This Week in Cleantech is a weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in clean energy and climate featuring Paul Gerke of Factor This and Tigercomm’s Mike Casey.
This week’s episode features special guest Clara Hudson from the Wall Street Journal, who breaks down Heineken’s plan to use a renewable-powered heat battery to release steam for its beer brewing in Portugal.
This week’s “Cleantechers of the Week” are Tim Shepherd and Sylvain Marseille from Pelton Shepherd Industries, which makes Nutri Ice – ice packs that you can use to feed plants. It is the only truly compostable gel pack and offers the same performance as a regular gel pack. Congratulations Tim and Sylvain!
1. Cracks appear in the vision of off-grid AI data centers — Axios
A new Cleanview report counts 59 data centers planning to build roughly 90 gigawatts of behind-the-meter power, like gas turbines, generators, and fuel cells. A smaller group of about 12 projects, tracked by Occam Edge, is trying to go almost fully off-grid, representing about 10.6 gigawatts. Recently, several of these projects have run into trouble.
Earlier this month, New Mexico’s top land official rejected a gas pipeline that was supposed to supply fuel cells at Oracle’s 2.5 gigawatt Project Jupiter data center, part of the Oracle-OpenAI Stargate buildout. That could push the project back years.
2. Trump administration admits grants for clean energy were canceled based on politics – The Associated Press
The Trump administration admitted in court that it canceled $7.6 billion in grants across 223 clean energy projects based solely on quote “the political identity of the grant recipient’s state” endquote — so all 16 states that voted for Harris in 2024. Energy Secretary Chris Wright had spent months saying the cuts came down to economics, calling them “business decisions” based on whether projects were a good use of taxpayer money.
The admission surfaced in a case called Thakur v. Trump. Federal lawyers said they used keywords tied to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy, and COVID-19 to screen out projects.
The money had been funding battery plants, hydrogen projects, grid upgrades, and carbon capture across states like California, New York, and Colorado.
3. BP nears deal to sell solar business Lightsource to Kuwait-backed group – Financial Times
BP is in advanced talks to sell its solar subsidiary, Lightsource, to a consortium backed by Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund. Qualitas Energy and Wren House have emerged as the final bidders, though the FT notes the deal isn’t confirmed yet and could still fall through.
Analysts say the real draw for BP isn’t the sale price – it’s offloading billions of dollars in Lightsource’s debt. The sale price itself is expected to be pretty insignificant for a company of BP’s size.
Lightsource was Europe’s largest solar developer when BP first invested back in 2017. Today it runs 4 gigawatts of solar, wind, and battery capacity across 15 countries, enough to power up to 4 million homes. Two years ago, BP paid over $500 million to buy out Lightsource’s stake, taking on $2.8 billion of debt in that deal alone.
4. Trump admin bans ‘new’ foreign-made inverters. What does that mean? — Canary Media
The FCC added “connected power inverters produced in foreign countries” to its Covered List — the government’s official list of tech deemed a national security threat. Landing on that list generally bars a product from getting FCC authorization to be imported, marketed, or sold in the US.
Inverters convert DC power to AC and are essential for utility-scale solar, battery, and wind projects, plus home solar systems and EV chargers. The ban only applies to new device models going forward. Anything already approved and on the market — which is most of what’s installed today — is untouched for now.
5. Heineken Is Trying a Heat Battery to Generate Steam for Its Brewing — The Wall Street Journal
Heineken is partnering with Rondo Energy and EDP to install a 100 MWh heat battery, using refractory bricks that store thermal energy and release it as steam, at its Central de Cervejas e Bebidas brewery near Lisbon, Portugal. The battery will be charged by an onsite solar plant and renewable grid electricity, converting that power into high-temperature heat that supplies 7 MW of continuous, zero-carbon steam for brewing, delivered under a Heat-as-a-Service model with EDP.
The resulting steam is identical to steam made by fossil-fired boilers, but without the carbon emissions, and the switch requires no changes to Heineken’s actual brewing operations. The system is set to go live in April 2027 and will be one of the largest heat batteries in the global beverage industry, supporting Heineken’s push to decarbonize its production sites.
Facts Only
* Heineken is installing a 100 MWh heat battery at its Central de Cervejas e Bebidas brewery near Lisbon, Portugal.
* The battery uses refractory bricks to store thermal energy and release it as steam.
* The heat supply for brewing is provided by 7 MW of continuous, zero-carbon steam.
* The system will be charged by an onsite solar plant and renewable grid electricity.
* The system operates under a Heat-as-a-Service model with EDP.
* The system is scheduled to go live in April 2027.
* Tim Shepherd and Sylvain Marseille from Pelton Shepherd Industries make Nutri Ice, a compostable gel pack for plants.
* New Mexico’s top land official rejected a gas pipeline intended for fuel cells at Oracle’s Project Jupiter data center.
* The Trump administration canceled $7.6 billion in clean energy grants based on the political identity of the grant recipient's state.
* BP is in advanced talks to sell its solar subsidiary, Lightsource, to a Kuwait-backed group.
* The FCC added "connected power inverters produced in foreign countries" to its Covered List.
Executive Summary
Heineken is implementing a novel system using a 100 MWh heat battery, utilizing refractory bricks to store thermal energy and release it as steam for its brewing process in Portugal. This system will receive power from an onsite solar plant and renewable grid electricity, delivering 7 MW of continuous, zero-carbon steam under a Heat-as-a-Service model with EDP. The resulting steam is chemically identical to that produced by fossil-fired boilers but without carbon emissions. This project is scheduled to begin operation in April 2027 and aims to support Heineken's decarbonization goals.
Separately, the clean energy sector is seeing developments regarding data center power sources, with a report indicating 59 data centers plan to build approximately 90 gigawatts of behind-the-meter power generation. Efforts toward off-grid solutions are also underway, with about 12 projects tracking 10.6 gigawatts aiming for near self-sufficiency. Furthermore, there is movement in the energy infrastructure market, as BP is in advanced talks to sell its solar subsidiary, Lightsource, to a consortium backed by Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund. Regulatory shifts are also occurring, such as the FCC adding "connected power inverters produced in foreign countries" to its Covered List, which impacts imports.
Full Take
The juxtaposition of localized industrial decarbonization efforts, like Heineken’s heat battery project, against high-level geopolitical and regulatory shifts reveals a tension between immediate operational needs and long-term systemic policy. The focus on off-grid AI data centers highlights a growing realization that energy infrastructure—especially in advanced computing—is increasingly constrained by physical resource access and political will regarding land use and energy sourcing. The canceled grants underscore how macro-level political identity can directly obstruct large-scale, distributed clean energy investment, suggesting a systemic friction between declared environmental goals and political categorization.
The BP transaction suggests that large corporate entities prioritize financial risk mitigation (offloading debt) over optimizing the immediate value of assets, even when the underlying technology—solar and battery storage—is highly relevant to grid stability. This places market dynamics against technological potential. Furthermore, the regulatory action against foreign-made inverters demonstrates how national security frameworks can be deployed to manage supply chains, creating barriers for essential technologies like solar deployment unless they fit a specific geopolitical alignment.
The pattern emerging is that technological innovation in clean energy (batteries, heat capture) is happening at a pace that is often slowed or diverted by political and regulatory inertia, which is itself influenced by conflicting economic motivations. The question for cognitive sovereignty lies not just in the technology’s efficiency, but in recognizing how political structures selectively enable or constrain the implementation of necessary technological transitions across diverse actors. What assumptions about energy transition timelines and policy coherence are being leveraged to manage the flow of capital and technological deployment?
Sentinel — Human
LIKELY_HUMAN (confidence: 0.35)