The key elections to watch for energy and climate

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Election Day is almost here, and while the White House and Congress aren’t up for grabs this time around, energy issues are on the ballot in several major races. Here are five elections where rising power bills, offshore wind, data centers, and the future of clean energy are all on the line.

Georgia Public Service Commission

Every state has an obscure regulatory body that oversees for-profit electric utilities, including their requests to raise rates and build new energy projects. In Georgia, it’s called the Public Service Commission, and unlike in most states, voters get to decide who’s on it.

Georgia’s current five utility commissioners — all Republicans — have been in power beyond their elected terms because lawsuits have delayed elections. On Tuesday, two of those commissioners will finally face voters.

In one race, Republican incumbent Tim Echols faces a challenge from Democrat Alicia Johnson. Echols calls for more nuclear power and battery storage and has touted his support for solar. Johnson wants more solar power and battery storage, including rooftop solar and other distributed energy resources, but is less bullish on nuclear.

In the other PSC race, Democrat Peter Hubbard is looking to unseat Republican incumbent Fitz Johnson (no relation to Alicia Johnson). Hubbard, an energy modeler, has a long track record of challenging the PSC, and told Canary Media’s Jeff St. John he’d push for more solar and less gas if elected. Johnson didn’t respond to Canary’s requests for comment, but has called this election a contest of ​“affordable, reliable energy vs. costly climate mandates.”

New Jersey governor

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill is facing off against Republican former state legislator Jack Ciattarelli to lead New Jersey — and energy affordability has become a key issue. The state saw one of the country’s biggest electricity rate increases over the last year, and Sherrill has promised to build more clean energy generation to address the problem.

Ciattarelli, meanwhile, has blamed New Jersey’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative for rising power prices. He’s also not a fan of offshore wind — just take a look at the koozies his campaign store is selling.

Virginia governor

Rising power bills are also a hot topic in Virginia, where Democratic former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger is facing Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in the governor’s race.

Virginia is already known as the data-center capital of the world, and continued development could drive up power demand even further. Spanberger has called for exploring energy-efficiency programs and virtual power plants as potential solutions, and supports solar, offshore wind, and nuclear development to meet demand. Earle-Sears is more critical of solar and wind power, but is a strong supporter of small nuclear reactors.

New York City mayor

There’s a three-way race underway to lead New York City, where Democrat Zohran Mamdani is polling ahead of independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

The future mayor will have a lot of say in implementation of the city’s landmark law requiring cuts in climate emissions from buildings, and Mamdani has promised to strictly enforce the measure. Mamdani has also woven climate action into his plans to make the city more affordable, including by turning dozens of schools into renewables-equipped resilience hubs.

Sliwa, for his part, has campaigned against battery storage development, and he celebrated when a major battery project planned for Staten Island was canceled this month. (More on that news below.)

More big energy stories

A big week for conventional nuclear reactors

Small nuclear reactors may be generating more buzz, but conventional reactors are at the center of three big nuclear deals announced in the U.S. this past week. The first comes from the Trump administration, which announced an $80 million plan to work with nuclear reactor developer Westinghouse, Brookfield Asset Management, and uranium supplier Cameco to build several Westinghouse AP1000 reactors across the U.S.

In Iowa, Google announced it’s partnering with utility NextEra Energy to restart the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant. The facility has been shut down for five years, but Google hopes to get it back online by 2029 to help power its growing data-center fleet. And in South Carolina, state-owned utility Santee Cooper is tapping Brookfield Asset Management to finish construction of two AP1000 reactors that the utility abandoned back in 2018. 

A win and a loss for battery storage

Large-scale battery development saw both a breakthrough and a setback over this past week. The good news for storage came from Form Energy, which has started installing its 100-hour iron-air batteries at a Great River Energy storage project in Minnesota. The startup is building those first-of-a-kind batteries at its West Virginia factory, where it hopes to speed up production as it works out some early kinks.

But on New York’s Staten Island, Hecate Energy has withdrawn plans to build a 650-megawatt battery storage facility. The company didn’t give a reason for the termination, but it did face opposition from residents and local leaders.

Clean energy news to know this week

A climate win? The United Nations anticipates global emissions will fall 10% from 2019 levels by 2035 thanks to many countries’ new climate pledges, but the world will still miss Paris Agreement emissions-reduction goals. (Reuters, The Guardian)

The EV cliff is here: EV sales are on track to make up less than 6% of all new car sales in October, a nosedive from record sales in the months leading up to the expiration of federal tax credits on Sept. 30. (E&E News)

Hyundai rolls on: Hyundai says it will move forward with plans to build a low-carbon steel plant in Louisiana even after a federal immigration raid on its Georgia EV plant, and after the Trump administration slashed hydrogen tax credits that would help the project. (Canary Media)

Oversight, in mind: Former Connecticut utility commissioner Marissa Gillett calls on other regulators to provide ​“continuous, sustained rigorous oversight” as power prices rise and climate action stalls. (Canary Media)

Fossil fuels fight back: ExxonMobil files a federal lawsuit challenging California laws requiring the corporation to disclose greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the global use of its products, saying the rules violate the company’s free speech rights. (Los Angeles Times)

Teamwork makes the green work: Connecticut and Maine are partnering to jointly consider clean energy projects in hopes that pooling demand and sharing information will help them speed development before federal tax credits expire. (Canary Media)

Homegrown solar: The opening of Corning’s Michigan solar component factory means the U.S. can now produce all major pieces of solar panels domestically, the Solar Energy Industries Association says. (Utility Dive)

A correction was made on Oct. 31, 2025. This story originally stated that Fullmark Energy — the new name for Hecate Grid — withdrew plans for its battery storage project on Staten Island. The piece has been updated to reflect that Hecate Energy withdrew plans for the project.