• THE GRID
Texas Broke Its Power Record. Then Topped the Old One 26 More Times. Prices Barely Moved.
91,090 megawatts. That was the load on ERCOT's grid on July 22. A new all-time record for Texas.
Then it got wild.
Over the next 34 days, daily peak demand topped the old 2024 record 26 times. From August 11 through August 23, it happened every single day. Thirteen straight days above a mark that stood for two years.
And electricity prices? They barely flinched.
ERCOT Peak Load
91.1 GW
| Days Above Old Record
26 of 34
|
ERCOT Capacity Added Since 2022
60 GW
| PJM Capacity Added Since 2022
22 GW
|
Forget SpaceX, this is Elon’s Next Breakthrough
While everyone was distracted with the recent SpaceX IPO…
Elon Musk quietly filed a patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to protect what I believe will be his next breakthrough…
Something he called “the greatest tech invention in history.”
Elon is predicting this new AI breakthrough will unleash…
A $1 quadrillion new wealth wave.
That’s more than 30 times bigger than the entire U.S. economy.
And just to give you an idea of how much wealth we're talking about...
That would be enough to send a check for $2.8 million to every single American.
Click here to see the details because I believe this invention will make a lot of people rich.
ERCOT's day-ahead prices during the heat wave ran just 15% above the rest of the summer. Compare that to PJM. When the East Coast grid hit near-record demand in late June, prices surged 90% above normal. On two days, they spiked past $1,000 per megawatt-hour.
Same problem. Two very different outcomes.
The reason is simple. Texas builds fast. Since 2022, ERCOT has added 60 GW of new power — mostly solar and batteries — through its "Connect and Manage" approach. PJM, which serves twice the peak load, added just 22 GW in the same span.
"Texas is experiencing exceptional growth and development, which is reshaping how large load demand is identified, verified, and incorporated into long-term planning."
Data centers are a big part of the story. Two substations next to the OpenAI Stargate campus in Abilene saw loads jump 400 MW this year. That's only a third of the campus's planned 1.2 GW build. More is coming.
But the real signal here isn't about heat waves. It's about which grid model can handle the data center era. ERCOT's fast-build, low-friction system kept the lights on and prices calm. PJM's slower queue choked under pressure.
The grid that builds fastest is the grid that wins. Right now, Texas is winning — and that's where the data center money will keep flowing.
This is where Elon Musk is housing an AI technology that Jeff Brown believes will help power the next monster IPO on Wall Street.
You see, while everyone was distracted by the SpaceX IPO…
Elon Musk quietly started backing a NEW AI startup that has been called…
"The fastest-growing business in the history of capitalism."
And Jeff will also show you how to claim a stake for as little as $50.
• VOLTAGE
America's Battery Fleet Just Passed 52 GW. It Grew 70% a Year to Get There.
Three years ago, utility-scale batteries were a niche bet. Today they are a core part of the American grid.
By June 2026, the U.S. had 52 GW of battery storage online. At the end of 2025, it was 43.6 GW. That's 8.4 GW added in just six months. And the pace over the past three years? About 70% growth per year.
The math is straightforward. Developers pair batteries with solar farms. They charge at noon when power is cheap. They sell at dusk when prices spike. That arbitrage model has turned battery storage from a science project into a cash machine.
California's Bellefield project shows the scale. It went live in December 2025 with 500 MW of solar and 500 MW of storage. Plans call for doubling both by November. If it hits that target, it will be the largest storage site in the country.
This is also why ERCOT held up so well this summer. Batteries and solar gave Texas enough cushion to absorb record demand without price shocks. PJM, with far fewer battery additions, had no such buffer.
The EIA says another 54 GW of batteries are in the pipeline through 2028. If even half of that gets built, U.S. storage will double again.
Batteries are no longer the backup plan. They're the plan.
• WIRED IN
Signals From the Grid
Anthropic signed a $45 billion, six-year cloud deal with Nscale. The AI lab will lease 460 MW of compute at Nscale's Monarch campus in West Virginia. The facility is set to come online by late 2027, with plans for up to 8 GW of total capacity. That's one AI company locking up more power than most mid-size cities use.
The builders keep building. MasTec posted record Q2 results — revenue hit $4.37 billion, up 23% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA rose 40%. Backlog swelled to $21.4 billion, a nearly $5 billion annual jump. The company raised full-year guidance to $18.2 billion in revenue and $9.30 in adjusted EPS.
On the defense side, Eaton won a $7 million Air Force contract to apply quantum computing and machine learning to grid security. The 24-month project with Infleqtion and Penn State targets physical and cyber threats to power infrastructure. Small dollar amount, but it signals where grid defense spending is headed.
And the nuclear play is evolving. Constellation invested in Blue Energy, a startup building prefabricated reactors with GE Vernova. The model: power a 1,600-acre Crusoe AI campus with gas starting in 2028, then switch to nuclear by 2031. Blue Energy has raised $380 million and plans early site work in Texas this year.
From a $45 billion lease to a $7 million defense contract — every signal this week points the same direction: power is the product, and every player is racing to sell it.
The Real Money Isn't in SpaceX Stock.
Every rocket SpaceX launches runs on parts, materials, and tech from other companies — most of them public, most of them cheap. Our analyst named 3 that profit from the space boom without the $135 IPO premium. Plus a bonus 4th pick and a buy/sell playbook.
