Competing tensions around Revolution Wind

Federal regulators have issued a stop-work order to the developer of an offshore wind project under construction off Rhode Island and Connecticut, to allow the agency to address concerns about national security and interference with reasonable uses of the ocean over the U.S. outer continental shelf. The developer says it is "evaluating all options to resolve the matter expeditiously". Meanwhile, the regional electric grid operator says that delaying the wind project's completion "will increase risks to reliability" and could harm New England's economic growth, including potential future data centers.

Revolution Wind, LLC is developing a 704-megawatt offshore wind farm about 15 nautical miles south of Point Judith, Rhode Island, about 12 miles southwest of Martha's Vineyard, and about 32 nautical miles southeast of Connecticut. The project is a 50/50 joint venture between Orsted and an affiliate of Global Infrastructure Partners. According to the developer, the project is fully permitted and started construction last year; project construction is now 80% complete, with all offshore foundations now in place, and 45 wind turbines installed (out of a total of 65). The project has 20-year power purchase agreements in place to deliver 400 MW of electricity to Rhode Island and 304 MW to Connecticut.

On August 22, 2025, BOEM's Acting Director Matthew Giacona issued a Director's Order to Revolution Wind, ordering it to halt all ongoing activities on the outer continental shelf related to the project. The order cites the January 20, 2025 Presidential Memorandum withdrawing all lands on the outer continental shelf from wind leasing, saying the agency needs time to address concerns during its review. Specifically, the order says "BOEM is seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States and prevention of interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas, as described in that subsection of OCSLA."

In a press release, Orsted said that it is evaluating all options to resolve the matter expeditiously. This includes engagement with relevant permitting agencies for any necessary clarification or resolution as well as through potential legal proceedings, with the aim being to proceed with continued project construction towards COD in the second half of 2026.

Regional electricity grid operator ISO New England issued a statement on August 25, expressing concerns that grid planning relies on the assumption that Revolution Wind will be online and producing power in 2026. According to ISO-NE, "Delaying the project will increase risks to reliability." 

The remainder of the grid operator's statement is voiced generally, as opposed to project-specific. Citing rising demand for power and the need to maintain adequate generating capacity to meet demand, the grid operator noted that "delays in the availability of new resources will adversely affect New England’s economy and industrial growth, including potential future data centers." Moreover ISO-NE warned, "Unpredictable risks and threats to resources—regardless of technology—that have made significant capital investments, secured necessary permits, and are close to completion will stifle future investments, increase costs to consumers, and undermine the power grid’s reliability and the region’s economy now and in the future."

TVA, Google and Kairos Power to collaborate through nuclear PPA

The Tennessee Valley Authority, Google, and nuclear reactor developer Kairos Power have announced agreements to collaborate on the development of a new small modular nuclear power plant in Tennessee, designed to provide power to the TVA grid to support Google data centers in Tennessee and Alabama.

Congress created the TVA in 1933 as a public power provider assigned to improve living standards. TVA cites energy, environmental stewardship, and economic development as three essential components of how it achieves its mission.

Kairos Power is a nuclear technology, engineering and manufacturing company focused on commercializing a fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor. Its Hermes demonstration small modular nuclear reactor is the first non-water-cooled reactor to be approved for construction in the U.S. in over 50 years. Construction on the Hermes project commenced last year.

Technology companies, data center operators, and businesses involved with artificial intelligence (AI) are investing heavily to secure energy supplies for their operations. New demands for electricity are driving existing powerplants to stay in operation, or even restart after being mothballed like the Three Mile Island nuclear plant whose owner proposes to resume fission to power a Microsoft data center. 

These same trends are also driving proposals to site new power plants, including small modular reactors (SMR). In October 2024, Google announced a collaboration with Kairos Power to deploy up to 500 MW of new nuclear power from SMRs to support Google's tech operations.

Interest in using SMRs to power data centers continues. On August 18, Google, Kairos Power, and TVA announced a new power purchase agreement between Kairos and TVA, under which Kairos will increase the output of its Hermes 2 plant from 28 to 50 MW. Google will receive the clean energy attributes from the plant. According to TVA, it is the "the first U.S. utility to sign a PPA to buy electricity from an advanced, GEN IV reactor".

Pumped storage hydro in Maine

Could a large pumped storage hydroelectric facility be developed in Maine? A company named Western Maine Energy Storage, LLC has applied to federal hydropower regulators for a preliminary permit to evaluate the potential development of a 500 megawatt pumped storage facility above the Androscoggin River in the Dixfield area.

Historically electricity has been easier to generate than to store. Hydropower typically harvests energy from water flowing or falling downhill under gravity's influence. If water in a hydroelectric system can be pumped back uphill, it can be stored in an upper reservoir and then reused to generate additional electricity. This technology was first used in Europe in the late nineteenth century, and remains the dominant form of electric energy storage today. Pumped storage hydropower facilities presently account for nearly all of the utility-scale energy storage capacity in the U.S.: about 96% as recently as 2023.

Modern pumped storage hydropower plants typically move water between an upper reservoir and a lower reservoir, using lower-cost electricity for the uphill pumping phase of the cycle. Pumping water uphill to recharge an upper reservoir takes energy, but most of this energy can be recovered on demand by allowing the water to flow back downhill through the generators. According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, several dozen pumped storage projects are constructed and in operation in the U.S., with a total installed capacity of over 16,500 megawatts.

As part of the ongoing energy transition, many policymakers and investors are focused on technologies like battery energy storage, but pumped storage hydropower has a long track record of success -- and significant potential for growth. Most pumped storage generators in the U.S. were built during the 1970s, but a 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Energy found that the US could add 36 gigawatts of pumped storage by 2050.

Western Maine Energy Storage's application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission describes a proposed project located primarily in Dixfield, Maine (with a portion in the adjacent town of Canton). The upper reservoir would be located just below the crest of Colonel Holman Mountain; the lower reservoir would be in the adjacent Ludden Brook watershed. The project would draw its initial fill water from the Androscoggin River at a site near the Dixfield-Canton boundary (delivered via a temporary 2-mile pipe), but would then shift to closed-loop operation (using groundwater wells for reservoir level maintenance). The project would have about 500 MW of generating capacity (two units of about 200-250 MW each). The applicant says it expects to spend about $6 million studying the project’s feasibility if FERC grants it a 48-month preliminary permit. 

Maine is not presently home to any pumped storage hydropower projects, but about 90 years ago the Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project was proposed with features including pumped storage reservoirs and generators. The Quoddy project would have used tidal energy and pumping to transfer water uphill, to produce sustainable renewable energy. The project received significant support from President Franklin D. Roosevelt along with millions of dollars in funding from Congress, but was never completed. To learn more about the historic Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project, read the book Moondoggle: Franklin Roosevelt and the Fight for Tidal-Electric Power at Passamaquoddy Bay by Mark C. Borton.

US tariffs on Canadian energy imports

President Trump has issued a series of executive orders, including orders imposing tariffs or duties on articles imported from Canada, and declaring a national energy emergency.

Under Section 2 of the Imposing Duties executive order, most imports from Canada are subject to a general 25% tariff . However, Section 2(b) applies a lesser 10% tariff to “energy or energy resources" as defined in section 8 of Executive Order 14156 of January 20, 2025 (Declaring a National Energy Emergency), and related Federal Register notices.

In turn, section 8 of the Declaring a National Energy Emergency executive order defines “energy” or “energy resources” to include:

• crude oil
• natural gas
• lease condensates
• natural gas liquids
• refined petroleum products
• uranium
• coal
• biofuels
• geothermal heat
• the kinetic movement of flowing water
• critical minerals, as defined by 30 U.S.C. 1606 (a)(3).

These articles are subject to a 10 percent tariff pursuant to the Imposing Duties order. 

New England's regional energy market operator, ISO New England, issued a statement shortly after the tariffs took effect. According to the statement, ISO-NE is seeking guidance from the administration on what role it will have in implementing these tariffs, but "cannot speculate on what, if any, impact these actions will have on wholesale electricity prices or the level of imports into the region." 

ISO-NE also noted that in 2024, Canadian imports powered about 9 percent of New England's grid-served net energy for load.

NESCOE requests first ISO-NE LTTP RFP

In a move that could unlock significant new energy supplies for New England, a committee representing the six states has asked the region's electric grid operator to use a new process to solicit transmission capable of accommodating large amounts of new generation plants interconnected to the Maine grid.

The New England States Committee on Electricity (NESCOE) is a not-for-profit entity recognized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as a regional state committee. NESCOE represents the collective perspective of the six New England states in regional electricity matters. The organization typically focuses on two areas: resource adequacy and system planning and expansion.

For several years, NESCOE has been engaged with regional grid operator ISO New England to reform the region's longer-term transmission planning (LTTP) process. In an initial phase, in 2022 FERC approved a new process through which NESCOE may ask ISO-NE to perform system planning analyses that may extend beyond its usual 10-year planning horizon and that identify, at a high-level, transmission infrastructure necessary to meet a New England state’s energy policy, mandate, or legal requirement.

Meanwhile ISO and stakeholders continued to develop a second phase of reforms, which FERC accepted in July 2024. The second phase's reforms included a new "scenario-based" LTTP process. The second phase of LTTP reforms also creates a process to advance identified transmission upgrades into developable projects. It also includes a cost-allocation mechanism for those transmission improvements

On December 13, 2024, NESCOE submitted a request to ISO-NE, asking the grid operator to issue its first regional solution under this new LTTP process. NESCOE identified the following minimum scope for the first LTTP RFP:

 (1) a requirement to increase the Maine-New Hampshire interface capacity to at least 3,000 MW by 2035 and increase the Surowiec-South interface capacity to at least 3,200 MW by 2035; and

(2) a requirement to develop new infrastructure (e.g., substation) at Pittsfield, Maine that can accommodate the interconnection of at least 1,200 MW (nameplate) of onshore wind. Pittsfield should be used as the presumed location based on previous analysis, however, bidders may propose alternate locations which, based on their own expertise, bidders conclude would be more efficient and cost-effective.

(3) The required in-service date for both scope components is by 2035 unless a bidder can demonstrate supply chain issues that warrant a later in-service date. A strong preference should be given to bids with an in-service date by 2035, or as close as possible thereto recognizing supply chain constraint information bidders provide.

According to NESCOE, this scope includes "two equally important requirements that, when taken together, should result in improvements to the transmission system that will benefit consumers." 

Record-low inflation-adjusted natural gas prices, says EIA

For the tenth time this year, natural gas at the U.S. benchmark "Henry Hub" pricing point has reached an all-time low in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

Image source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

According to U.S. EIA, natural gas at the Henry Hub has recently reached all-time low pricing on an inflation-adjusted basis. EIA says gas at Henry Hub was priced at $1.21 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) twice last month, on November 8 and November 11, 2024. EIA called this pricing "an all-time low in inflation-adjusted dollars." 

These record low prices were just the latest in a series, as two earlier days in November had already seen record low inflation-adjusted prices for gas at the Henry Hub. Six more record-low inflation-adjusted prices occurred earlier in 2024, according to the energy agency.

EIA attributes the record-low prices to factors including robust supply and constraints on demand. EIA also notes that natural gas prices can be volatile, as "Henry Hub spot prices spiked to over $13/MMBtu in January due to well-below-normal temperatures across most of the United States."

Corporate nuclear power offers solicited

Tech company Meta Platforms Inc. has issued a request for proposals "to identify nuclear energy developers to help us meet our AI innovation and sustainability objectives — targeting 1-4 gigawatts (GW) of new nuclear generation capacity in the U.S."

In a statement on its sustainability blog, Meta expressed its views that nuclear power would help the company meet its objectives relating to both artificial intelligence and sustainability:

... we believe that nuclear energy can help provide firm, baseload power to support the growth needs of the electric grids that power both our data centers (the physical infrastructure on which Meta’s platforms operate) as well as the communities around them. ... At Meta, we believe nuclear energy will play a pivotal role in the transition to a cleaner, more reliable, and diversified electric grid.

Citing its experience helping the renewable energy industry develop, Meta says it is taking a similar approach to nuclear power: 

When we began engaging with the renewable energy industry more than a decade ago, the industry was scaling. Our early engagement with developers of renewable energy allowed Meta to design contracts that enable both Meta and our developer partners to achieve our respective goals. We want to work creatively with developers to structure an agreement that will similarly enable development of nuclear technology.

At the same time, Meta notes that nuclear power's needs are somewhat different from those of renewable projects, due to key technological, economic, and regulatory differences: 

Compared to renewable energy projects that we continue to invest in, such as solar and wind, nuclear energy projects are more capital intensive, take longer to develop, are subject to more regulatory requirements, and have a longer expected operational life. These differences mean we need to engage nuclear energy projects earlier in their development lifecycle and consider their operational requirements when designing a contract. And, as scaling deployments of nuclear technology offers the best chance of rapidly reducing cost, engaging with a partner across projects and locations will allow us to ensure that we can deploy strategically. An RFP process will allow us to approach these projects thoroughly and thoughtfully with these considerations in mind.

Meta's RFP is not directly available to the public. Instead, Meta's blog directs interested parties to complete a qualification intake form by January 3, 2025, with initial RFP proposals due on February 7. Meta says it will screen interested parties for their qualifications, including "developers with strong community engagement, development, and permitting, and execution expertise that have development opportunities for new nuclear energy resources – either Small Modular Reactors (SMR) or larger nuclear reactors." Meta says it will also require interested parties to execute a non-disclosure agreement before receiving Meta's Nuclear RFP.

Other tech companies are similarly pursuing nuclear energy projects to power datacenters, as are some utilities. Nuclear power is drawing renewed interest from other sectors too, like the military and even industrial manufacturers.