EnergyOnline
Services

RSS FEED

EnergyOnline.com rss

News

Amazon Announces Plans to Invest $12 Billion in Data Center Campuses in Louisiana

LCG, February 23, 2026--Amazon today announced plans to invest $12 billion to develop and construct state-of-the-art data center campuses in northwest Louisiana that will support cloud computing technologies. Amazon is partnering with STACK Infrastructure, the developer and owner of the campuses, to lead the construction and development of the data center facilities. Amazon has already invested in solar energy projects in Louisiana, bringing up to 200 MW of new carbon-free energy onto the grid.

Read more

EIA Estimates Record U.S. Electric Generating Capacity Additions in 2026, with Solar in the Lead

LCG, February 20, 2026--The EIA today issued an "in-brief analysis" that estimates U.S. power plant developers and operators plan to complete a record installation of 86 GW of new, utility-scale electric generating capacity that is connected to the U.S. power grid in 2026. Last year, 53 GW of new capacity was added to the grid, which was the largest capacity installation in a single year since 2002. Thus the estimate of 86 GW of new capacity in 2026 is a whopping 33 GW greater than the year prior. It should be noted that over 20 GW of the 86 GW of new capacity this year is estimated to be completed in December.

Read more

Industry News

Replacing Stoplights With LEDs Pays Off

LCG, April 15, 2003-Have you been stopped at a light recently and noticed the stoplight was not one continuous color but actually composed of many smaller lights? California has replaced many of its incandescent stoplight bulbs with efficient light-emitting diodes.

Using LEDs in stoplights and traffic signals currently saves California 17 megawatts of capacity, according to the California Energy Commission.

California transportation authorities are responsible for more than 2 million traffic signals. Over 200,000 California units have been switched over to LEDs, starting with the red lights, which are on at least 60% of the time.

LEDs have been used in traffic signals for over ten years, but the cost of using the semiconductor-based units has in the last few years come down to a very affordable level.

Conventional light bulbs use a high-resistance filament, which glows when current runs through it. Much energy is lost in the form of heat and infrared radiation, a property which can be quickly verified if you have ever tried to unscrew a lightbulb after a light has been on for several hours.

Light-emitting diodes, however, operate by quantum mechanically converting electron kinetic energy into photons, or light energy. Very little energy is lost by way of heat or other modes of radiation. LEDs have a specially engineered "band gap" which allows higher energy electrons to lose exactly the amount of energy necessary to produce light of a specific wavelength, or color.

In addition to being much more energy efficient, LED's last an average of 8 years, as opposed to the average 1.5 year incandescent bulb lifetime. LEDs in stoplights also confer an advantage in that they are quite small. Even if several of the LEDs in a stoplight burn out, the stoplight can still function because most of the lights will still work, providing for greater safety.

Caltrans officials have said LEDs have brought down energy and maintenance expenditures by $5.7 million.

LEDs are often used for small lights on bicycles and keychains, but some companies are looking into broadening the use of the devices, applying them to more demanding applications such as stadium lights.

Copyright © 2026 LCG Consulting. All rights reserved. Terms and Copyright
UPLAN-NPM
The Locational Marginal Price Model (LMP) Network Power Model
Uniform Storage Model
A Battery Simulation Model
UPLAN-ACE
Day Ahead and Real Time Market Simulation
UPLAN-G
The Gas Procurement and Competitive Analysis System
PLATO
Database of Plants, Loads, Assets, Transmission...
CAISO CRR Auctions
Monthly Price and Congestion Forecasting Service