Spain has created a capacity market. Order TED/966/2026, published on 15 September and in force since 18 September, pays batteries, power plants, and flexible demand a fixed monthly sum for being available during the hours when the grid is under stress.
Brussels approved the scheme in May for ten years and EUR 9 billion. New projects can win contracts of up to 15 years, which is the first revenue a Spanish battery developer can take to a bank without betting on price spreads. (pv magazine España)
Energy Transition
Rome overrules Sardinia on 110 MW of batteries
Italy's environment and energy ministry authorised two 55 MW, four-hour batteries at Ittiri in Sardinia for London-based Bluefield Partners on 22 September. The municipality and the regional landscape office had both objected.
The ministry has now signed off 2,374 MW since 1 September, 907 MW of it on a single day. In July the Sardinian government rejected a 470 MW project on agricultural grounds, so the fight over who decides where storage goes has not ended. (ESS News)
EDF's Nuward wants ten reactors in five countries
Nuward, EDF's small modular reactor subsidiary, told the IAEA General Conference in Vienna that it plans an initial fleet of ten units across France, Italy, Poland, Belgium, and Finland. Construction of the first would begin in 2030, with power from 2035.
The design has grown to 400 MW from 340 MWe and now rests on conventional pressurised water technology. Chief executive Julien Garrel says he wants it read as a European reactor rather than a French one, which is also how the Commission's March SMR strategy wants fleets built. (World Nuclear News)
Climate Tech
Google pays for Stegra's green steel before the first tonne exists
Google agreed on 17 September to buy environmental attribute certificates covering up to 91,000 tonnes of steel from Stegra's first year of production at Boden. The certificates are sold apart from the physical metal, so Google claims the lower emissions while the steel goes to whoever buys it.
Stegra closed EUR 1.4 billion in July to finish the plant, after first steel slipped more than once. Buyers willing to pay the green premium in advance are what hydrogen steel has lacked; ArcelorMittal dropped a subsidised German plant for want of a business case. (Google)
Salzgitter buys solar with a battery attached
Salzgitter Flachstahl signed a long-term supply deal with Zelestra for 147 MW of solar and 79 MW / 237 MWh of storage at two new sites in Brandenburg and Thuringia, about 158 GWh a year. The batteries charge only from the solar panels, and Salzgitter controls when they discharge.
The partners call it Germany's largest hybrid agreement of its kind. It feeds SALCOS, Salzgitter's hydrogen steel programme, whose later stages the company pushed back three years in 2025. The first stage is still due in 2027, and it is buying the power for it now. (ESS News)
CATL starts making cells in Hungary
CATL began trial production on the first two lines of its cell plant in Debrecen on 22 September, after a permitting process that drew complaints from residents. The Hajdú-Bihar county office inspected the site repeatedly before issuing the occupancy permit in August.
At full build the plant is meant to reach 100 GWh, CATL's largest outside China. The Net-Zero Industry Act wants Europe to make 40% of its own clean technology; Debrecen helps with the volume and not with the ownership. (energynews.pro)
Policy & Regulation
Brussels puts a label on data centres
The Commission adopted a delegated regulation on 21 September that sets up an EU rating scheme for data centres above 500 kW. It scores energy and water use, clean power added, waste heat reuse, and grid flexibility, with the first labels due in 2027.
EU data centres used 68 TWh in 2024 and are projected to reach 114 TWh by 2030. Minimum performance standards follow as a legislative proposal in the second quarter of 2027, after a consultation that closes on 14 December. (European Commission)
Von der Leyen names the fossil bill, not the exit
In her State of the Union on 16 September, Ursula von der Leyen said imported fossil fuels had cost the EU an extra EUR 90 billion since the Hormuz closure "without a single molecule of energy added". She repeated the 46% electrification target for 2040 and asked for more homegrown clean power, whatever the technology.
She did not commission the independent report on leaving fossil fuels that more than 200 organisations had asked for, and she set no phase-out date. Energy Cities, which represents local authorities, also points to the absence of a financing plan for the towns that will deliver the electrification. (Energy Cities)
Science
Emissions since Paris already make Europe's heatwaves hotter
A Stanford study in Geophysical Research Letters finds that greenhouse gases emitted since 2015 made Europe's hottest week of every year since at least 2021 measurably more intense. The June 2025 heatwave ran about 0.34°C hotter than the same weather would have been at 2015 emission levels.
The researchers trained a generative model on ten climate models to tie heat to one decade of emissions rather than to warming in general. Liability claims and adaptation budgets can use that kind of precision. (TIME)
Global fossil emissions are set to fall this year
Carbon Brief estimates global fossil-fuel CO2 will fall about 0.5% in 2026, the first annual decline outside a pandemic year. Oil demand is down 2.5 million barrels a day as the Hormuz crisis keeps prices high.
Coal use rose, partly in Europe where expensive gas pushed power systems back towards it, but not by enough to offset oil and gas. A drop driven by a war reverses when the war ends, unless the capacity that replaces imports gets built first. (Carbon Brief)
One to Watch
How much Spain counts a battery as firm
The capacity order leaves the key number to the first auction: a firmness coefficient per technology that decides how much of a battery's capacity gets paid. Developers say the scheme will unlock financing only once that number is known. (Energías Renovables)
Estimates for batteries run from 0.27 to 0.70, so the paid capacity of the same project could more than double. Red Eléctrica runs the auction, the Commission must approve the parameters, and the Almaraz nuclear extension to 2030 may push the first round back. (Review Energy)