Blackouts? Berlin’s energy infrastructure was attacked by arsonists, setting fire to a critical station that caused a blackout for tens of thousands in the area. We’ve seen other physical attempts to disrupt the grid in the US and certainly impacts from climate events. The big risk remains the digital attacks and of course the demand greater than supply exercise that we are certainly ignoring at some regulatory and legislative levels. One of the places that I see a passive approach (and it shouldn’t be) is the cyber related risk to energy storage systems that have a ton of internal communications as well as the coordination between the asset and the grid operators and traders that rely on millisecond response capabilities.
- Bloomberg: Blackout Reveals Germany’s Infrastructure Vulnerabilities
- Utility Dive: ERCOT’s large load queue jumped almost 300% last year
- Axios: Six energy trends for 2026: Affordability, AI and abundance
- PV-Tech: UNSW: Up to one-fifth of solar PV modules degrade 1.5 times faster than average
- Renewable Energy World: PJM capacity auction hits price cap again as region falls short of reliability target
- Energy Storage News: Australian battery storage projects attract international lenders in year-end financing spree
- PV-Magazine: T1 Energy completes $160 million sale of production tax credits
Opinion
Best, Yann