a previous buyer, applied for in 2025, was withdrawn in March 2026.

 Solar panel arrays on the gray shingle roofs of a row of two-story townhomes with blue-gray siding and brick fronts under a clear blue sky in Denver, Colorado News · Oct 3, 2026

Colorado Springs votes 7-2 for grid access or demand charges on new solar

Residential and small commercial agreements from April 1, 2027 pay a $1-a-day Grid Access Charge or a per-kW demand charge; Utilities puts the average residential net metering bill about $38 a month above the frozen 2027 rates either way.

 Brief · Oct 3, 2026

Chubu files Hamaoka 3 and 4 withdrawal; NRA issues no disposition

A request dated September 25, 2026 and signed by Kingo Hayashi withdraws six applications dating to 2014 and 2015, while the NRA's inspection of the ground-motion misconduct continues toward a significance evaluation.

 Brief · Oct 3, 2026

Norway's new vans were 74.6% electric in September after a tax increase

New diesel van registrations fell 70% from September 2025 after the one-time registration tax on combustion-engine vans rose on September 1, 2026; the new-van market shrank 29.5%, and 85% of vans on Norwegian roads still run on diesel.

 Brief · Oct 2, 2026

Tesla Q3 2026: 486,532 deliveries, 13.7 GWh of storage, no Semi figure

Deliveries were 2.1% below Q3 2025, the quarter Tesla's October 2, 2025 release called a record for both deliveries and deployments; storage deployments rose from that quarter's 12.5 GWh to 13.7 GWh.

 Elevated view of rows of white Antora thermal battery enclosures with a pipe rack running between them toward a beige building marked ANTORA, white tanks at left, a crane at upper right and white plumes rising behind the building at Antora's Big Stone City, South Dakota project News · Oct 2, 2026

Antora plans 5.8 GWh thermal battery at Pratt Energy's Kansas biorefinery

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners led the third-party equity financing for a multi-day carbon-block heat store due to start deliveries to the Pratt ethanol plant in 2027; the release names no utility, rate, or megawatt rating.

 Aerial view from the water of the Point Beach Nuclear Plant: a long pale green building with two rooftop structures, two dark piers extending into blue water, white rock along the shore, lower buildings at each end and trees behind under a clear sky News · Oct 2, 2026

Oracle deal expected to absorb about $300 million of Point Beach fuel costs

Oracle says its planned subscription to part of the plant's output needs Public Service Commission of Wisconsin approval; We Energies files details in the months after October 2, 2026, and neither release gives megawatts, price or term.

 Shaded grey-and-white 3D massing rendering of the Riggs Meadow development in Hinesburg, Vermont: gabled three-story multifamily buildings and rows of two-story townhomes on a white site plan with paths and a road, seen from above News · Oct 2, 2026

Vermont Gas will fund and own Riggs Meadow ground loops; Dandelion drills

Dandelion Energy calls the model a first for a US gas utility; VGS's own PUC filing puts its share at $400,000, with $260,000 from an innovation budget carried in base rates.

 Aerial view of the Ultium Cells plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee: a large white flat-roofed factory with an electrical substation and cooling units in the foreground, a full parking lot at left, and farmland and tree lines beyond under a partly cloudy sky. News · Oct 2, 2026

Ultium Cells to make LMR prismatic EV cells at Spring Hill, Tennessee

The GM and LG Energy Solution venture expects Spring Hill to be first in the world to mass produce prismatic LMR cells; modifications start in 2026, are expected to finish in 2028 and are projected to add 500 jobs.

 Aerial view of two banks of air-cooled condenser fans at Fervo's Cape Station geothermal plant in the Utah desert, with a drilling rig and wind turbines in the distance under a clear sky News · Oct 2, 2026

Fervo declares commercial operation at Cape Station's first 33 MW GeoBlock

Fervo dates COD to September 30, 2026, a day before the contractual date; its August 10-Q risk factors had put first power in the fourth quarter, and the other two Phase I GeoBlocks are expected to reach contractual COD by January 1, 2027.

 The Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant seen across choppy gray water on an overcast day: two domed containment buildings behind a long white turbine hall, a tall mast rising above the trees. News · Oct 1, 2026

Amazon signs 20-year Calvert Cliffs PPA backing a 190 MW nuclear uprate

Constellation says the deal covers 690 MW including the 190 MW uprate, enables more than $3 billion of investment and will help give it the revenue certainty to relicense the plant for 20 more years; the uprate is due 2030 to 2032.

 Two pairs of black solar panels hung on the outside of an upper and a lower balcony railing of a cream-colored apartment building with a red tile roof under a clear blue sky, with a silver car parked in front News · Oct 1, 2026

Newsom signs SB 868, California's plug-in solar law, as Chapter 985

Approved September 30, 2026, the Wiener bill exempts qualifying plug-in solar devices of no more than 1,200 watts of aggregated AC output per dwelling from interconnection requirements from January 1, 2027, until January 1, 2030.

 Brief · Oct 1, 2026

FedEx orders 2,000 Harbinger electric trucks, valued at over $300 million

Delivery is planned by the end of 2027 across FedEx pickup and delivery operations in the US and Canada; Harbinger calls it "believed to be one of the largest binding orders" for electric medium or heavy-duty trucks in history.

 Wide view of the FERC hearing room in Washington, D.C., with about two dozen people in suits seated around a curved wooden dais with nameplates, blue curtains, and the US flag and FERC seal on the wall behind the chairman's seat News · Oct 1, 2026

FERC accepts PJM backstop procurement but suspends it to February 2027

The September 29, 2026 order sends cost allocation, transmission-owner exit rules and buyer collateral to a paper hearing, and PJM says the procurement will not begin on September 30 as planned, with timing to be determined.

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