Plugged In: the energy news podcast
Coming from the heart of the Montel newsroom, Editor-in-Chief, Snjolfur Richard Sverrisson and his team of journalists explore the news headlines in the energy sector, bringing you in depth analysis of the industry’s leading stories each week.
Richard speaks to experts, analysts, regulators, and senior business leaders to the examine not just the what, but the why behind the decisions directing the markets and shaping the global transition to a green economy.
New episodes are available every Friday.
Plugged In: the energy news podcast
A new year for Europe's energy sector
Negative power prices, geopolitical tension, energy policy, batteries and strengthening the grid - what's in store for Europe's energy markets in 2026?
In our first episode of the new year, Richard sits down with Montel's Editors from France, Spain, Germany, Italy, the Nordics, and the UK to review the key events from 2025, and discuss the headlines predicted to affect Europe's energy sector in 2026.
Host: Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News
Guests:
Christopher Eales - France Editor, Montel News
Pablo Bronte - Iberian Editor, Montel News
Andreas Lochner - Germany Editor, Montel News
Laurence Walker - UK Editor, Montel News
Enza Tedesco - Italy Editor, Montel News
Olav Vilnes - Nordics Editor, Montel News
Editor: Oscar Birk
Producer: Sarah Knowles
Subscribe to the podcast on our website, via Apple Podcasts or Spotify
Hello listeners, and welcome to Plugged In - the Energy News podcast from Montel, where we bring you the latest news issues and changes happening in the energy sector. I hope you've all had a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. We have officially set farewell to 2025, another very eventful year for Europe's energy sector filled with blackouts, bans, grid bottlenecks, negative prices to name quite the few, so what's in store as we look to the year ahead. In this episode, I sit down with our desk editor here at Montel to bring you some of the key issues for each region in 2026, as well as a look back at 2025. I'll be speaking to colleagues across the Nordics, the UK, Southern Europe. But first, let's hear from France, Germany, and the Iberian Peninsula. I'm pleased to be joined by our France editor, Chris Seals, our Iberian editor, Pablo Bronte, and one of our Germany editor, Andreas Lochner, our warm welcome to you guys. Let's start with France then, Chris, shall we? What were the big stories of 2025?
Christopher Eales - France Editor, Montel News:Well, Richard you know, first of all, it's a pleasure to join you, in your electric chair. Big stories, masses stories in a lot of big stories in France. We have political instability, of course, a consumption slump and the rebound of nuclear. Power among the headlines, which all created their own new tensions, if you like in France. One of the most important stories that we've been covering is the lack of a central planning policy document, otherwise known as an energy roadmap. And this, she's very important for renewable targets, the nuclear outlook. For you know, what, how do investors see the French picture going forward? And it still hasn't been resolved. France has had, it's a bit like buses, I suppose. You get, so many buses, so many prime ministers turning up five prime ministers in the last two years I think they've had. These were some of the key stories. We had right at the end of the year, the TSO announcing a massive slash in its demand forecast for the next decade, which has also huge implications for France going forward. And yes, plenty of good stories and plenty of surprises as well, really.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:And a few exclusives as well or stuff that we, the breaking news for the French team. Yeah,
Christopher Eales - France Editor, Montel News:The French Desk is known for its exclusive coverage. Yeah, course And 2025 was no exception.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Yeah. Okay. So that that was very, that's very reassuring and I'm sure it'd be very reassuring for our listeners 'cause, but was there anything that took you by surprise in 2025?
Christopher Eales - France Editor, Montel News:I suppose that, I mean it, parts of these stories did take me but the things I've just mentioned, this, the amount of that slash in demand forecast is quite surprising actually, because it undermines France's plans for for renewable rollout, solar, wind, hydrogen, and grid plans. It's a big cut. The other surprising factor is also the generation the return, the rebound of nuclear power actually, because, we were at record lows in 2022, 2023 with everything that happened, crisis corrosion issues. Now we know we're back up to record levels and a return, not just of nuclear output, but hydro output. So it's creating new tensions because you've got oversupply, in France, when we've had for years, we're always looking at, oh, how is France going to get through wind tab, for example? Now that's ruled out any kind of supply problems in winter for the next three years. That's quite
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely.
Christopher Eales - France Editor, Montel News:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what does it mean? Now it's what are we gonna cut? The establishment, if you like, the government, the state has a tendency to favor nuclear, it's more likely that renewables will be cut. And there's great concern for targets for renewable targets, and the government has launched a new probe into renewable subsidies. In fact led in part by one of the leaders is a former CEO of EDF, but there are others who say, nuclear, why don't we mothball nuclear reactors, existing nuclear reactors? Reactors. Quite, quite a controversial idea. But that will be discussed as we go forward, I think.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:So obviously France is in a very different place from where it was just a couple of years ago. Pablo, what's the situation in Spain? Obviously there, there's a very big story there that had repercussions, that sent ripples across the whole country. The whole continent. Sorry. Would you be able to talk through the highlights of 2025 or maybe a low light in some way? A low point for for the Spanish grid in particular.
Pablo Bronte - Iberian Editor, Montel News:Yeah, exactly. I dunno if you heard about Spain and Portugal through a blackout in 2025. So that's been keeping us very busy lately. Yeah, the Iberian blackouts on the 28th of April has been key for Spain and it's had massive repercussions here for the whole energy system. Looking back to what happened is that there was a massive disconnection of power generation capacity. And it happened within seconds, milliseconds to be more specific. And what we know so far is that it was due to an overvoltage situation. So basically the disconnection of plants kept worsening the situation and voltage kept increasing. So the whole country went dark. As you can imagine that was the news of the year for us. But after so many months we do know some details about what happened, but we do not know the specifics of those plants that were disconnected on the 28th of April. So yeah it's been very tricky to cover because so many news emerged after this and yeah it's been very busy
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:And it, and it's still in a way the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it, Pablo? There's still so much more to look into the repercussions and the in-depth analysis, what actually happened and who was to blame. There's a lot of finger pointing and scapegoating I'd imagine.
Pablo Bronte - Iberian Editor, Montel News:Yes, since the situation that led to the blackout was so specific, what we've been seeing is a big deal of finger pointing here. The grid operator, red Electrica blaming Spain, utilities and utilities blaming red electrica and. Also the government and the regulator under scrutiny because the regulation also played a role here. So what we've seen is a polarization around the blackout. Everything that has to do with the blackout is very controversial. And also it's led to changes on how we deal with energy policy issues around nuclear, around renewables. Yes it's been triggering more conversations and more issues to deal with.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:And obviously the vehement of the public kind of discussion and the finger pointing, the anger they're saying, passing the buck if you like. That must have taken you by surprise here, Pablo.'cause the Spanish energy sector hasn't been so vocal in, in its kind of in a, in its dispute before. Was there anything else that take, took you aback?
Pablo Bronte - Iberian Editor, Montel News:Well, I mean, the whole situation of the blackout was quite surprising of course, but. I would say that the nature of the blackout itself was very striking. We tend to think about blackouts being the consequence of, not having enough capacity to cover demand maybe some failures of generation capacity, but this was exactly the opposite. We had too much generation, especially green generation. At the same time we had two little demand. So it was surprising to see that the lack of balance in the system was due to some very technical reasons related to voltage.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:And I think there are important lessons for the rest of Europe here as well, Pablo. But let's move to Germany, Andreas, and what were the highlights or the big stories in Germany?
Andreas Lochner - Germany Editor, Montel News:Probably have to disappoint you. We didn't have a blackout and we, not many governments, but at least one new government came to charge this year. And they basically followed up some of the plans from the former government, which means they, they want to tender new gas fired power plants to back up the renewables expansion in Germany. And they also tried to bring down energy prices for industrial companies with an industry power price scheme.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:There's lots to cover there. That's, those are two very big topics, of course. Was there anything that, we've had the blackout in Spain, other issues in France, Andreas, was there anything that really, wow, you took, you made your, took your breath away in Germany?
Andreas Lochner - Germany Editor, Montel News:Well, on the German power market, we saw a massive rise of grid connection applications from battery projects. Some say. It sums up to 1000 gigawatts by now, so that's quite massive. That's some say it's 20 times what we actually need in the end, obviously it won't be for most of them it won't be a dream. It won will be a nightmare in the end because their projects won't materialize. But it shows that there's a lot of dynamic development in the market because we have a strong renewables growth. In 2025, again, we had roughly 17 gigawatts of new for the wood tag installations and also more than five gigawatts of entre wind installations. So strong growth and sparking a lot of volatility in the market as well. And that's the reason behind the whole battery boom.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely. There's a big incentive for battery operators to step in. Let's see if the grid operators can keep up and let them in. That's the big question mark I think here, isn't it?
Andreas Lochner - Germany Editor, Montel News:Absolutely. Absolutely. That's also their worry because so many projects they just can't cope with it. And they're worried that there is no, no space for other consumers like industry companies or data centers as well, where we also see a lots of new projects coming. So they are worried that if the batteries run purely on, on market-based signals that will bring the grit at least locally into problems. But yeah, they're about to handle that. We'll see how the, yeah, how the developments will go on. And but at least we can expect a massive rise in battery capacities. 50 gigawatts of battery capacity have already received their grid connection or they have their grid connection confirmed by the grid operators, by the TSOs. So there's a lot to come.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:I think thank you, Andreas. I think that's that's certainly a lot of work to do for the grid operators, both at their distribution and transmission level. So a very complex web here. Chris. It's time to get or gentlemen, more generally, it is time to get our crystal ball out. What do we think are gonna be the big the big issues this year?
Christopher Eales - France Editor, Montel News:There's plenty to look at. Of course, we, what I didn't mention was the Aaron, which is the regulation that governs the sale of nuclear power in France comes to an end the end of this month. Or, and the government's new system to tax sales wholesale sales, wholesale of nuclear power at certain thresholds. Essentially flogging the stuff on the market combined with offering long-term contracts to, big companies, big users of electricity, that part of it the offer to of long-term contracts has failed. They found they haven't managed to find any takers for their supply or hardly any takers because wholesale power prices are so low. So this failure. Calls into question this scheme to an extent. So we'll probably have discussions about CFDs for the sale of contracts are different for the sale of nuclear power in France which was something the government opposed. Their concerns about, the potential impact on ADF. Will, it, would it mean breaking up the company? Unions were not, are not very happy about that. And they have the ability to call strikes, which can cause trouble as we know. The other big story that is obviously the roadmap, what's the, what's gonna be the outcome, what are we, what, when and when, you know given the political instability for, difficult to say, although interestingly and surprisingly towards the end of the year, the government started to say we are gonna get this done. In fact, they did say it would all be ever by Christmas. Ha has that ever been said before? And then but then they pushed that back to early in the next year. Early in 2026. And that's important for renewable targets, for the nuclear pipeline and CFD volumes as well. On the nuclear front, of course, a final investment decision is expected. EDF is expected to take a final investment decision on their rather ambitious plans to build at least six new nuclear reactors. They did manage to finally get Flamanville three up and running to 100% of capacity just before Christmas. But at the same time a court ruled it their plan to build two new EPRs, new reactors at Bougie. They suspended that plan because ADF had overall overlooked some very important environmental concerns in their urban planning. Swings and roundabouts or up and downs or whatever you call it on and other suitable cliches.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely more of the same in 2026. Then Chris, Thanks. Plenty of stories around us. Yeah, plenty of stories and plenty to keep you busy. And you and your team busy, Pablo, do you think we'll still see repercussions from the blackout in 2026? And could there be anything else to cover for your team in Spain in 2026?
Pablo Bronte - Iberian Editor, Montel News:I think that we will have plenty of stories to cover related to the blackout. We are expected to see the final report from the European grid operator's body Entso-E the blackouts. So we are likely to see more details emerging from that report, but the finger pointing that you mentioned before, I think that's going to be there in 2026. We have a reputation here in Spain to keep fighting over stuff and. That's exactly what I expect. That utilities, that the TSO Red electrica, that the government, that regulators, that political parties are going to keep fighting over the blackouts over what happened. And yes, we'll see more details, but I don't think that this is going to end the conversation. But, there are many more things to watch in 2026. Spain has seen a surge in renewable generation. In the last few years. So that's been pressuring power prices and we haven't seen a slowdown in renewables deployment yet, but prices are now so low that green developers are starting to rethink what to do. So 2026 looks like another year of very low power prices, negative prices. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how low we can go this spring and the whole year. And then we also have political uncertainty here in Spain. We have a fragmented parliament. The social democrat government from Prime Minister Pedro Sanches is weak and sometimes it unable to pass significant regulation including energy policies. Yeah, that's going to be a key thing to watch. And on top of that, we are seeing corruption cases emerging and affecting the government. So how long can it last? That's a key question.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Thank you Pablo. Certainly again as well, plenty to cover going forward. That's gonna, that's gonna keep you busy as well. Andreas! Germany, what do you think are gonna be the big stories in 2026? Andreas Lochner - Germany Editor, Montel News: less the whole last year with the European Commission over state aid for the industry power price plan and the government the gas fire power plants, they want to tender. The German government will finally really tender the new power plants that they want as backup for the renewable expansion. But the schedule is like they wanted to start in spring, but that's probably in danger already because they might not have enough time to tender the first round, which is thought to be eight gigawatts. Then obviously with the industry power price plan, it's the same problem. We will see if it will really bring some relief for industrial companies in Germany in 2026 and the whole economy, if the whole economy will also recover a bit. Since we saw gas prices fall into a 25 and carbon prices trending upwards. It'll be interesting to see what happens with German hardcore fire power generation because some focus say it could fall to the lowest levels since the early 1950s, and that's obviously something that will put pressure on power plant operators. And then the last issue maybe is offshore wind where we saw an auction failing in 2025 and now we. We'll have to see if the government is able to change the rules in a way that sort of, there's again, interest in offshore wind capacities so that the targets can be reached even though they're already forecast that there will be a delay of several years for the 2030 target of 30 gigawatts. But, if the tenders continue to fail, obviously there the problem becomes bigger. So gentlemen thank you very much for that roundup and that forward looking outlook. And certainly it's gonna be another eventful year in 2026. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Pablo. Thank you Andreas. I'm now joined by our Italy editor, Enza Tedesco, our editor for the Nordics, Olav Vilnes. And our deputy editor-in-chief, who is based in the UK, Lawrence Walker. Warm welcome to you all. Before we get our crystal ball out, I think I'd like to look at the biggest stories of 2025. So we take a little bit of a look back. Now, Olav, if I can start with you, what were the highlights of 2025 in the Nordic region?
Olav Vilnes - Nordics Editor, Montel News:Yeah, maybe we could touch upon three issues. We had the quite big market design changes. We had a balancing market that was automated in March. Created a lot of stir for market participants. A high lot of volatility, uncertainty, increased the risk and even for some it deterred investments. So that was a big reform. It followed up by the 15 minute trading reform in October, which made trading shorter to the delivery time. So quite a lot to do for the traders, a lot of things to adapt to and also creating uncertainty short term. Then we also saw a continuation of quite low wholesale power prices. It was a big division between Northern Scandinavia and Southern Scandinavia, and it affected investments, particularly in the north. So I think that's also hit the PPA markets, there's less PPA that's being made because there's just investment conditions aren't as good as they used to be. And we've also seen some missions of political interference. Prime example, probably in Norway, where you have the government coming in with the fixed retail price of roughly 34 euros per megawatt hour, which is for 15 months. And ironically introduced in the same month as the wholesale market moved to 50 minute trading to highlight the need to have a flexibility on demand and consumption side. So that's that's some of the highlights. Yeah.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:It's quite a contradiction there, but on and with something that we've covered in great detail, isn't it? And great depth and breadth as well, Olav but this move to the 15 minutes timeframe was more to reflect, this is across Europe, not just in the Nordics, but it was sort to reflect actual renewables consumption and the how basically intermittent it is. It could fluctuates very quickly.
Olav Vilnes - Nordics Editor, Montel News:Yes. And that's of course the whole thing. I think that's been the issue for decades is a bit that you try to create a market that is more responsive because you get more intermittent renewables in the power mix, and then you need to trade closer to the delivery hour. And you need to have investments in technology that makes consumption more flexible, that makes production more flexible. And then of course, if you have political measures that promotes people not being flexible, that runs a bit against it. So it's a bit you need to have both politics and market development on the same path.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:A little bit more aligned. Anything that took you by surprise. Olav before I move on to our other editors,
Olav Vilnes - Nordics Editor, Montel News:I was a bit surprised by how much this new balancing market affected the market. We haven't really, it's not been a big issue in the Nordics of the balancing market, but this year it really turned out to be big news because it just, I think the market participant didn't really understand what was happening. They didn't understand the price formation. They just felt it was too risky to be there. And it even discouraged some of them from taking part in intraday trading to just because of of the high risk and uncertainty what the price would be to be, or the risk of being out of balance was just too high.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely. Thank you. Lori, if I can move on to the uk, what were the headline stories in the UK in 2025?
Laurence Walker - UK Editor, Montel News:Hi Richard. Yes. Obviously there've been quite a few pos positives I'd say this year, seeing continued growth in renewables. So I think in the third quarter it reached sort of 55% of the mix. Sorry, in the second quarter, 55% of the mix so it dropped slightly in the third, but we've seen some big increases in offshore wind, solar outputs, this sort of thing. This is obviously very important for our climate targets, but also price stability. Also, our efforts to reduce sort of dependence on gas, which is obviously it continues to be a topic of discussion here. We've had some other news. Something obviously, which made big news across the UK has been the introduction of or the establishments. Of great British energy, which is the government backed firm company, which is I suppose the remits to help drive the UK's sort of net zero efforts. It's been allocated, I think, 8.3 billion so far to back renewable plans and nuclear generation deployments. And we've also, I think from more diversive sort of thing was the rejection of the zonal pricing. This was something which had been, again, very much in discussion in recent years. The idea of whether we were gonna be pricing on a sort of local. Supply and demands basis or on a sort of national basis as of I think. Earlier this year, the zones been ditched, so we're looking at a sort of national pricing now. So these are some of the big topics which were discussed I think this year in the news
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:You mentioned gas, so one of the big stories that Montel broke, and you were absolutely instrumental in this, Laurie was the story about, actually, it's very likely that the UK has been receiving or will receive Russian gas over the winter months. Could you tell us just briefly a little bit about that?
Laurence Walker - UK Editor, Montel News:Yes. It shows some of the complexities of banning gas, which as we know, is once it's mixed together with all origins, it's it just, it's indistinguishable. So the UK obviously banned in 2023, banned the import of Russian gas, which has been very effective from an LNG point of view. We haven't had any LNG vessels arrive, in fact since before that time. The problem comes with Interconnectors 'cause Europe is still importing gas via LNG through some of its main sort of Northwestern hubs. It then gets mixed with the gas in Europe and can potentially arrive in the UK still via pipeline through us of two interconnectors with mainland Europe. What we found is investigation there, there has seems to have been very little or basically no, no efforts to police this or to monitor it. And so I think it does raise questions about how beyond the borders of Europe how the EU wide ban or will be enforced and will be policed once, once that kicks in as well. Because obviously we have interconnected still with some of the ruby Turkey with other countries which could potentially pump Russian money into Europe.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely. Something that I'm sure you'll be monitoring very closely. But Enza, what about Italy? What what were the the biggest stories there in 2025?
Enza Tedesco - Italy Editor, Montel News:Yes, absolutely. So we did see also similar developments to the Nordic power markets. So we had, we moved towards the 15 minute trading as well as part of a wider market reform of the electricity wholesale market. This year was just the first phase. Next year we're gonna see the second phase of the wider power market reform, but I would highlight for this year the batteries sector. They finally got their moment. We had the first auction entirely dedicated to battery storage, and it was a total success. It was under the maxim mechanism, and this has been going on for a while and now become a reality. The result was that all the 10 gigawatt hour that were put in offer were allocated, and the most important point of that auction was that to highlight the prices came very well below the expectations. They were around an average of 13,000 euros per megawatt hour which was far below the 37,000 per megawhat hour cap that the regulator had set. And you could tell that there was serious interest in this auction because the tender was highly oversubscribed. Bids were four times what was up for grabs. So obviously this is a very important issue because Italy needs to accommodate many more renewables. There are requests to connect to the grid for over 330 gigawatts, and now experts are already debating how the market will evolve beyond these auctions, whether it is going to be with the next max auction with, which is probably going to take place within the next year or through the capacity market or with merchant opportunities. So that means unsubsidized, basically opportunities. And then obviously Italy continued to increase its build out in renewables. They're still growing. There's still, this year we saw a slow down compared to the previous one, but I think it was general at European level. But the government has been really busy. Pushing new regulation to incentivize more renewables. And we're going to see more of that also next year. And obviously gas is still plays an important role in Italy because half of the power production comes from gas fire plants, basically. So we've seen a huge increase in allergy imports. They tripled from the volumes they imported before the start of the war with Russia. And that will continue to play a key role for Italy.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely. And so is there anything that, is there anything that took you massively by surprise? Sorry to interject there.
Enza Tedesco - Italy Editor, Montel News:No, not at all. I think the battery, I would really underline the debut of the battery auction in Italy. And I think in not only surprise me, it took a lot of the players off guard. Most of the analysts were expecting a prize around. 25, 30,000 per megawatt hour and having 13,000 was a big surprise. And that means that there's a huge opportunities to deploy batteries, which are key for also the curtailments that are expected to that we are going to see next year and in coming years. The estimates for curtailments are massive also, six folds, one of the consultants is saying so obviously batteries are going to play a significant role here in Italy, along with the grids which we can talk about more later as well.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely Enza. And thank you very much. Now it's time to get the crystal ball out and to look ahead this to next year in 2026. Olav, can I start with you again? In terms of your expectations. We are living in a very uncertain world. The whole geopolitical reality seems to shift on a weekly, sometimes a daily basis. There's conflict. There's climate crisis, droughts, hurricanes, et cetera. But in the Nordic region what do you think will be the key stories in 2026?
Olav Vilnes - Nordics Editor, Montel News:I think they will all look very closely at the global situation. But I think the weather will always decide the power price, that's always been the case and it'll still be the case. And I think the analyst we've talked to in December, they expected a price rise maybe from just under 40 euros in 2025 to maybe around 44, 45 euros in 2026. And of course there will be big differences as well in prices between the Northern Scandinavia and Southern Scandinavia. Just due to the fundamental situation, there's a surplus of hydropower and wind in the north limited transmission capacity to the south. That situation will be the same next year. Maybe not as extreme as it was last year, but still big differences. I think there's also big interest in Sweden regarding the nuclear plants. They launched a big subsidy scheme in August this year that will be used have already attracted interest from Vattenfall and other market participants. Maybe in 2026 we'll see more of this. More concrete timelines coming up and projects coming up. And what they will do with it maybe around 2035. We will see the first investments for nearly 50 years in Swedish nuclear power new nuclear power. And I think also there's a quite interesting, also in Nordic market there is the there's a change in the financial power market. NASDAQ sold out. It's agreed to sell it's derivative business there to Nordpol or Euronex earlier in, in January this year. And they will merge that in the first half of 2026. EX is also stepping up its efforts there. And we've even seen market participants coming off with bilateral trading platforms. So there is a race for those customers and interesting to see if they can lift the total volumes. Because the total volumes of financial power trading in that region has been, is still very low compared to what, where it was 10 to 15 years ago.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:That's, that's very interesting. All love. And I think a couple of pointers before I turn to Lori, I think it's quite interesting to say that the Norwegian government has used the falling liquidity in the wholesale market, in the futures market as a basis for introducing the retail price cap. Which is quite an interesting acknowledgement there. And also that we see a lot of talk in countries that haven't considered nuclear before. It's a bit of a it's a very big hot topic in places like Norway and Denmark, which it hasn't been before. So I think absolutely right to stress. To stress nuclear, Olav. Thank you very much. And Lori, if I can turn to you again so you know, time for your crystal ball. What, what's gonna happen in the UK in 2026?
Laurence Walker - UK Editor, Montel News:Yes. I'd agree with Olav. Obviously in the UK, weather's gonna be a key driver. There's this stage of the winter when we're, where we're speaking now, there are uncertainties. We could have some cold snaps in early next year as well. The winter's not over, and obviously we'd have to look at how the system will cope with any severe cold period. Should we get them more broadly? I'd say I think there's gonna be continued focus on power grid investments, expansion. We've obviously had problems with curtailment, with wind farms having to basically reduce output. I guess there's been not been enough space on the grid to get the power in. There is similar issues with sort our growing ai data center demand, these sort of things. So there's growing demands and I think it's, there's gonna be a lot of talk and a lot of discussion about how the grid can be expanded to meet this demand and avoid these sort of bottlenecks. So I think that's gonna be one of the main areas as well. And as I mentioned briefly there, I think, yeah, data center demand again, is gonna be continued topic. And I think we're about two and a half percent of power demand now in the UK is for data center demand. And the government sees that rising fourfold by the end of the decade. So yeah, this is another big factor to bear in mind over the coming months and years.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely. I think that's gonna be a factor all over Europe, not just in the UK. I'm hearing talk in Norway of a queue for the, for grid connections of up to 40 terawatt hours for new data centers. I think it's somewhere that's happening across Europe. Absolutely. And I think that's gonna be a factor. Just what, how, who's gonna supply these power hungry units. I facilities I'm not sure, but absolutely. I think the key areas will be dealing with the three Cs as I've coined them, the curtailment congestion and cannibalization. But let's round off with you, Enzo. What are your expectations for 2026?
Enza Tedesco - Italy Editor, Montel News:I think Italy's government is going to be very busy trying to cut power prices. Industrial sector has been really pressing the government on this because Italy has one of the highest power prices, if not the highest in Europe. And that obviously has been affecting the competitiveness of the industry. So to tackle this, the government has put forward several mechanisms, like the energy release scheme, which gives discounted prices power prices to industrials in exchange for building new renewables. And they just recently published the operating rules a year after the program was announced, so we'll have to wait to see if it'll be a success and if it indeed will bring relief to industrials. For the gas intensive sector italy is also looking to artificially shrink the spread between the Italian gas index, the PSV and the TTF, which usually trades at a premium and obviously also puts the gas intensive industry at a disadvantage with the European peers. So we'll have to see if all those plans will go ahead and how they will develop. The other key priority, I think will be like also Lori said, for the UK speeding up grid development and interconnections. Like I said before, scaling up batteries. And we'll continue to see a push for incentive mechanisms such the fee, the fair X and the fair Z to build more green capacity. Gas will continue to have a role, obviously a very important role for Italy. And we might also see. More talks about nuclear. The government is very keen to revive nuclear energy, but we'll have to see how serious it is in having a revival of this technology because they need to move quickly to build a framework before the elections. The election, we have elections in two years and we need at least those two years to put something in place. So we'll have, I think 2026 will be key to see how realistic it is to really talk about nuclear in Italy.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely. And yeah, I think what's really clear here is there's a lot of similarities. There's a lot of common threads here between these very, quite different power systems, the similarities of the grid expansion, data centers, batteries, nuclear as well as dealing with the issues of curtailment, negative prices, et cetera. So I think it would be great to invite you all back one year from now and see what your, how your forecasts fared over the course of the year. But thank you, Enza. Thank you Laurie. And thank you Olav. And new listeners, thanks for listening to this episode of Plugged In. If you enjoy this discussion, please like rate and follow to make sure you get the latest podcast episodes as soon as we release them every Friday. We'd also love to read your reviews of the podcast. It helps us to keep up to date with what you, our listeners think of our podcast and what content you want to recive more of. Finally, you can head to montelnews.com for more news and analysis from our team of journalists across Europe and beyond. See you next time.
