Corp News
A Texas district judge issued a final judgment requiring CPS Energy to pay nearly $400 million to midstream energy company Energy Transfer to settle a contract dispute over natural gas procurement during Winter Storm Uri in 2021.
Carbon removal purchasing group Frontier Climate announced last week that AI company Anthropic has joined its buyer group, alongside $915 million in new funding to support carbon removal technologies with gigaton-scale potential. This brings Frontier's collective commitments to $1.8 billion.
Climate solutions company Carbon Direct released new guidance on Tuesday (June 16) aimed at helping voluntary market buyers evaluate the sustainability of low-carbon fuel procurement. The guidelines are based on six core principles, including preventing social and environmental harm, carbon accounting, reducing leakage, feedstock sourcing, and demonstrating additionality. Carbon Direct stated that the document will serve as a 'living resource' updated annually, with future versions covering synthetic fuel pathways, renewable natural gas, and specific industry applications.
NextEra Energy filed a proposed settlement in federal court on Monday, agreeing to pay $150 million to resolve allegations that it concealed its involvement in a political interference scheme in Florida. The settlement amount is the largest in a securities class action settlement in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida since the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 took effect. Previously, NextEra and Dominion Energy announced a $67 billion merger plan, and this settlement could become a point of focus for Virginia regulators when reviewing the transaction.
Utility bill payment has been fully digitalized, but customer expectations are rising faster. Surveys show that only 45% of customers rate the experience as "good," while about one-third rate it poorly. Unclear bills lead 43% of customers to be confused about charges, resulting in low trust. The key to future competition lies in building trust, not technology.
Against a backdrop of record-low residential customer satisfaction and rising electricity costs, utilities are pushing customers to participate in time-of-use rates, behavioral demand response, and device control programs. However, relying solely on digital channels like email often fails to break beyond early adopters. Citing recent research, this article points out that real-time conversations, such as outbound calls, can effectively increase enrollment rates—achieving conversion rates up to nine times higher than email—and can complete the journey from awareness to enrollment in a single interaction. Moreover, well-trained conversations do not erode trust; instead, they strengthen customer relationships through over 95% neutral or positive interactions and provide businesses with continuous insight feedback.
On Wednesday, at the 2026 Edison Electric Institute conference held in Las Vegas, protesters chanting slogans about electricity bill burden interrupted a speech by NV Energy President and CEO Brandon Barkhuff. After being escorted out by security, the protesters gathered outside the hotel, demanding the cancellation of the daily demand charge set to take effect on January 1, 2027, and calling for clean energy action and lower high electricity bills. The incident highlights public anger over energy costs, putting pressure on utilities and their regulators.
The independent market monitor for PJM Interconnection urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Friday to require a subsidiary of Mara Holdings to commit to keeping the output of the 522-megawatt power plant it plans to acquire within the PJM market. The monitor warned that allowing Mara to sell electricity from the Long Ridge gas-fired power plant in Hannibal, Ohio, to data centers would harm PJM customers. Mara stated that it plans to continue selling electricity to the PJM market and noted that the new data center will be paired with newly built generation facilities.
DigitalBridge Group plans to acquire private power company ArcLight Capital Partners for $1.05 billion, as announced by both parties on Wednesday. ArcLight owns one of the largest private power generation portfolios in the United States, with an installed capacity of 20.8 gigawatts as of June 2025 and a project pipeline of approximately 15 gigawatts. Upon completion of the transaction, ArcLight will operate as an independently managed business under the DigitalBridge platform, subject to several regulatory conditions, including the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust waiting period, approvals from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, FERC, and the FCC. Additionally, the transaction is conditioned on the previously announced acquisition of DigitalBridge by a SoftBank affiliate.
New Mexico regulators are reviewing a $400 million stock purchase related to Blackstone's acquisition of TXNM Energy, with the state attorney general and consumer advocacy groups calling for the merger to be rejected. The deal has cleared several approvals but still requires state regulatory approval.