As utilities accelerate electrification and demand-side management efforts, the need for grid-interactive, energy efficient, and customer-centric products has grown exponentially. To help identify and promote solutions capable of meeting this need, the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE), a nonprofit consortium with membership representing more than 70% of all energy efficiency program administrators in the United States and Canada, established the Integrated Home Competition (IHC). The latest IHC Grand Prize winner, the Flair Bridge Pro, offers a unique approach to meeting these goals by better enabling control of a range of often-underserved electrified loads.  Over the IHC’s five-year history, a consistent challenge has emerged: while heat pumps have become a cornerstone of electrification planning, much of the existing residential heating and cooling landscape remains difficult to integrate into existing load management frameworks. Specifically, much of today’s load management infrastructure remains designed around central HVAC architectures, with limited support for non-ducted and hybrid systems. In reality, millions of homes rely on boilers, electric baseboards, mini splits, PTACs, and other non-ducted systems. These systems represent a significant share of residential electric heating and cooling load, yet they remain difficult to integrate into energy efficiency, demand response, and load management programs. For utilities, this creates a growing blind spot: a large, potentially flexible load that is effectively unservable with traditional control approaches. The “messy middle” of electrification Electrification is rarely a clean, one-system transition. Across much of North America, homeowners with traditional heating systems are increasingly adding heat pumps to boilers or electric resistance heating systems — including for home additions and the conversion of non-ducted spaces — creating hybrid configurations that aim to balance cost, comfort, and overall system performance. For many homes, these hybrid systems function as a transitional approach to electrification, enabling meaningful emissions reductions without a full system replacement. From

Why getting AI‑ready is now critical Electric and water utilities are entering an era of higher demand, aging infrastructure, workforce constraints, extreme weather, and rising expectations from regulators and customers. Deloitte’s latest industry outlook notes mounting reliability pressure as utilities race to deliver firm capacity while modernizing grids and balancing affordability—conditions that make smarter operations and faster decisions indispensable. At the same time, leaders are recognizing that AI will only deliver its full value when built on a foundation of trusted data and governance. Accenture’s Technology Vision Utilities research finds that “74% of utility executives believe that AI’s full potential can only be realized when it is built on a foundation of trust.”  For utilities—where safety, compliance, and service continuity are non‑negotiable—being “AI‑ready” isn’t a buzzword; it’s a critical corporate strategy. How to get AI‑ready: Build data trust across the full information lifecycle for utilities A practical approach to becoming AI-ready starts with a trusted data foundation: Unify, govern, and activate enterprise information so AI operates with context, auditability, and confidence. This framework spans five capabilities—discover, derive insights, manage, protect, monitor—that utilities can apply across assets, operations, customer service, and compliance. DiscoverSurface and connect the data hiding in silos—engineering files, asset histories, SCADA logs, work orders, permits, and customer records—so it’s accessible and searchable. Discovery establishes lineage and metadata so teams know what information exists and where it came from. Derive insightsTurn raw content into intelligence with analytics and AI to spot patterns (leaks, outages, transformer stress), predict failures, and optimize crews. OpenText’s data discovery and analytics tools are designed to handle petabyte‑scale information and create auditable, explainable outputs that operations can trust. ManageGovern content and data across lifecycles—from engineering drawings to maintenance records, supply chain information, and financial controls—to ensure the right context, access controls, retention, and interoperability. Unifying

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Energy today issued two emergency orders to mitigate blackouts in New England and Texas during Winter Storm Fern. Issued pursuant to Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, the orders authorize ISO New England Inc. (ISO-NE) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to run specified resources located within the ISO-NE region and ERCOT region, regardless of limits established by environmental permits or state law. The orders will help ISO-NE and ERCOT with the extreme temperatures and storm impacts across the Northeast and Texas and reduce costs for Americans during the winter storm. This is the second emergency order issued to ERCOT during Winter Storm Fern following an order issued yesterday to leverage backup generation at data centers and other industrial sites.  “As Winter Storm Fern brings extreme cold and dangerous conditions across the country, maintaining affordable, reliable, and secure power is non-negotiable,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “The previous administration’s energy subtraction policies weakened the grid, leaving Americans more vulnerable during events like Winter Storm Fern. Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we are reversing those failures and using every available tool to keep the lights on and Americans safe through this storm.”  On day one, President Trump declared a national energy emergency after the Biden administration’s energy subtraction agenda left behind a grid increasingly vulnerable to blackouts. According to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), “Winter electricity demand is rising at the fastest rate in recent years,” while the premature forced closure of reliable generation such as coal and natural gas plants leaves American families vulnerable to power outages. The NERC 2025 – 2026 Winter Reliability Assessment further warns that areas across the continental United States have an elevated risk of blackouts during extreme weather conditions.   Power outages cost the American people $44 billion per year, according to data from DOE’s National Laboratories. These orders will help mitigate power outages in New England and Texas and highlights the commonsense policies of the Trump Administration to ensure an affordable and reliable energy system.  The

India’s liquefied natural gas importers are holding up some deals spanning decades as they push to lock in cheaper prices, hoping that a surge in supply will tilt negotiations in their favor. Major buyers including Gail India Ltd. and Bharat Petroleum Corp. have been pushing for lower prices and more flexible long-term contracts, leaving discussions with LNG producers stalled for more than a year, according to people familiar with the matter. That approach could be rewarded if prices drop as new projects from the US to Qatar come online. The talks will be a key topic at India Energy Week, which kicks off on Tuesday and will be attended by major producers including Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. and TotalEnergies SE. These companies have invested billions of dollars in massive export plants and new supply on the bet that demand in Asia, including India, will rise for years as the region powers fast-growing industries and transitions away from dirtier fossil fuels. India for years had a goal of gas making up 15 percent of its energy mix by 2030, roughly double the current level. However, the country has struggled to progress toward the target due in part to LNG being too expensive for consumers. Annual imports have essentially plateaued since 2020, with Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine upending the market and sending prices to an all-time high. That dynamic could begin to shift. Global LNG capacity is set to rise by about 50 percent by the end of the decade – the biggest build-out in the industry’s history. Indian buyers are looking for long-term supply contracts from around 2028, near when that wave peaks, according to the people, who asked not to be named as they aren’t authorized to speak with media. Gail and BPCL didn’t respond to a request for comment. India’s

NewMed Energy LP and OMV Petrom SA have consummated the sale of 10 percent in the Han Asparuh exploration block on Bulgaria’s side of the Black Sea to state-owned Bulgarian Energy Holding EAD (BEH) in compliance with a government order. The Bulgarian parliament had directed the Energy Ministry to negotiate the transfer of up to 20 percent of the license to a government-owned corporation, according to NewMed Energy. Operator OMV Petrom, an integrated energy company with investments from Austria’s state-backed OMV AG and the Romanian government, and 50-50 co-venturer NewMed Energy, an Israeli natural gas-focused explorer and producer, agreed to sell five percent each to BEH. “All of the conditions precedent were satisfied and the transaction was closed”, NewMed Energy LP said in a brief stock filing. In its earlier announcement of the sale agreement, NewMed Energy said the three companies agreed to work with authorities “in connection with amendments to the ordinance for determining the concession royalty payments for the production of underground resources and extension of the period of the appraisal drillings in the project to two years in lieu of one year”. As part of the amendment process, the Bulgarian Energy Ministry released last month a draft of new regulations for determining royalty payments, “which are determined by multiplying the economic value of annual production by the royalty rate payable to the government”, NewMed Energy said. “It is further proposed to establish in the draft regulations a minimum annual royalty payment obligation”, NewMed Energy added. BEH has agreed to pay OMV Petrom and NewMed Energy its proportionate share of the cost of drilling preparations that the two had already undertaken, NewMed Energy said. Han Asparuh has a two-well campaign costing around EUR 170 million ($201.26 million), according to OMV Petrom. In an online update December 15, 2025

Iberdrola SA has completed a transaction selling its Hungarian business for EUR 171 million ($202.45 million) to a consortium of iG TECH Capital Investment Fund Management Ltd and Premier Energy PLC. The divestment of Iberdrola Renovables Magyarország KFT is part of Iberdrola’s strategy to refocus investment on markets that it considers to have more stable regulatory frameworks. The assets sold comprised 158 megawatts (MW) of operational wind generation capacity. “Of this total capacity, 124 MW are already selling their energy on the open market after completing the 15-year regulated tariff period, while the remaining 34 MW will do so in less than one year”, the Bilbao, Spain-based power and gas utility said in a statement on its website. “Through this transaction, the Group has received a total of EUR171 million, including the price of the company’s shares (EUR 128 million) and a dividend distributed prior to completion (EUR 43 million)”, Iberdrola said. Nicosia, Cyprus-based Premier Energy had acquired Iberdrola’s Romanian business for EUR 88 million in 2024. The business, called Eolica Dobrogea One, had 80 MW operational wind capacity, according to an Iberdrola press release April 29, 2024. Iberdrola said of its exit from Hungary, “This transaction forms part of Iberdrola’s strategy to focus its investments on its core businesses – mainly regulated networks or generation with long-term contracts – and on key markets such as the United States and the United Kingdom”. Iberdrola has raised its investment plan through 2028 from EUR 41 billion to EUR 58 billion, with the UK allotted the biggest chunk at EUR 20 billion. “This plan aims to transform Iberdrola’s profile into a more regulated company, with networks as a vector for growth”, executive chair Ignacio Galan said in the company’s online announcement of the plan September 24, 2025. “We will invest EUR 58 billion by 2028, two-thirds of which will go