For the past four years, the UpgradeNY coalition of clean energy, environmental, and labor groups has been pushing New York regulators to approve projects that could switch entire neighborhoods from fossil gas to clean electric heating — and to do it without undermining fossil gas utility jobs and investments. The…

Lithium-ion batteries could do so much for AI data centers and the power grid. They’re cheaper than the fossil-gas turbines that tech giants are building at gigawatt scale for their “AI factories.” They can cushion the cost of building out grid infrastructure and power plants just to serve data centers’ peak energy…

This is California Wire , a weekly newsletter from Jeff St. John on the state’s clean energy transition. Subscribe to get it every Wednesday via Substack. Hi everyone! Welcome back to California Wire. Last Thursday, I took the train up to Sacramento to participate in a panel at the California Energy Storage…

A community solar project built for New Orleans’ oldest historically Black Catholic order of nuns. An all-electric affordable housing complex in Salt Lake City. A program offering low-income Maryland households inexpensive loans for rooftop solar and energy efficiency. These are just some of the recent projects…

This is California Wire , a weekly newsletter from Jeff St. John on the state’s clean energy transition. Subscribe to get it every Wednesday via Substack. Welcome back to California Wire! This week, I want to dive into a topic that’s both timely and timeless: transmission lines, and how long it takes to build…

Households and the power grid run on alternating current. Batteries — including those in electric vehicles — run on direct current. That AC-DC divide has complicated the prospect of EVs as home backup batteries. Today, almost every commercially available vehicle-to-home (V2H) backup power system in the U.S. requires…

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) defied political expectations on Wednesday and signed into law a slate of energy-affordability legislation aimed at containing the utility spending that is driving up electricity costs in the Golden State. Among the bills he signed are two that will boost the use of virtual power…

The U.S. Senate energy permitting bill unveiled Wednesday could streamline the buildout of high-voltage power lines across the country, potentially delivering billions of dollars in electricity cost savings and dramatically improving the power system’s reliability over the coming decade — if Congress manages to pass…

This is California Wire , a weekly newsletter from Jeff St. John on the state’s clean energy transition. Subscribe to get it every Wednesday via Substack. Hello, everyone! We’re back today to talk about trucks — the big and dirty ones — and what to do about them. California has around 1.8 million commercial…

For years now, grid experts have been trying to get utilities to deploy advanced transmission technologies that can squeeze more capacity out of overstressed U.S. power grids. On Thursday, the Trump administration put a $1.9 billion down payment on 31 projects that will help greatly scale up these underutilized…

Denise Abdul-Rahman, founder and CEO of nonprofit Black Sun Light Sustainability, can list in detail the harms that the Trump administration’s shutdown of the $7 billion Solar for All program has caused the Indiana communities she serves. About 1,000 low-income households have been denied access to low-cost solar…

This is California Wire , a weekly newsletter from Jeff St. John on the state’s clean energy transition. Subscribe to get it every Wednesday via Substack. Hi, everyone! Let’s pick up a theme from last week’s newsletter: how California has yet to take full advantage of rooftop solar, backup batteries, and other…

The biggest U.S. utilities are doing worse on shifting from fossil fuels to clean power than they were at the start of this decade — and more than four in 10 have backtracked on their climate goals since the start of the second Trump administration. That’s the dire, if predictable, news from the Sierra Club’s latest…

It’s already hard to build grid batteries in New York City. But now, an increasingly hostile dispute between the utility Con Edison and energy-storage developers is making it even harder. The two sides agree that “ community-scale battery projects " — bigger than those that back up a home but smaller than most…

This is California Wire , a weekly newsletter from Jeff St. John on the state’s clean energy transition. Subscribe to get it every Wednesday via Substack . I’m launching this newsletter at an intriguing moment in California politics. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — who everyone knows is eyeing a run for the White…

Gavin Newsom’s eight-year run as California’s Democratic governor — and as self-styled U.S. climate change warrior — comes to an end in January. At this pivotal moment for the state’s clean energy transition, it’s worth reflecting on how he’s lived up to his clean energy commitments and what kind of climate legacy he…

A federal court has ruled that the Department of Energy acted outside the bounds of its legal authority when it forced a coal plant in Michigan to keep running last year — a decision that could undermine the Trump administration’s push to prevent aging and costly fossil-fueled power plants from closing down. Under…

The Trump administration’s vaguely worded executive order on grid cybersecurity threatens to slow down the booming U.S. energy storage market . The order, issued late last month, declares a national security emergency over the risk that foreign-made technologies could be used to hack into and disrupt the U.S. power…

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has blocked an effort to keep the state’s most successful virtual power plant program funded through next year. State budget language finalized last week does not authorize additional money for the Demand Side Grid Support program , one of the biggest VPPs in the country…