Nuclear Generation & Utilities

Energy Minister Eknat Prompan has unveiled a major energy restructuring plan, under which the government will reserve 10,000 megawatts of rooftop solar generating capacity specifically for the public, set at roughly 5 kilowatts per household, to spread the right across households nationwide. Under the new approach, the state will buy back surplus power and apply it as a discount on the same billing cycle's electricity bill. A 5-kilowatt system can generate about 600 to 700 units per month, worth roughly 2,000 baht or more, and the state will provide a subsidy of 50,000 baht, with the income from the generated power used to pay it off. The equipment is expected to be fully paid off in about 7 to 10 years. On cutting permitting steps, coordination will be handled solely through the distribution utilities, with a target of about 1 week for inspection and acceptance in self-consumption installations, and no more than 1 month in cases of selling power back. For the new Power Development Plan, or PDP, three goals are set: cleanest, most stable, and fairest. It targets raising the share of clean energy from the current level of just over 20% to close to 50% within 10 years, and no less than 65% in the long term, while reducing reliance on spot-market LNG in favor of long-term contracts, and opening the door to future technologies including hydrogen, geothermal, solid oxide fuel cells, and small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs. Meanwhile, the public electricity cost that has been embedded in the power tariff structure for 30 to 40 years amounts to a burden of about 18 billion baht per year. The government has removed this burden from the structure and has already implemented a measure capping the first 200 units of household electricity at 3 baht per unit.

Westinghouse Electric is seeking a valuation of more than $50B in its U.S. initial public offering, with a filing targeted for as soon as October, though details including timing could still change, Bloomberg reported Friday. Citigroup and Goldman Sachs are leading the IPO, with CIBC, J.P. Morgan Chase and Royal Bank of Canada also working on the listing. Westinghouse is jointly owned by Brookfield Renewable Partners and Cameco, which completed a deal in 2023 to buy a 49% stake in the company at a roughly $8B value. The company looks set to benefit from the Trump administration's efforts to boost the U.S. nuclear industry, and the U.S. Army recently selected it as one of five firms to build, own and operate its power plants. Westinghouse's nuclear power technology is used by 57% of the world's nuclear reactors, and it has a pipeline of as many as 91 opportunities for its latest generation reactor.

Analysts have raised the fair value estimate for S.N. Nuclearelectrica to RON 49.75 from RON 44.80, a revised price target that sets a new reference point for how the BVB-listed stock is being valued. The change reflects refreshed growth assumptions rather than a single event, with revenue growth expectations still pointing to a contraction, edging from 18.50% to 18.47%. The net profit margin assumption was cut to 7.21% from 8.02%, while the future P/E was adjusted to 93.58x from 75.82x. The discount rate was left essentially unchanged at 12.526%. The narrative around the company hinges on heavy investment in new nuclear capacity, including Unit 1 refurbishment, Units 3 and 4 and SMRs, alongside risks such as cost overruns, regulatory delays, changing EU policy and growing renewable competition.

AES Corp. said it received approval from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio for its planned sale to a consortium led by BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners and EQT Infrastructure. The Ohio regulator approved the deal on Thursday, according to an 8-K filing, after the Ohio PUC staff recommended in favor of the transaction in July. The Ohio clearance follows AES's disclosure late last month that it won approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for the combination. AES agreed in March to be acquired by the consortium, which also includes co-underwriters California Public Employees Retirement System and Qatar Investment Authority, for $15 per share in cash, representing a total equity value of $10.7B and an enterprise value of roughly $33.4B including debt. AES has said the transaction is expected to close in late 2026 or early 2027.

The U.S. Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points on Sept. 16, 2026, bringing the federal funds target range to 3.75-4.00%, its first increase in three years, with projections indicating another hike in 2026. The move is particularly relevant for alternative energy projects, which depend heavily on financing, since higher rates raise the cost of capital and can affect project economics, development timelines and valuations across the sector. Higher borrowing costs weigh especially on capital-intensive technologies such as offshore wind, carbon capture and low-carbon hydrogen, and can also squeeze utility-scale renewable operators whose long-term Power Purchase Agreements lock in electricity prices. Against that backdrop, three alternative energy stocks stand out on financial metrics: Montauk Renewables, Constellation Energy Corporation and TXNM Energy, each carrying a VGM Score of A or B and a Zacks Rank of either #1 (Strong Buy) or 3 (Hold). Montauk Renewables projects $20-$25 million in non-development capital spending and $80-$100 million in development projects, with a times interest earned ratio of 1.7 and a Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 EPS showing year-over-year growth of 1,100%. Constellation Energy expects capital expenditures of about $5.7 billion in 2026 and $4.7 billion in 2027, with a times interest earned ratio of 7.5 and 2026 EPS growth estimated at 29.3%, while TXNM Energy's 2025-2029 capital investment plan totals approximately $7.8 billion, with a times interest earned ratio of 1.9 and estimated 2026 EPS growth of 31.8%.

Vistra's fair value estimate has been revised down to US$217.42 from US$225.29, reflecting a more cautious analyst balance between AI-driven power demand and concerns over policy, regulation and market pricing around 2026. The updated model lifts the net profit margin assumption to 15.66% from 14.67% but trims revenue growth to 10.31% from 10.83% and cuts the future P/E to 22.06x from 24.20x, with the discount rate now 7.92% versus 7.89%. Morgan Stanley, Scotiabank, TD Cowen, UBS, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs kept positive ratings while adjusting price targets, with Mizuho citing Vistra as a merchant power platform set to benefit from AI electricity demand and data center buildouts, and the recent Cogentrix acquisition adding 5.5 gigawatts of generation. BNP Paribas cut its price target, flagging risk around data center buildouts into the U.S. midterm elections and directives in Pennsylvania and Texas that could delay some interconnections. Separately, Vistra priced a US$1.5b underwritten public offering of junior subordinated unsecured notes due 2057, split between US$850m Series A notes at a 7.00% fixed rate and US$650m Series B notes at a 7.25% fixed rate, with proceeds earmarked for general corporate purposes and redemption of certain preferred stock at reset dates. Vistra also reported repurchasing 2,155,553 shares for US$330.53m between April 1, 2026 and June 30, 2026, and declared a quarterly dividend of US$0.23 per share, an estimated aggregate payment of about US$75m payable on September 30, 2026.

In San Jose, the largest city in California's Silicon Valley, residents and environmental groups are mounting an opposition campaign against plans to build artificial intelligence data centers. San Jose, with a population of about 1 million, is California's third-largest city. Last year it reached an agreement with utility PG&E to strengthen power supply for data centers and other facilities, and it estimates that each data center opened generates 3 million to 6 million dollars a year in tax revenue for services such as police, fire, libraries, roads and parks. Elina Yin, who leads the residents' group I Love San Jose, says companies should prove how they give back to the community, and is calling for stricter public review before construction is approved, greater transparency on energy and water use, and studies of health and environmental impacts. Mayor Matt Mahan told Reuters that the solution is not to stop construction but to carry it out responsibly, and that residents' questions are entirely reasonable. The California State Assembly and Senate recently passed several data center-related bills, including measures to ensure large electricity consumers share the costs of the transmission grid and requirements to increase transparency around energy and water consumption, and Governor Newsom must decide this month whether to sign or veto them.

Emera reported second-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $0.69, down from $0.79 a year earlier, while reaffirming its long-term growth plan. The company said it remains positioned to grow adjusted earnings per share above its 5% to 7% annual target range in 2026 and reiterated that same 5% to 7% commitment through 2030. Adjusted net income fell to $212 million from $236 million, and reported net income dropped to $105 million from $135 million, weighed down by a $59 million after-tax increase in mark-to-market losses and a $19 million after-tax loss on the Grand Bahama sale. Year-to-date operating cash flow before working capital changes climbed 8% versus the first half of 2025, and Emera invested more than $1.7 billion in infrastructure in the first six months while staying on pace for a full $4 billion capital plan in 2026. Regulatory approval came through for the New Mexico Gas Company transaction and the sale of Grand Bahama Power Company closed in May, while Gas Utilities and Infrastructure adjusted net income rose to $55 million in the quarter from $48 million and to $191 million year to date from $168 million.

Regarding the final disposal site for high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, so-called nuclear waste, the mayor of Hitachiomiya in Ibaraki Prefecture, Sadayuki Suzuki, indicated at a plenary session of the city assembly on the 18th that he would postpone a decision on whether to accept a literature survey, the first stage of the selection process. The literature survey is the first of a three-stage process toward selecting a final disposal site. The mayor did not reach a conclusion this time on whether to accept it, and made clear his position of holding off on a decision for the time being.

The US Federal Reserve, or Fed, raised interest rates by 0.25% to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%, with a unanimous 12-0 vote by the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC. This is the first hike since July 2023, and the Fed signaled further increases this year in its fight against high inflation driven by surging crude oil prices amid the Iran-US war. The rate hike dragged the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 631.21 points, or 1.21%, to close at 51,461.90. The S&P 500 closed at 7,551.81, down 33.92 points, or 0.45%, while the Nasdaq closed at 25,978.42, down 3.15 points, or 0.01%. Technology stocks recovered, with semiconductor shares up 0.6%, the first gain since the AI company's executives warned against slowing development. Intel jumped 4% after reports that South Korea's SK Hynix is in talks with Intel about manufacturing memory chips in the United States, news that also lifted SK Hynix's US-listed shares by 0.6%. As for the Thai stock market, the index is expected to see a short-term technical rebound after the Fed's decision to raise rates came in as expected. The stock to watch today is GULF, which is investing more than 100 billion baht to develop a Data Center Park with a capacity of over 1,000 megawatts, with a plan expected to be finalized within this year, while accelerating the development of electricity and water infrastructure to serve major customers.

Elon Musk doubled down on his solar thesis on Tuesday, predicting on social media platform X that "the solar power exponential will continue until all other energy sources are <<0.1%," and adding in a separate post that "Solar is so obviously the future." Texas is offering a real-world example of the shift, though ERCOT data does not project anything close to Musk's 99.9%-plus scenario: solar supplied 10.4% of ERCOT electricity in 2024, overtaking nuclear at 8.4%, while wind supplied another 24.2%, and installed solar capacity rose from 698 MW in 2016 to 37,443 MW in 2025. The Energy Information Administration said solar's share of ERCOT generation climbed from 4% in 2021 to 12% in 2025, with utility-scale solar generating 45 TWh in the first nine months of 2025, up 50% year over year, and wind and solar together meeting 36% of grid demand; a May EIA forecast projected ERCOT utility-scale solar generation would reach 78 billion kWh in 2026, topping coal's 60 billion kWh for the first time annually. Musk is putting corporate money behind the thesis: Tesla Inc. is considering a $10.1 billion vertically integrated solar-cell plant in Fort Bend County, Texas, and Musk recently said Tesla and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. are each building toward 100 GW per year of solar-production capacity, while acknowledging that "natural gas will still be needed to supplement and bootstrap solar for several years." Solar also sits at the center of SpaceX's broader plans, with the company envisioning large solar arrays powering orbital AI infrastructure.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Ratepayer Protection Act by a near-unanimous margin, sending shares of nuclear reactor developers Oklo and NuScale Power sharply higher in Thursday morning trading. Oklo stock rose 13% to $40.37, while NuScale Power stock climbed 10% to $9.14, far outpacing the Global X Uranium ETF, which gained 4% to $42.92, and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, which rose 1% to $762.04. The bill would require large data centers to pay for the power generation and transmission upgrades their electricity demand creates rather than spreading those costs across other utility customers, though it still needs Senate approval before becoming law. Oklo's bull case rests on a signed pipeline that includes a 12 GW master power agreement with Switch and a 500 MW letter of intent with Equinix that included a $25 million pre-payment, but the company targets first commercial power delivery only in late 2027 to early 2028 and remains pre-revenue in its core reactor business, with shares down 44% year to date. NuScale Power, the only U.S. NRC design-certified small modular reactor technology provider, ended Q2 2026 with $1.9 billion in cash and investments, and its growth story centers on ENTRA1 Energy advancing discussions with TVA toward a definitive PPA for up to 6 GW of capacity, described as potentially the largest nuclear deployment program in U.S. history, though its stock is down 36% year to date and trades near its 50-day moving average of $9.06.

CoreWeave deployed multi-rack NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 clusters on CoreWeave Cloud on Wednesday, moving the architecture from validation toward broader availability. CoreWeave had already become the first cloud provider to bring up and validate NVIDIA's Vera Rubin NVL72, and in August it won a multi-year agreement with Hudson River Trading to build its next-generation AI research and model-development platform using Vera Rubin NVL72 and Spectrum-X Ethernet. NVIDIA says Rubin is in full production and is designed for training and inference. CoreWeave said AI products and services beyond GPUs, including storage, CPU, networking and software, exceeded $400 million of annual recurring revenue in the second quarter, while booked annual recurring revenue for managed inference rose from $1 million to more than $100 million within months of launch. Active power exceeded 1.5 gigawatts in the second quarter and contracted power reached about 4.2 gigawatts by Aug. 11, with CoreWeave targeting more than 1.85 gigawatts of active power by year-end 2026 and at least 8 gigawatts by 2030, against expected 2026 capital expenditures of $35-$39 billion and second-quarter net interest expense of $640 million.

The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Ratepayer Protection Act by a vote of 417 to 3, aiming to shield the public from electricity bill increases that could stem from the expansion of data centers driven by the artificial intelligence race. The bill now heads to the Senate for further consideration. Republican Representative Gabe Evans of Colorado introduced the bill. Its core provision requires technology companies to bear the cost of new energy infrastructure built to serve data centers, rather than shifting that burden onto consumers. It encourages state utility regulators to set standards requiring high-volume electricity customers, including large data centers, to cover the costs of adding new generating capacity. US House Speaker Mike Johnson said the Ratepayer Protection Act will help ensure American households do not have to shoulder the costs of expanding AI infrastructure or face higher energy costs. The International Energy Agency estimated in 2025 that electricity consumption by data centers in the United States could more than double its 2024 level by the end of this decade, while other assessments indicate that data center electricity use could account for more than 10% of US power demand by 2030.

Atthawit Suwanpakdee, an MP of the United Thai Nation Party, is calling on the government to quickly raise electricity rates for Data Centers and to tighten regulatory oversight, saying that failing to raise Data Center power rates affects revenue remitted to the government and risks leaving the Metropolitan Electricity Authority, or MEA, and the Provincial Electricity Authority, or PEA, unable to bear their financial burden, which would in turn affect the country's revenue projections and annual expenditure budget. Atthawit said the budget burden stems from two main government electricity subsidy programs totaling 30 billion baht: a program subsidizing the first 200 units of electricity at 3 baht per unit, which uses 12 billion baht, and a program removing public lighting or street lighting electricity charges from people's bills, which uses another 18 billion baht. As of August 31, 2026, figures show that PEA's revenue remitted to the treasury stood at 16.011 billion baht, while MEA's stood at 5.104 billion baht, bringing the combined remittances of the two agencies over the 11-month period to about 21 billion baht, still short of the target and obligations by as much as 9 billion baht. As a result, this year may be the first in which MEA and PEA, the champions of revenue remittance to the treasury, fail to meet their revenue targets and post negative results. Atthawit said that although Eknat Prompan, the Energy Minister, has spoken about this issue for a long time, no actual increase has been made. Currently, Data Centers still pay electricity at the same rate as households, which he called unfair to the public, and he urged the Energy Ministry to urgently raise Data Center electricity rates. He also proposed that the Department of Industrial Works under the Ministry of Industry expedite a declaration classifying Data Centers as Type 108 factories under Section 5 of the Factory Act, up from Thailand's current 107 factory types, since Data Centers have total machinery power exceeding 50 horsepower, use electricity at the megawatt level, and fall under the definition of factory operations involving the storage of equipment. The declaration process would take 60 days so that officials can inspect and oversee licenses, sanitation, or order closures if they cause a nuisance. He also pointed to the lack of preparation for dedicated zoning for Data Centers compared with other countries such as Malaysia, which has zoning on Penang Island complete with water and electricity systems, while in Thailand the Energy Regulatory Commission, or ERC, does not allow Data Centers to build their own power plants, forcing Data Centers to locate in areas with the strongest power and water networks, such as the Rama IX and Ramkhamhaeng areas.

N Shengu listed today, opening at 13.00 yuan, up 196.13% from its issue price. The company issued a total of 311 million shares, of which 152.3905 million were offered online, at an issue price of 4.39 yuan per share, with an issue price-to-earnings ratio of 29.81 times, compared with an industry average of 40.94 times. The number of valid online subscription accounts was 15.7247 million, and the final online lottery winning rate was 0.04703721%. The company raised 1.365 billion yuan in its initial public offering, mainly for a green and efficient major technical equipment industrialization project, a Shengu Group research and development and digitalization project, a clean energy green factory project, and a nuclear pump pilot base project. The company's main business focuses on key areas safeguarding national defense security, food security, ecological security, energy security and industrial security. With the mission of localizing major critical equipment for the energy and chemical industry, it operates across three business segments: energy and chemical equipment manufacturing, industrial services, and strategic emerging industries, specializing in the research, development, design, manufacturing, sales and full-life-cycle services of major technical equipment products such as centrifugal compressors, reciprocating compressors and nuclear pumps.

Guggenheim analyst Joseph Osha raised his price target on GE Vernova to a Street-high $1,450 from $1,300, implying roughly 64% upside from the stock's current $882.17, even as shares have given back their entire post-earnings surge. GE Vernova has fallen 17.03% over the past month and 9.18% in the past week, and is down 10.38% since its July 22, 2026 second-quarter report, leaving it about 26% below its 52-week high of $1,195.94. The Q2 results themselves were strong: revenue of $11.10B, up 21.8% year over year, orders of $24.20B, an $176B backlog, and $5.10B in quarterly free cash flow, with management raising full-year free cash flow guidance to $11.5B to $12.5B from $6.5B to $7.5B. Osha's call rests on hyperscaler demand for transformers and turbines, margin expansion from a higher-priced backlog, and long-term service agreements on the growing HA turbine fleet; GE Vernova signed 20 gigawatts of gas power orders in Q2 alone, bringing contracted capacity to 116 gigawatts, and first-half data center orders topped $5 billion, more than double all of 2025. Among power peers, Eaton trades at $392.26 against a $478.17 consensus target for about 22% implied upside, while Constellation Energy trades at $259.89 versus $348.30 for roughly 34%, leaving GE Vernova with the deepest discount and largest Street-high of the group.

UBS downgraded NuScale Power to Sell from Neutral and cut its price target to $6 from $10, implying roughly 40% downside from the stock's level when the analyst call was issued. The bank's negative argument centers on execution, noting competitors are entering construction while NuScale faces an expected build time of more than five years and no concrete client commitments, and it now forecasts just one NuScale project breaking ground in 2028 with a cumulative cash burn of $700 million from 2026 through 2028. NuScale reported $766.5 million in cash and cash equivalents as of June 30, 2026, plus $305.7 million of short-term investments and $820.8 million of investments, totaling over $1.89 billion with no debt, but it recorded a cumulative deficit of $824.4 million and used $372.9 million of cash in operating activities in the first half of 2026, up from $56.1 million a year earlier, largely due to a $259.9 million payment to commercialization partner ENTRA1. Counterarguments include NuScale's US460 standard plant design, which received U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval in May 2025 with six modules of 77 megawatts each for 462 megawatts total, and the Doicești project in Romania with RoPower Nuclear, where shareholders approved the final investment decision on Feb. 12, 2026, alongside an ENTRA1 Energy initiative with TVA for up to 6 gigawatts of NuScale capacity. The Energy Department has projected the U.S. may need as much as 200 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity by 2050, and in March 2025 published a request for $900 million to assist development of American-made Generation III+ small modular reactors.