• THE GRID
The U.S. Grid Now Runs on Emergency Powers
Last Friday, the DOE issued yet another emergency order. This one was for Duke Energy in the Carolinas. A late-September heat wave. Not enough power. Risk of blackouts for 870,000 customers in South Carolina alone.
The order took effect on September 18. It expired September 21. Three days of borrowed time.
That order wasn't unusual. It was routine. And that's the scary part.
Since May 2025, the DOE has issued more than 40 Section 202(c) emergency orders. POWER Magazine counted 43 by early April of this year. Since then, more have followed — for PJM in July, for Duke again on September 3, and now September 18.
Each order uses the same tool. The Energy Secretary invokes a 1935 provision in the Federal Power Act. It forces plants — many of them coal — to keep running past their retirement dates. Ninety days at a time.
"Today's order will help secure reliable electricity access for millions of American families and businesses across North and South Carolina by making additional power generation, including backup power, available to use as needed."
Chaikin: This "White Swan" Could Eat Every Data Center in America starting 9/29/26
Every major AI firm now relies on massive data centers. But these monstrosities suck up our electricity. They drain our water supplies. They steal precious land. Yet AI companies are requesting 700 gigawatts of new electricity – enough to power every home in America!
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The Sierra Club tallied 43 of those orders aimed at six specific plants. Their estimated cost to ratepayers: over $546 million.
Meanwhile, the DOE has stalled the retirement of at least 4.4 gigawatts of coal. That's enough to power about 3.3 million homes. Plants that utilities planned to shut down are now required to stay on.
202(c) Orders Since May '25
43+
| Coal Kept Online
4.4 GW
|
Cost to Ratepayers
$546M+
| Duke Orders in Sept
2
|
Before May 2025, this authority had been used 20 times — total — going back to the year 2000. Most were for hurricanes or polar vortexes. Rare events.
Now it's a monthly habit. Heat wave? Emergency order. Maintenance season? Emergency order. Coal plant wants to close? Emergency order.
The grid isn't failing in one big crash. It's failing in slow motion, one 90-day extension at a time. Demand from data centers keeps climbing. Old plants keep aging. New plants can't get built fast enough.
When emergency powers become standard operating procedure, you don't have a grid — you have a prayer.
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• WIRED IN
Four Signals From the Build-Out
Quanta Services (PWR) posted Q2 revenue of $9.56 billion — up 41% from a year ago. Adjusted EPS hit $4.24. Total backlog reached a record $53.4 billion. The company raised its full-year revenue target to $39.3–$39.7 billion, up from the $34.7 billion–$35.2 billion range it guided earlier this year. Every metric was a beat. CEO Duke Austin called it "the compounding strength of our operating model."
Quanta didn't just post big numbers. It made a big move in the supply chain. In June, Quanta and South Korea's Hyosung Heavy Industries launched a joint venture to make high-voltage circuit breakers in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. The JV makes Hyosung the first Korean power-equipment maker with both transformer and breaker plants on U.S. soil. These breakers are rated up to 800 kV — the kind data centers and grid expansions need most.
Solaris Energy Infrastructure (SEI) posted Q2 revenue of $219.4 million, up 47% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $108.3 million. Power solutions — the segment that builds and runs generators for data center sites — surged 23% from Q1. Solaris raised its guidance for the rest of the year.
Equinor brought its biggest U.S. battery project online — the 100 MW / 200 MWh Citrus Flatts facility in Harlingen, Texas. It went live in early September. Equinor's trading arm, Danske Commodities, will manage dispatch. The company is already building four more battery projects in Virginia.
Every one of these signals points the same direction: the companies that build, wire, and store power are booking years of work — and the queue is only getting longer.
• VOLTAGE
Texas Batteries Are About to Change Who Sets the Price
ERCOT had 14 gigawatts of battery storage at the start of 2026. That was nearly double the 7.8 GW it had a year earlier.
By the end of 2027, the EIA projects that number will hit 37 GW.
That kind of jump changes how the market works. Batteries absorb cheap solar during the day. They discharge it in the evening when prices spike. The more batteries on the grid, the harder it is for gas peaker plants to set the price during those peaks.
Nationally, the story is just as big. U.S. utility-scale storage hit nearly 52 GW of nameplate capacity by June 2026. That's after adding 8.3 GW in just the first half of the year. EIA data shows 54 GW more is planned through 2028 — 14 GW in the second half of this year, 26 GW in 2027, and 14 GW in 2028.
If those plans hold, the U.S. will cross 105 GW of battery storage by the end of 2028.
Storage growth averaged 70% per year over the past three years, per the EIA. It's no longer a pilot program. It's an asset class.
The question for investors isn't whether batteries will scale. They already are. The question is what happens to the gas plants that used to own the evening price — because 37 gigawatts of Texas batteries are coming for their margin.
