Energy Update | Week 3 – Oct 2025: NY Grid Strains, U.S. Fusion Plan & Amazon’s Nuclear Move

Energy Future: Powering Tomorrow’s Cleaner World with Peter Kelly-Detwiler explores the forces reshaping the global energy landscape — from grid reliability in the U.S. to renewable breakthroughs in Europe and Asia. Each episode dives into the week’s most important developments across clean energy, power markets, EVs, nuclear innovation, hydrogen, and sustainability policy.

As a leading energy expert and industry analyst, Peter brings clarity and context to complex stories about how technology, policy, and investment are driving the energy transition. Whether it’s the rise of small modular reactors, advances in fusion energy, or how utilities are modernizing the grid, you’ll get trusted insights grounded in real-world experience.

Tune in weekly for concise, data-driven commentary and actionable takeaways about the future of power — how it’s generated, stored, delivered, and consumed.

Chapters

• 0:00 New York Grid Reliability Alarms
• 0:33 DOE’s Fusion Roadmap And Funding
• 1:26 Federal Loan For Grid Reconductoring
• 2:28 Amazon Backs Small Modular Reactors
• 3:05 NIO’s Battery Swap Records
• 3:40 Rondo’s Solar Heat Battery And Outlook

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

I've got your energy stories for this for the third week of October 2025. And in the first one, New York is joining other ISOs in facing new grid reliability challenges. The New York ISO's just released draft reliability plan comments that, quote, New York's electric system faces an era of profound reliability challenges as resource retirements accelerate, economic development drives demand growth, and project delays undermine confidence in future supply, unquote. The plan also noted that one quarter of New York's generating capacity is fossil fuel-based and over 50 years old. At greatest risk is the New York City area, which is awaiting completion of the 1250-megawatt Champlain-Hudson transmission line to bring power down from Quebec, as well as the 816-megawatt Empire Wind Offshore Project, which was temporarily derailed by the Trump administration's stop work order this past summer. The U.S. Department of Energy unveiled its fusion science and technology roadmap meant to help accelerate the U.S. fusion industry towards maturity. The goal is to leverage investments from both the public and private sector and address critical science, materials, and technology gaps such as the breathing and handling of fusion fuels. The roadmap identifies actions and timelines through the mid-2030s and specifies goals for the near, midterm, and long term. The report also notes that to date, the U.S. private sector has invested over$9 billion. While the Fed's been busy, the Department of Energy loan program's office closed a$1.6 billion loan guarantee with a subsidiary of American Electric Power to reconduct and rebuild around 5,000 miles of transmission lines across Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, and West Virginia. The goal is to strengthen the grid and its reliability across the Midwestern United States. This is the first loan guarantee to be closed under the Trump administration's energy dominance planning program created by the O TAABA. Perhaps more noteworthy than the loan itself is the fact that it will support reconductoring, which is the process of stringing new and more efficient lines across the same tower infrastructure and existing rights of way. AEP is a leader in this space, with multiple applications over the past decade predominantly bringing more capacity into existing load pockets where rights of ways are limited. The Electric Car Research Institute notes that in previous projects, AEP's new configurations provide about a 75% increase in line capacity. While small modular nuclear reactors, also known as SMRs, are beginning to look a little more real, with Amazon announcing that it's working with Energy Northwest and nuclear startup X Energy to develop an advanced nuclear plant in Washington State called the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility. The plan is to develop the project in phases with initial construction of four 80 megawatt XE100 plants starting by the end of the decade, eventually expanding to 12 plants totaling 960 megawatts. Commissioning of the first generators is anticipated, quote, in the 2030s, unquote, which leaves a little bit of wiggle room. Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer NIO has set a new national and thus global record for EV battery swaps, with over 145,000 swaps taking place on a single day, October 1st. During the past month, NEO has averaged 95,450 swaps per day, with a total cumulative number standing at just under 88 million. NEO currently operates 3,520 swap stations in China and 61 in Europe. This year alone, it's opened 525 new such stations. And finally, Bloomberg reports that solar thermal energy startup, Rondo Energy, has commissioned the largest solar industrial heat battery to date. Rondo is using a 20-megawatt solar PV array to supply electricity to a 100 megawatt-hour thermal battery that heats up clay bricks to store energy. That heat is then used to boil water and create steam. In a somewhat ironic carbon twist of fate, the first customer is Holmes Western Oil Corporation, which is using the tech's steam for enhanced oil recovery in Kern County, California. But Rondo sees the bigger picture, which is the industrial sector's need for clean, high heat in numerous thermal applications such as cement manufacturing and food processing. And Rondo is joining forces with Portugal's EDP for 2,000 megawatts of heat batteries in Europe. Well, that's all for this week.