Energy Evolution

By most conventional metrics, the European refining sector is in rude health. The Middle East conflict has driven key fuel price benchmarks to unprecedented heights, and refiners are running flat out to plug supply gaps left by disruptions to key Gulf exporters. In this episode, host Eklavya Gupte speaks to Kelly Norways, senior editor at S&P Global Energy Platts, who explains why the current boom has so far failed to shift many refiners' thinking about the long-term competitiveness of Europe as a fuel production hub, and why that disconnect threatens both the region's energy security and its ambitions for investment in low-carbon technologies. They explore how governments across the continent are responding to a wave of refinery closures that predates the conflict, whether the crisis has genuinely changed the political calculus in the region, and what it would actually take to unlock the scale of capital spending the sector needs to survive and decarbonize. We also hear from Elizabeth de Jong, CEO of Fuels Industry UK, a trade association representing the country's downstream sector. She sets out the industry's case to be included in the UK's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, explains why record refining margins represent a temporary distortion rather than a structural fix, and warns that without a decisive government signal on carbon costs and competitiveness, Europe risks emerging from this crisis in a weaker position than when it began.

Alongside a surge in data center construction, a growing protest movement has emerged in the US, with locals voicing concerns over electricity and water usage. Protests have put around 12 gigawatts of data center capacity at risk, analyst John Murray from S&P Global Energy tells the Energy Evolution podcast. To address concerns, tech firms need to improve transparency and deliver clear local benefits, said Darrell West, senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation within the Governance Studies program at think tank Brookings.

To answer questions on sustainability and power consumption, host Camilla Naschert is joined by Aaron Tinjum of trade association Data Center Coalition.

The news clip featured in this episode is from ABC News, July 19, 2026.

The EU wants to nearly double its electrification rate to 46% by 2040, a transformation that would slash fossil fuel imports by hundreds of billions of euros annually. In this episode of Energy Evolution, host Eklavya Gupte examines the EU's Electrification Action Plan and assesses whether Europe can realistically achieve it.

Coralie Laurencin, director of European gas, power and carbon policy at S&P Global Energy CERA, and Andreas Franke, editorial lead on European power markets at S&P Global Energy Platts, unpack the formidable challenges: stubbornly high electricity costs, taxation and subsidy structures, and massive grid investments needed to support surging demand.

The conversation breaks down which sectors will electrify fastest and which face steeper obstacles, from Germany's industrial power subsidies to France's nuclear-backed power contracts. As geopolitical instability threatens global supply chains, electrification has emerged as the EU's answer to energy security, climate ambition, and industrial competitiveness, but only if Brussels can make electricity both abundant and affordable.

Balcony or "plug-in" solar is rapidly gaining popularity, as it gives consumers who might not have easy access to distributed solar generation a straightforward way to deploy the technology and begin saving on their power bills. Meanwhile, as drivers transition to electric vehicles, the possibility of deploying the batteries as a flexible grid resource hooked up to bidirectional chargers is also growing.

These new technologies are allowing residential utility customers to take greater control over their electricity consumption and spending. But wider adoption has implications for grid safety and reliability, and several states are already moving to regulate and manage the addition of these resources.

In this episode, Dan Testa discusses these issues with Kirsten Errick, an S&P Global Energy reporter who covers renewables. Kirsten interviews Cora Stryker, co-founder of Bright Saver, a plug-in solar company, and Aseem Kapur, chief revenue officer at GM Energy.

In April 2026, the European Commission adopted interim guidance stipulating that solar and battery storage projects using inverters or power conversion systems sourced from high-risk countries would be ineligible for EU funding, citing concerns over cybersecurity and grid resilience. Among the affected countries is China, Europe's dominant supplier of clean energy technologies.

In this episode of Energy Evolution, host Eklavya Gupte is joined by Lena Dias Martins, electricity pricing reporter at S&P Global Energy Platts, to explore the implications of this policy for Europe's rapidly expanding solar and battery storage sectors.

They examine how markets have responded, which regions may be most affected, and whether viable alternatives to China-made inverters are available at scale.

The episode features Cormac Gilligan, director of clean technologies and supply chains at S&P Global Energy Horizons, who explains how the restrictions could signal the start of a broader global shift toward greater diversification of clean energy supply chains.

We also hear from Jan Krčmář, executive director of the Czech Solar Association, who shares the industry perspective on the practical challenges facing developers and installers, how the sector is responding to the new requirements, and what the changes could mean for solar deployment across Europe in the years ahead.

On July 14, grid operator PJM released the results of its latest capacity market auction for the 2028-2029 delivery year. Prices hit the federally approved cap of $325/megawatt-day, but the amount of procured capacity came up short of PJM's reliability requirement by 6.8 gigawatts.

In other words, prices went as high as they were allowed to go but still didn't incentivize enough generation to meet the reliability requirement PJM wanted. Although PJM has other options to secure that capacity, the results of this latest auction underscore mounting concerns about rising prices and reliability in the region managed by the grid operator, which provides electricity for 67 million people across 13 states. And power demand from data centers is contributing to these issues.

Joining Dan Testa on this episode to talk through some of these issues is Darren Sweeney, a senior reporter at S&P Global Energy. Sweeney interviews Paul Segal, CEO of LS Power, a private independent power producer with a major presence in PJM, and Tanya Peevey, an S&P Global Energy CERA analyst for North American power and renewables.

From his first day in office, President Donald Trump has exerted major shifts in US energy policy during his second term, including opposition to offshore wind projects, extending the lives of coal-fired power plants, withdrawing from climate treaties and war with Iran.

But with the midterm elections approaching, Democrats have an opportunity to regain power in Congress. So how are Democrats talking about energy and selling their own policies to convince voters they can do a better job addressing rising gasoline prices and utility bills? And how will issues like climate change and the Iran war impact campaigns this fall?

In this episode, Dan Testa discusses these issues with Mary Landrieu, a senior policy adviser at Van Ness Feldman LLP and former Democratic US senator from Louisiana, and Scott Segal, a partner at Bracewell LLP and a co-chair of the law firm's Policy Resolution Group.

Smart technology is rapidly redefining the debate over grid infrastructure. Rather than spending millions on new transformers, transmission lines and generation capacity, a growing consensus suggests the answer lies in using existing resources more intelligently.

In this episode, host Eklavya Gupte speaks with Devrim Celal, Chief Flexibility and Marketing Officer at Kraken Technologies, about how consumer devices are being transformed into virtual power plants managing gigawatts in real time.

Celal explains how Kraken coordinates nearly 8 gigawatts across half a million devices, from utility-scale batteries to home EV chargers, turning flexibility into the new currency of power markets. He discusses why the shift from thermal to renewable generation has created unprecedented volatility, and how time-of-use tariffs and smart optimization are unlocking consumer participation at scale.

The conversation also examines why batteries have become the fastest-growing energy technology globally, and how the dual pressures of electrification and data center growth are forcing a fundamental reimagining of the grid.

Traditionally, European power systems were engineered around a single imperative: survive the winter "Dunkelflaute," those prolonged cold, dark, windless stretches that push demand higher while renewable generation collapses. But rising summer temperatures are dismantling this assumption. Heat waves are forcing a fundamental recalibration of infrastructure investment, operational strategy and market design across the European power sector.

In this episode, host Eklavya Gupte speaks with Parth Goel, power analyst at S&P Global Energy CERA, about how extreme heat is reshaping demand patterns, straining supply and exposing vulnerabilities in the continent's energy infrastructure.

Goel explains why France, not Southern Europe, has emerged as the most price-sensitive region during heat waves, how solar generation creates dramatic price swings between midday troughs and evening peaks, and why Europe is shifting from a winter-peaking power system to a dual-peaking one.

The conversation also examines the compounding effects of drought on Alpine hydro, the thermal stress on nuclear cooling systems, and why summer now demands the same infrastructure planning attention as winter.

The clean energy investment landscape has undergone a fundamental reset. The era of zero interest rates has given way to a more disciplined environment where transmission access and power market fundamentals determine success or failure. In this episode, host Eklavya Gupte speaks with Declan Flanagan, founder and CEO of Bluestar Energy Capital, about how his company is responding to these shifts. Flanagan discusses how power pricing dynamics are reshaping technology choices and why certain markets like Germany are emerging as battery storage frontiers. He also examines how capex inflation, extended interconnection timelines and evolving demand profiles have rewritten the renewables investment playbook.