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NextEra US Growth, Equinor $1B Loss
Allen discusses NextEra Energy’s growth potential amid the new tax bill, Equinor’s financial setback in US offshore wind projects, and Statkraft’s strategic shift due to falling electricity prices. Additional highlights include Wisconsin’s approval of its first long-duration energy storage project, Jupiter Bach’s facility expansion in Florida, and record electricity prices in the US power auction.
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US Renewable Energy Leader NextEra Energy says Trump’s new tax bill will help the company grow despite concerns about renewable energy credits.
The Florida energy giant told investors it can protect most of its wind and solar projects from losing tax credits under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
NextEra President John Ketchum says the company is already building so many projects that it can lock in tax benefits through twenty twenty nine.
Ketchum believes smaller energy companies will struggle to meet the new deadline of July fourth twenty twenty six.
That will likely mean less competition and more business for NextEra.
Of course, Wall Street analysts are skeptical. Analysts from Jefferies wrote there is a clear long-term challenge ahead for the company.
NextEra has signed contracts for three point two gigawatts of new projects since April. And the company is also exploring nuclear energy and small modular reactors.
Norwegian energy company Equinor is taking a nearly one billion dollar loss on its US offshore wind projects.
The company reported a nine hundred fifty five million dollar impairment in the second quarter. Most of that money is linked to the Empire Wind project off New York and a marine terminal in Brooklyn.
Equinor says regulatory changes in the United States have reduced future profits and increased costs for offshore wind projects.
Despite the financial hit, Equinor says it is moving forward with Empire Wind One. The company also completed financing for two offshore wind projects in Poland.
The company says it remains committed to growing its renewable energy business.
Wisconsin regulators have approved the first long-duration energy storage project of its kind in the United States.
Alliant Energy will build the Columbia Energy Storage Project using a new carbon dioxide battery system designed by Energy Dome.
The project will provide enough electricity to power eighteen thousand Wisconsin homes for ten hours on a single charge.
Raja Sundararajan from Alliant Energy says the project will strengthen the power grid and help meet growing energy needs.
The Energy Dome system works by converting carbon dioxide gas into compressed liquid for storage. When electricity is needed, the liquid turns back to gas and powers a turbine. Currently Energy Dome has a system running in Italy.
Construction in Wisconsin will begin in twenty twenty six and the project should be completed by the end of twenty twenty seven.
The storage system is part of Alliant Energy’s long-term plan to expand power generation with a balanced mix of energy sources.
Norwegian energy company Statkraft took a three billion dollar hit on its wind power projects due to falling electricity prices.
The company reported strong power generation in the second quarter but said lower prices in northern Norway and Sweden hurt profits.
Statkraft President Birgitte Ringstad Vartdal says the company is refocusing its strategy after a period of high energy prices following the Russian war in Ukraine.
The company is streamlining operations and focusing on fewer technologies and markets. Statkraft has stopped new development of green hydrogen projects and most offshore wind activities.
The changes will include job cuts as the company aims to reduce costs by two point nine billion dollars annually by twenty twenty seven.
Statkraft plans to invest sixteen to twenty billion dollars per year in hydropower upgrades in Norway and new onshore wind projects in Norway and Sweden.
And Jupiter Bach is investing more than four million dollars to expand its wind turbine manufacturing facility.
Jupiter Bach is spending funds on a twenty thousand square foot expansion of its manufacturing plant.
The new facility will include production systems designed to reduce waste and improve efficiency. The company is also adding point-of-use warehousing to organize materials more effectively.
Jupiter Bach has built more than seventy thousand wind turbines worldwide. The company says the expansion will help set industry standards for lowering wind power costs.
Originally scheduled to open a few months ago it appears the new facility is set to open at the end of the month — congrats to everyone at Jupiter Bach.
Electricity prices in the biggest US power auction jumped twenty two percent to record highs as demand continues to outstrip supply.
The PJM Interconnection auction cleared at three hundred twenty nine dollars and seventeen cents per megawatt day. That is the highest price ever recorded in the auction.
PJM operates the largest power grid in North America, covering thirteen states and the District of Columbia. The network includes one in five Americans and Virginia’s data center alley.
The surge in electricity demand is driven by big tech companies building data centers. This has created a supply shortage that is driving up prices.
Power company stocks rose on the news. Talen Energy shares jumped more than nine percent. Constellation Energy rose over five percent.
The auction results will affect electricity bills starting next summer. PJM says home and business bills will rise one point five to five percent.
Environmental groups criticized the results, saying PJM has failed to quickly connect new renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.
That’s this week’s top stories.
Stay tuned to the uptime wind energy podcast tomorrow.
https://weatherguardwind.com/nextera-equinor/
Weather Guard Lightning Tech
As Europe Shuns Chinese Turbines and Components, Who Will Fill the Gap?
While most of Europe has spent most of this year itemizing reasons it cannot, should not, and will not use Chinese wind turbines or components, accusations and arm-twisting tactics have garnered most of the attention.
But we invite you to consider a future – maybe just five, or ten years from now?- in which those same countries and companies are eagerly awaiting orders from wind turbine manufacturing facilities in… India.
What?!
You know that the country has a lot of installed wind.
You may think – and many in the industry would agree – that India’s blade manufacturers are a few revs behind blade-makers elsewhere in the world. But the country is newly committed to manufacturing and it’s busy installing more – provided that it’s made in India, with Indian technology, by Indian workers.
Of course, similar domestic-focused policy currents are running through European countries – where wind OEMs are almost inarguably a decade ahead of Indian manufacturers. But there’s an important reason why we say, “watch India” in wind turbine manufacturing.
It’s because you might learn something.
If you follow The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, you probably heard this discussion a few weeks ago. It wasn’t the headline story – we try to highlight as many major news items and trends that we can, and follow up as credible information becomes available. India’s quiet moves to strengthen its own renewable energy industries didn’t grab the headlines. But it comprised a good bit of our panelists’ discussion.
With India’s expanding manufacturing capacity, and Suzlon’s strategic offerings for the European market (Blue Sky), there are reasons for European developers to take a closer look at Indian manufacturers.
If Europe continues to squelch deals with Chinese manufacturers due to data security issues, India is a relatively obvious candidate to fill the void, for several reasons:
- The country has depth and breadth in R&D: India (Suzlon, specifically) has a track record of involvement and relationships across the continent, as it operates research and development centers in Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark.
- Indian service providers have reach: Inox and Adoni Wind operate multiple wind turbine manufacturing plants and wind farms throughout several Indian states, and Apraava Energy has been commissioning wind projects, working with multiple OEMs, for more than 16 years.
- The country’s energy sector has size: Tata Power is estimated to be worth about US$16 billion and employs 22,000 people.
And major manufacturers from other countries have had a strong presence in the country for years:
- GE Vernova has turbine blade and nacelle manufacturing operations and multiple tech/R&D centers in India;
- Vestas has a R&D technology center in Chennai; and
- China’s SANY Wind has had assembly facilities in India since 2017, and in 2024, it signed a licensing agreement with JSW allowing SANY to manufacture blades and generators for JSW – enabling JSW Neo Energy to produce wind turbine generators and major components in-country.
So while there is hard data suggesting that India is already a global hub for wind turbines, sometimes the real strength comes from soft skills. Like sharing information.
We’ve noticed that Indian manufactures aren’t stingy with information. They share what they learn in the field and on the shop floor, so that the whole industry can move faster to solve problems. That bodes well for the industry overall, and particularly well for companies who figure out how to solve problems that some manufacturers aren’t even ready to admit to having.
We’ll be watching India with a great deal of interest in the coming months. Subscribe to The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast and follow along with us.
We’re not financial analysts. We’re engineers who watch the wind industry very closely. This is what we’ve noticed, and we thought it was worth sharing.
Where do you think you’ll be looking for solutions, components, and service providers in the next few years or the next decade? Tell us what you think. We’d love to hear from you.
As Europe Shuns Chinese Turbines and Components, Who Will Fill the Gap?
To the author of the meme here:
“Either” refers to two choices; “any” refers to three or more.
More importantly, it’s amazing how shamelessly the ultra-right wing exaggerates. The left side of the Democratic party would like to see the United States look like social democracies in places like Scandinavia. Having government programs that benefit the common person, e.g., Social Security, public schools, emergency relief, libraries, environmental responsibility, etc., does not equate to Stalinism.
Some of my old prep school chums from the Class of 1973 convene via Zoom approximately every six weeks for a 90-minute discussion of current events, science, and anything else that sounds interesting.
Our professions range from medicine, law, finance, and business management. All from highly ranked colleges. Over 50% hold doctorate degrees.
Here’s something I find fascinating about the group: it includes one right-wing conservative. I don’t mean a Reaganite; I mean a Trump supporter. This guy is incapable of any thought that doesn’t come directly from Nexsmax.
It’s almost eerie how closely he toes the line of the far-right. Yesterday he echoed the Newsmax talking point and told the group that all Muslims holding public office are “very dangerous” and should be removed.
Now, the rest of us are sitting there, dumbfounded at this idea, unwilling waste our breath on this racist and utterly preposterous concept.
All this raises the question: How are our political viewpoints formed? How much of this is genetics? Epigenetics? Early childhood experiences? How do take a boy from among the best environments and turn him into someone who struggles to understand the most basic principles on which our country was founded?
https://www.2greenenergy.com/2026/11/09/principles-country-was-founded/
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