CenterPoint Energy will deploy 15 large mobile generators to the San Antonio area to help reduce the risk of energy shortfalls this summer, the Texas utility said Monday. Installation of the first five units has begun and the remaining 10 will be installed in the coming weeks. The move “will immediately lower monthly bills for our Houston-area customers,” Jason Ryan, CenterPoint’s executive vice president of regulatory services and government affairs, said in a statement. The deployment is expected to reduce bills for Houston-area customers by approximately $2/month by 2027, the utility said. The generators range from 27 MW to 32 MW and were acquired following Winter Storm Uri, which devastated the Texas grid in 2021. CenterPoint subsequently came under fire when the mobile units were not deployed after Hurricane Beryl last summer.  The utility opted to forego some profits associated with the mobile generation lease, amid the controversy. “CenterPoint will receive no revenue or profit from the 15 large units based on the agreement” with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the utility said Monday. According to the June agreement, ERCOT determined that the proposed retirement of CPS Energy’s V.H. Braunig Units 1, 2, and 3 “poses a significant risk” to its system because those units “help to mitigate risk of cascading outages associated with the post-contingency overload of certain transmission lines importing power into the greater San Antonio area.” ERCOT recommended Unit 3 continue operating under a reliability must-run agreement, but said CenterPoint’s mobile fleet “could help further mitigate the identified reliability risks more cost-effectively than committing V.H. Braunig Units 1 and 2 through RMR agreements.” According to CenterPoint, it’s generators will deliver approximately $200 million of value to the state’s grid. The agreement with ERCOT indicates the generators could run until March 2027. In the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl,

In early May, sources from within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported that the federal government intended to end its long-running Energy Star program for energy-efficient appliances, according to the New York Times — spelling the possible end of a widely used voluntary tool in the multifamily industry.  The sunset of the Energy Star program would be part of a larger agency initiative to eliminate divisions that oversee efforts related to climate change and energy efficiency, as reported by the New York Times. As of now, the program is still active, and no further reports or official announcements have been made on its status.  Energy Star has saved consumers and businesses $500 billion in energy costs since its founding in 1992, according to the program’s 2023 report. On a yearly basis, it creates roughly $40 billion in energy savings at a cost of $32 million to taxpayers, according to the Institute for Market Transformation, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit focused on high-quality buildings. The program counts thousands of private organizations as its partners, including nearly 40% of Fortune 500 companies, according to the report. Its Sustained Excellence award winners, recognized for years or decades of support, include a number of multifamily companies: Houston-based Hines, Dallas-based CBRE, New York City-based Nuveen Real Estate and New York City-based Tishman Speyer, among others. Since media reports surfaced last month about the program’s demise, more than 1,200 organizations have signed letters appealing to the EPA to continue the Energy Star program, according to the IMT. “The real estate industry is really aligned … on the idea that it is essential to maintain the Energy Star program within the federal government,” Alex Dews, CEO of the IMT, told Multifamily Dive. “It is a public good that cannot be replicated in the same way outside of government.”

Jigar Shah is managing partner at Multiplier, an advisory firm, and former director of the U.S. Department of Energy Loan Programs Office. The United States is facing an unprecedented surge in electricity demand, projected to grow by more than 150 GW by 2030, rivaling energy expansions seen only during World War II. Our power grid must evolve faster than ever. The recent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruling and the submission of a revised fast-track interconnection process by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator underscore the critical need for innovative, scalable solutions that enhance resource adequacy. One path forward lies in utility-led distributed energy resources (DERs), a model exemplified by Xcel Energy’s Distributed Capacity Procurement (DCP) program included in its 2024 integrated resource plan and mirrored by utility battery storage proposals from Exelon’s Maryland utilities in PJM. These programs highlight how utilities can approach deploying DERs like solar and storage up to ten times faster than traditional virtual power plant approaches, addressing load growth with precision, speed and scale. Distributed energy resources have often been underused due to lack of predictability of use and the random siting of assets, issues that utility-led programs directly solve by integrating DERs into system planning. By strategically siting, deploying and dispatching distributed assets, utilities can provide flexible capacity that smooths peak demand, defers or replaces costly combustion turbines and peaker plants, and minimizes expensive transmission and distribution upgrades as demand grows rapidly. This flexible, modular approach also narrows the uncertainty band around new generation buildout, enabling capacity to scale alongside real-time load growth while supporting economic expansion and community development. As DERs move from being mere “backup” resources to becoming the “backbone” of the power system, they provide an energy-dense, resilient and cost-stabilizing solution. The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2025 “Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Virtual Power

Chevron Corp. has acquired two leaseholds in the Smackover Formation spanning about 125,00 net acres, saying the purchases mark the first step in its establishment of a commercial-scale lithium business in the United States. The acreage positions, from East Texas Natural Resources LLC and The Energy & Minerals Group’s TerraVolta Resources, straddle Northeast Texas and Southwest Arkansas, Chevron said. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in 2024 reported 5-19 million metric tons of lithium reserves in Southwest Arkansas’ portion of Smackover, based on a study led by the government-run agency. “Future development will aim to utilize the direct lithium extraction process, a set of advanced technologies employed to extract lithium from brines produced from the subsurface”, Chevron said in a press release. “Chevron seeks to deploy this emerging technology, which allows for faster and more efficient production and is expected to have a smaller environmental footprint compared to traditional extraction methods”. “Lithium is a key component supporting the trend toward electrification and can contribute to building a resilient, lower carbon energy system that meets growing energy demand, while balancing reliability and affordability”, the oil and gas giant added. Jeff Gustavson, president of Chevron New Energies, said, “This acquisition represents a strategic investment to support energy manufacturing and expand U.S.-based critical mineral supplies. Establishing domestic and resilient lithium supply chains is essential not only to maintaining U.S. energy leadership but also to meeting the growing demand from customers”. “This opportunity builds on many of Chevron’s strengths including subsurface resource development and value chain integration”, Gustavson added. “As demand for digital conveniences and EVs continues to increase, lithium has become one of the world’s most sought-after natural resources”, said Rania Yacoub, corporate business development manager at Chevron New Energies. According to the USGS, the lower end of the estimate for lithium reserves in Southwest

TotalEnergies SE, as a shareholder of North Sea OFW One GmbH, has obtained an offshore concession that could enable one gigawatt (GW) of wind power capacity on Germany’s side of the North Sea. The N-9.4 concession spans about 141 square kilometers (54.44 square miles). It is around 150 kilometers northwest of the island of Heligoland according to TotalEnergies. N-9.4 is near RWE AG and TotalEnergies’s N-9.1 and N-9.2 sites. TotalEnergies intends to “prioritize the development of this cluster and leverage synergies to optimize construction and operating costs for the benefit of its customers”, it said in a press release. “As part of this award, Offshore Wind One GmbH will pay EUR 18 million to the German federal government in 2026, which will be allocated to marine conservation and the promotion of environmentally friendly fishing practices”, the French company added. “In addition, an annual contribution of EUR 8.1 million will be paid for 20 years to the electricity transmission system operator responsible for connecting the project, starting from the commissioning of the site. “Furthermore, considering the longer delays in the connection timelines announced by the German transmission system operators, TotalEnergies has launched a strategic review of the various concessions obtained since 2023, with a view to engaging in dialogue with the German authorities to explore the conditions of their possible developments”. In 2024 TotalEnergies acquired a 50 percent stake in N-9.1 and N-9.2 from RWE, which won the areas August that year. They are located approximately 110-115 kilometers northwest of the island of Borkum according to RWE. The projects each have a 2-GW capacity. The partners expect to approve N-9.1 in 2027 and N-9.2 in 2028 and commission the farms 2031 and 2032 respectively. Last April TotalEnergies said it had completed the acquisition of VSB Group, a Germany-focused wind and solar developer.

TotalEnergies SE and QatarEnergy have secured an exploration area spanning 14,900 square kilometers (5,752.92 square miles) onshore Algeria. The Ahara license, awarded under the North African country’s 2024 bidding round, sits at the “intersection of the prolific Berkine and Illizi Basins”, TotalEnergies said in a press release. France’s TotalEnergies will serve as operator with a 24.5 percent stake during the exploration and appraisal phases. State-owned QatarEnergy also owns 24.5 percent. Algeria’s national oil and gas company Sonatrach SpA has the majority stake of 51 percent in accordance with Algerian law. Ahara marks QatarEnergy’s entry into Algeria’s upstream sector, QatarEnergy said separately. For TotalEnergies the license expands a footprint that already includes producing licenses. Algeria contributed 154 million cubic feet a day of gas and 21,000 barrels per day of liquids to TotalEnergies’ 2024 production, according to the company’s annual report. Last year TotalEnergies and Sonatrach signed a memorandum of understanding to conclude a hydrocarbon contract in the north-east Timimoun region. “This Memorandum of Understanding outlines the realization of a work program for the appraisal and development of gas resources in the North-East Timimoun region, in synergy with existing processing facilities for production from the Timimoun field, to reduce costs and emissions”, TotalEnergies said in a press release April 8, 2024. TotalEnergies and Sonatrach also extended a contract for the delivery of Algerian LNG to the French port of Fos-Cavaou near Marseille until 2025. That extension involves two million metric tons of LNG. In 2023 TotalEnergies and Sonatrach signed an agreement to raise gas production in the Tin Fouye Tabankort II and Tin Fouye Tabankort Sud fields in the south of Algeria. The projects include the drilling of more wells and the upgrade of existing facilities. “The combined production of the two fields is expected to exceed 100,000 boe [barrels of