September 22, 2026 · Energy & Climate Daily Digest
A roundup of energy and climate developments for September 22, 2026, with summaries, links, and commentary.
I. Oil Shock and Energy Security
1. Hormuz traffic falls to two ships as Iran offers a conditional reopening; Brent slips below $100 (oil and gas)
Summary:
Reuters reported on September 22 that preliminary shipping data showed only two commodity vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, down from 10 a day earlier. Before the Iran conflict, the waterway typically handled about 125 large commercial vessels a day and about 20% of the world’s daily crude and LNG supply. The same day, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran could reopen the strait within seven days if the United States eases military pressure and lifts its blockade of Iranian ports, and that a proposal has been passed to Washington through mediators. On hopes of a reopening and the restart of Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, Brent crude fell below $100 a barrel to about $97.69, its first such print since September 9. Transit remains near a standstill, and pressure on refined products and freight has not disappeared.
Links:
- Reuters — Hormuz vessel traffic falls to two
- Reuters — Iran ready to reopen Strait of Hormuz if US eases military pressure
- The National — Oil falls below $100 on Hormuz reopening hopes
Commentary:
Prices react quickly to a verbal reopening offer; real relief depends on daily transit rising from single digits back into three figures.
2. Macron warns of a fresh oil shock and urges the EU to temporarily ease refinery and fuel rules (policy)
Summary:
Euronews and Politico reported on September 22 that French President Emmanuel Macron wrote to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arguing that prolonged Hormuz disruption and attacks on Middle East energy infrastructure are eroding buffers from stocks, refinery flexibility and trade diversion. France said about 14% of petrol stations were short or near-short on the morning of September 22. Macron urged temporary relaxation of EU fuel-quality specs on density, volatility and desulphurisation, saying plants could raise jet-fuel and diesel output by about 5%–20%, and proposed delaying some methane-reporting obligations for fossil importers by one year to January 1, 2028. He warned that if Hormuz stays effectively closed and Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline does not return, depletion of Saudi stocks could remove at least another 4 million barrels a day from global supply. The Commission said potential shortages are “extremely high on the agenda” and will be discussed soon with industry and member states.
Links:
- Euronews — France warns of fresh oil shock, urges EU to free up refinery capacity
- POLITICO — Macron asks EU to relax energy and climate rules to ease soaring fuel prices
Commentary:
Europe is trading temporary relaxation of climate and fuel rules for short-term product supply; wartime priorities are overtaking the transition timetable.
3. Brussels seeks powers to order electricity demand cuts and block national measures in a crisis (power grids)
Summary:
Euronews reported on September 22 that, according to draft plans it has seen, the European Commission wants more hands-on emergency powers in a major electricity crisis: authority to declare a regional or EU-wide electricity alarm, require countries to cut consumption by a specified amount, and block national measures that threaten energy supplies elsewhere in Europe. The rethink follows fresh supply and price shocks from the US-Israeli war against Iran, alongside risks from extreme weather, cyberattacks and physical attacks on infrastructure. The draft also calls for more detailed short-term and seasonal adequacy assessments covering plant outages, transmission failures, demand peaks and renewable swings. As electrification deepens, the power system grows more exposed to weather and import shocks, and Brussels is pushing crisis coordination from soft coordination toward enforceable tools.
Links:
Commentary:
Once electricity is the economy’s main fuel, the EU crisis toolkit expands from gas pipelines to the demand “kill switch.”
II. Climate Diplomacy, US Policy and Litigation
4. UN chief says Big Oil treats the atmosphere as an “open sewer” (climate diplomacy)
Summary:
AFP/France 24 reported on September 22 that outgoing UN Secretary-General António Guterres told a UN high-level meeting that major oil companies have for decades treated the atmosphere as an “open sewer” and cashed in on the consequences. He said five major Western oil companies have pocketed nearly half a trillion dollars in profits since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, compared with about $34 billion mobilised to help developing countries adapt, while households pay more for energy, food and insurance. The speech came after record northern-hemisphere summer heat, deadly flooding in Nepal linked to glacial collapse, and UN warnings that the world will at least temporarily breach the Paris 1.5°C goal. Guterres also pointed to the solar and wind boom as grounds for hope and was due to host a climate summit the next day ahead of COP31 in Antalya in November.
Links:
Commentary:
UN climate politics still aims its public fire at fossil profits and the adaptation-finance gap, but hard constraints remain national negotiation outcomes.
5. Sierra Club’s Dirty Truth report again gives major US utilities an F on clean transition (policy)
Summary:
Canary Media reported on September 22 that the Sierra Club’s latest Dirty Truth Report gave 76 of the largest US electric utilities an overall F for the second year running, and said more than four in 10 (31 utilities) have backtracked on climate goals since the start of the second Trump administration. For the first time in the report’s six-year history, the volume of new clean energy planned by utilities fell from the prior year. Planned gas capacity remains large, while clean energy in utility plans is expected to cover only about 25% of load growth by 2035, down from about 32% last year and about 52% in 2024. Grades rest on retiring coal, building no new gas plants, and rapidly expanding clean power to replace fossils and meet rising demand.
Links:
Commentary:
A federal pro-fossil agenda is rewriting utility capex tables—planned clean power is shrinking, not just slowing.
6. New York leads eight states suing to block about $1.4 billion in offshore-wind lease buyouts (offshore wind)
Summary:
The New Jersey Globe and related New York attorney-general materials dated September 22 said New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont in lawsuits against the Interior and Justice departments challenging settlements with Bluepoint Wind and Invenergy that would cancel critical offshore-wind leases in exchange for more than $1.4 billion in federal funds redirected toward conventional energy. Bluepoint’s New York Bight lease contemplated about 2.4 GW; Invenergy projects also target Northeast load centres. The states argue the deals violate the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Administrative Procedure Act, NEPA and Judgment Fund rules, and ask courts to void them and restore the leases. California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a parallel challenge the same day over an about $111 million Morro Bay buyout.
Links:
- New Jersey Globe — Davenport sues Trump administration over cancellation of offshore wind leases
- EIN Presswire — NY AG James and Hochul challenge Trump offshore wind deals
Commentary:
Washington is using taxpayer money to cancel offshore wind; states are turning “grid need versus fossil pivot” into courtroom fights.
7. Fired climate scientists publish a substitute research roadmap to fill the National Climate Assessment gap (science governance)
Summary:
NBC News reported on September 22 that more than a year after the Trump administration dismissed scientists working on the sixth National Climate Assessment in April 2025 and cut support for the US Global Change Research Program, 175 independent climate scientists—including many former assessment contributors—released the first instalment of a special collection in AGU and AMS journals. The commentaries are meant as a roadmap for research states and localities can use to build their own climate assessments. The backdrop includes the USGCRP website going offline and federal moves to loosen vehicle and power-plant greenhouse gas limits and exit key international climate agreements. Scientists link climate change to rapid hurricane intensification, snowpack drought, and heavier rain and flooding.
Links:
Commentary:
With the national assessment stalled, the science community is building a parallel “journal collection plus local use” track—authority without the same mandate.
III. China: Clean Power, Weather Resilience and Environmental Governance
8. After solar tops coal by capacity, extreme weather sharpens China’s “weather-dependent” power anxiety (China)
Summary:
People’s Daily Online reported on September 22, citing National Energy Administration data, that China’s installed solar capacity reached 1.286 billion kilowatts by the end of July, edging past coal’s 1.285 billion and accounting for 31.5% of total installed generation—making solar the largest source by capacity. Capacity is not generation, and coal remains the near-term backbone for support and balancing. The same day, China Youth Daily covered a meteorology-economy forum at the China International Fair for Trade in Services where Tsinghua’s Luo Yong and others argued that rising wind and solar shares make the energy system more “weather-dependent,” like agriculture, with climate change now threatening generation, grids, demand and storage. CMA scientist Shen Yanbo said extreme heat has already pushed national power load to new records eight times this year, with each 1°C rise in peak temperature adding roughly 40–50 GW of load, so new power-system resilience design must treat climate change as a core input.
Links:
- People's Daily Online — Solar overtakes coal as China's top power source by installed capacity
- China Youth Daily — Extreme weather puts the energy system to the test
Commentary:
“Solar past coal” is a capacity milestone; the harder fight is forecastability and dispatchable storage, not more slogan megawatts.
9. China’s ecology ministry: avoid one-size-fits-all winter smog controls and advance recycling of PV, wind and batteries (environmental governance)
Summary:
China News Service and China Economic Net reported on September 22 that at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment’s September briefing, spokesperson Pei Xiaofei said autumn-winter air pollution responses must update contingency plans, deepen performance grading and differentiated controls, apply time-, zone-, sector- and grade-based precision cuts, manage exemptions carefully, and firmly avoid one-size-fits-all shutdowns. PM2.5 episode forecast accuracy exceeds 90%, severity forecast accuracy is above 80%, and warning thresholds now allow activation after consecutive moderate pollution. Solid-waste chief Zhong Bin said recycling and pollution control for retired PV modules, wind equipment and power batteries—the “new three items”—are critical to healthy clean-tech growth. The ministry has issued pollution-control standards for waste lithium batteries and waste PV equipment, is drafting one for waste wind equipment, and will tighten industrial solid-waste supervision, producer-responsibility rules and enforcement against illegal dismantling.
Links:
- China News Service — MEE: avoid one-size-fits-all responses to heavy pollution
- China Economic Net — MEE to advance recycling of the “new three items”
Commentary:
Governance is shifting from how much clean kit is installed to how retired gear is regulated—while still protecting air quality without blunt shutdowns.
IV. Renewables and Storage
10. RWE takes FID on 400 MW/1.1 GWh Moerdijk storage; Belgium’s Green Turtle starts construction (storage)
Summary:
Energy-Storage.News and Energy News reported on September 22 that RWE has taken a final investment decision on a 400 MW/1.1 GWh lithium-ion battery at its Moerdijk power-station site in the Netherlands—about 208 containers—with commissioning targeted for the second quarter of 2028. The project is meant to ease Noord-Brabant congestion via capacity-steering agreements with TenneT and support system integration of the 795 MW OranjeWind offshore wind farm jointly developed with TotalEnergies. Separately, Giga Storage has started construction on Belgium’s Green Turtle project, a 700 MW/2.8 GWh system due in March 2028, after securing financing and a Tesla supply letter of intent. Northwest Europe’s large-scale storage pipeline is moving from paper plans into gigawatt-hour FIDs and groundbreaking.
Links:
- Energy-Storage.News — RWE and Giga Storage move to construction on GWh-scale batteries
- Energy News — RWE’s 400 MW Moerdijk Battery Targets Dutch Grid Congestion
Commentary:
The bigger offshore wind gets, the more onshore storage is needed as a system bolt—Europe’s storage story is shifting from pure arbitrage to congestion and integration.
11. Chile runs first field tests of grid-forming tech at Engie’s 48 MW/275 MWh Los Loros BESS (storage)
Summary:
ESS News reported on September 22 that Chile’s National Electricity Coordinator, ENGIE Chile and Huawei conducted the country’s first field tests of grid-forming inverter technology at Engie’s Los Loros battery energy storage system in the Atacama region. The system is about 48 MW/275.23 MWh with 63 LFP containers and about $64 million of investment; it entered commercial operation at the end of August and stores daytime output from the co-located solar plant for later delivery. Tests cover pre-certification, laboratory work and field monitoring. Other Chilean projects under development, including Enel’s Finis Terrae and Atlas/Trina’s Copiapó PV-plus-storage plant, also plan to use grid-forming technology to support voltage and frequency on a high-renewables grid.
Links:
Commentary:
The next storage race is not only about MWh cost, but whether batteries can form voltage and hold frequency on weak grids.
V. Extreme Weather and Disasters
12. Typhoon Dujuan hits eastern Japan with record rain, deaths and mass evacuations (disaster)
Summary:
Reuters, Al Jazeera and The Independent reported on September 22 that Typhoon Dujuan brought torrential rain and landslides to Japan’s Pacific coast. Reuters, citing NHK, said at least two people were killed and four missing, with power cut to nearly 50,000 homes; The Independent put the death toll at four with at least six missing. Oshima recorded 832 mm of rain in 48 hours, a local record, while parts of Chiba also saw more than 470 mm over 48 hours. Authorities issued evacuation advisories for more than 1.6 million people; rail lines and some Tokyo–Osaka bullet services were disrupted, and Japan Airlines and ANA cancelled hundreds of flights. The meteorological agency warned that even after the storm moved offshore, saturated ground could still trigger landslides and river flooding.
Links:
- Reuters — Torrential rains brought by Japan typhoon kill two
- Al Jazeera — Typhoon Dujuan kills two in Japan, causes travel chaos near Tokyo
Commentary:
In a dense typhoon-season cityscape, record rainfall quickly becomes a stress test of power, transport and evacuation systems.
13. Hurricane Polo rapidly intensifies to Category 5, threatening heavy rain and mudslides in southwestern Mexico (disaster)
Summary:
The US National Hurricane Center and related reports said Hurricane Polo underwent extreme rapid intensification on September 22, reaching Category 5 near 12:00 UTC with maximum sustained winds of about 260 km/h, then strengthening further to about 270 km/h (165 mph). The forecast track parallels Mexico’s southwestern coast; the core may stay offshore, but outer rainbands interacting with the Sierra Madre are expected to bring life-threatening rainfall and mudslides in coastal Guerrero and Michoacán through September 24, with generally 75–150 mm and isolated totals near 200 mm. Mexico issued tropical-storm warnings for parts of the coast. The same day, forecasters also watched Atlantic disturbances and a potential Northeast coastal storm later in the week.
Links:
- The Watchers — Hurricane Polo intensifies to Category 5
- Fox Weather — Polo reaches Category 5 near Mexico
Commentary:
Rapid intensification to Category 5 compresses warning time to hours; for steep coastal terrain, the rain–landslide chain can outrun the wind threat.
Today's Summary
- Hormuz transit is nearly frozen even as Iran offers a conditional reopening; Brent dips below $100 while Europe seeks temporary fuel and methane-rule relief for products.
- Brussels wants enforceable power-demand cuts in crises; the UN denounces fossil profits versus adaptation finance as Climate Week politics heat up.
- In the United States, utility clean-energy plans shrink, states sue over offshore-wind buyouts, and scientists publish a substitute path after the national climate assessment stall.
- China debates weather resilience after solar passes coal by capacity and advances precision winter air controls plus recycling of retired clean-tech gear; European and Chilean storage advances sit beside Japan and Mexico storm disasters.
Daily Framing:
A day when strait diplomacy collided with temporary refinery-rule relief, clean-power planning retreated in the US, and extreme weather shared the stage with grid-resilience urgency—near-term supply security outranking transition tempo.
This digest is compiled from real-time search results and is for reference only.