Sonal Patel

Advanced nuclear investment surged in 2025 as Radiant, Last Energy, and ARC Clean Technology closed major funding rounds tied to SMR and microreactor deployment.

X-energy secured a binding reservation with Doosan Enerbility to manufacture key components for 16 Xe-100 SMRs, alongside plans for a new SMR fabrication facility.

A rapid succession of Section 202(c) emergency orders has forced utilities to keep more than 2 GW of coal capacity online across multiple regions, marking an unprecedented federal intervention in grid operations and triggering legal challenges from states and environmental groups.

The world has firmly crossed into the “Age of Electricity.” That is a unifying finding in the International Energy Agency's (IEA's) 2025 edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO) which shows a global power sector being reshaped simultaneously by surging demand, a geographic pivot in consumption, record solar manufacturing capacity, a wave of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export development, heightened energy security concerns, and a widening gap between generation deployment and grid readiness.

Household electricity use is set to climb sharply through 2035 as electrification expands, shifting power system costs toward capital-intensive

News briefs curated from December 2025 by the editors of POWER, highlighting key developments across global power markets, technology, finance, and energy infrastructure.

Analysts still see multi-year deficits in U.S. transformer supply, even as equipment manufacturers invest billions in new factories and advanced manufacturing processes. But some brokers suggest there is no real shortage and that, if there is a crisis, it stems from procurement blinders.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued its first production-scale task orders under a $2.7-billion uranium enrichment program launched in 2024, awarding $900 million each to Centrus Energy Corp., General Matter, and Orano Federal Services to expand domestic capacity for conventional low-enriched uranium (LEU) and high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) over the next decade.

Eavor's Geretsried project marks the first time a closed-loop geothermal system has delivered electricity to a commercial power grid, demonstrating a new pathway for advanced geothermal deployment.

Meta's suite of three landmark agreements is poised to provide the financial certainty to extend aging plants, accelerate first-of-a-kind advanced reactor deployments, and relieve PJM's tightening capacity constraints while establishing the hyperscaler as an anchor customer for a 6.6-GW corporate-backed nuclear fleet.