Energy

Bloomberg Natural gas is about to get a glimpse of its future role in the US power mix as solar energy’s backup. During the upcoming August 21 eclipse, operators of giant solar fields from California to the Carolinas will cede market share to fast-start natural gas generators as well as hydroelectric plants and other sources to fill the gaps as …

Bloomberg Centrica Plc, Britain’s biggest supplier of power and natural gas, wants the nation to retain influence on European Union energy policy after Brexit because the country’s prices will be set by neighboring markets. “Our imports are growing and prices are set by the European market,” said Iain Conn, chief executive officer of the Windsor, England-based utility that last week …

Bloomberg Five years ago, commodities trader Wayne Bryan hardly considered Britain’s famously overcast skies when buying and selling UK natural gas. Now he can’t afford to ignore them. Within the last year, the sun has taken on new-found importance across the cloudy island nation with photovoltaic cells providing as much as a quarter of the UK’s daily power supply on …

Bloomberg With a multibillion-dollar nuclear project in South Carolina dead, the fate of America’s nuclear renaissance now rests on one utility: Southern Co. Scana Corp dropped plans for two reactors Monday, leaving the two that Southern is building at the Vogtle plant in Georgia as the only ones under construction in the US. And even they are under threat: The …

Bloomberg Cheniere Energy Inc., the only company sending America’s shale gas overseas, has begun liquefying the fuel at a fourth plant, keeping the company on a track that will double its export capacity this year. The plant at Cheniere’s Sabine Pass complex in Louisiana is chilling and condensing gas into a liquid so it can be loaded onto tankers, a …

Bloomberg Alphabet Inc.’s secretive X skunk works has another idea that could save the world. This one, code named Malta, involves vats of salt and antifreeze. The research lab, which hatched Google’s driverless car almost a decade ago, is developing a system for storing renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted. It can be located almost anywhere, has the potential …

Bloomberg Energy Capital Partners, the private equity firm that owns the largest stake in US power generator Dynegy Inc., is now in advanced talks to buy its rival Calpine Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. Energy Capital may announce a deal to buy the Houston-based company as soon as next week, said the people, who asked not to …

Bloomberg North Carolina passed a clean-energy bill that could spur a wave of new solar projects in the country’s second-biggest solar state — but at the expense of wind. House Bill 589, which Governor Roy Cooper has signed, places a moratorium on new wind development through December 2018. The law creates a competitive bidding process that will bring more than …

Bloomberg Two Indian states at the forefront of adding renewables to their power mix are backtracking on agreements for at least one gigawatt of wind projects and are seeking lower prices, potentially dealing a blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s green energy goals. The southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, which account for a quarter of the country’s installed …

Bloomberg Petroliam Nasional Bhd.’s decision to back out of a giant gas-export project on Canada’s Pacific Coast is the latest hit to the country’s energy sector — and to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan of balancing energy exports and climate action. The Malaysian state-run oil and natural gas producer cited an “extremely challenging environment” of low prices and other changes …