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Portugal’s regulator ERSE has put a new cost-allocation directive out for consultation: producers will finance roughly 35% of the €137 million social tariff bill for 2026, at 0.283 €/(kVA.month), retailers the remaining 65%. https://www.erse.pt/comunicacao/destaques/erse-coloca-em-consulta-publica-a-reparticao-do-financiamento-dos-custos-com-a-tarifa-social-de-eletricidade-de-2026/ It’s a small line item on its own. But it’s exactly the kind of change that a Project Development Services Agreement…

Portugal has reaffirmed plans for a dedicated 750 MVA battery storage auction, as part of a new capacity market open to batteries, power plants and flexible demand. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/06/18/portugal-plans-capacity-market-with-dedicated-battery-storage-auction/ The plan draws on the RMSA-E security-of-supply report jointly prepared by DGEG, REN and ERSE — official confirmation that storage is now core infrastructure, not an add-on….

Brussels just opened the tender for up to seven AI “Gigafactories.” https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/eu-launches-ai-gigafactories-call-boost-europes-computing-capacity-and-unlock-more-eu30-billion Up to €10bn in EU and national funding. At least €20bn in private investment expected to follow. Call closes 12 November 2026. Read past the compute headlines and the real constraint is power. Gigawatt-scale data infrastructure needs firm, clean, dispatchable capacity on a…

Europe’s largest operational battery just switched on: the 500 MW/1 GWh Coalburn 1 in Scotland, developed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/08/12/europes-largest-battery-comes-online-in-scotland/ One project, but it’s a marker of where the whole sector is heading. Europe posted a record 129 TWh of solar output in Q2 2026, and Spain alone logged close to 600 negative-price hours…

Brookfield and La Caisse just completed the take-private of Boralex — one of Canada’s oldest independent renewable platforms, delisting from Toronto next week. https://www.renews.biz/other-news/brookfield-la-caisse-complete-boralex-acquisition/ It’s the latest signal of a consolidation wave running through renewables: large infrastructure capital buying scale and platform capability outright, rather than building it project by project. We see the same…

pv magazine’s July review of last year’s Iberian blackout has a blunt diagnosis: the system that left 60 million people without power lacked the storage to absorb the shock. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/07/24/the-iberian-bess-paradox/ A year on, storage is still the industry’s unresolved question — not because the case for it is unclear, but because the route to build…

Portugal’s wind output jumped 37% week-on-week in the first days of August. Spain’s fell 5.7% over the same seven days. https://aleasoft.com/more-wind-lower-demand-european-power-prices-august-2026/ Same peninsula, same week, opposite direction. AleaSoft’s data also shows Spain, Portugal, France and Germany each set new daily solar PV records in early August — and Iberian prices still rose rather than fell,…

🌬️ Spain’s wind fleet posted its highest single day of the year on 5 August — 277 GWh — with lighter demand pushing prices down across European power markets the same week. 👉 https://elperiodicodelaenergia.com/la-mayor-produccion-eolica-y-la-menor-demanda-favorecen-descensos-de-precios-en-los-mercados-electricos-europeos-en-la-primera-semana-de-agosto Good wind days make headlines. What determines whether a project actually captures that resource over 20+ years gets decided years earlier,…

TotalEnergies just agreed to buy Shell’s entire European onshore renewables business — 500 MW of operating and under-construction solar and wind, plus a 3.5 GW pipeline across four countries — and in the same announcement, sold a 50% stake in a separate €1.8bn portfolio to KKR. https://www.renews.biz/other-news/totalenergies-swoops-for-shells-european-renewables-business/ One seller, one buyer, two completely different transaction…

Solar just became Portugal’s single largest source of electricity for the first time — 19% of national consumption in July, ahead of hydro, wind and biomass, with renewables covering 53% of demand for the month (pv-magazine.com, 7 Aug 2026). That’s a milestone worth celebrating. It is also a pricing problem. Spain logged 397 hours of…