Daily Digest for

Carl Bivens of Troutman Pepper Locke LLP told Law360 that energy scarcity is reshaping data center development deals, with delay risk now the central commercial negotiation point. Hyperscalers seek liquidated damages and termination rights if energy isn’t delivered on time, while lenders and investors resist termination, shifting focus to force majeure carveouts for utility delays.

Bayesian Energy and Radiant Energy Group, commissioned by The Rockefeller Foundation, find integrating nuclear into power systems in eight EMDEs can cut total system costs by 2–31% and supply 10–30% of generation by 2050. In a Ghana case, nuclear reduces required generation from over 300 GW (renewables-only) to roughly 60 GW and lowers storage/transmission needs from 40/50 GW to about 10/30 GW by 2050.

Eurostar and Deutsche Bahn have signed an MoU to explore direct high-speed services between London and German cities (Cologne and Frankfurt), aiming to start in the early 2030s. Services would use Eurostar’s new double-decker Celestia trains (≈20% more capacity, up to 50% energy savings) with journey times of ~4 hours to Cologne and just over 5 hours to Frankfurt.

Sven Ostberg said India-Sweden bilateral trade could double within five years if an India-EU free trade agreement is finalized and India pursues its green transition; trade rose from about US$2.8B in 2016 to nearly US$7B in 2024. Sweden’s FDI in India is around US$2.5B, over 280 Swedish companies operate in India, and MoUs with Maharashtra (Candela, Echandia, Berg Propulsion/Garden Reach) align with clean-tech and maritime modernization that could help push trade above $15B by 2030.

Researchers Parise and Rubin find that many actively managed sustainable mutual funds temporarily increase ESG exposure in the ten days before quarterly portfolio disclosures and then reduce ESG exposure afterward, a pattern they call “green window dressing.” A pre-disclosure ESG beta rise of ~0.12 (≈50%) increases the chance of Morningstar’s five-globe rating by 2.1 percentage points, and funds engaging most strongly in this behavior see higher subsequent inflows, especially for institutional share classes.

Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Bundestagsfraktion urges acceleration of geothermal deployment in Germany through the Geothermal Acceleration Act (GeoBG) while insisting on strict drinking water protections and exclusion of petrothermal fracking. They also call for increasing federal support for heat networks, proposing BEW funding of €3.5 billion per year and note that original targets of 10 TWh and 100 projects by 2030 were removed from the current law.

The European Commission opened three Innovation Fund funding opportunities totalling €5.2 billion: €2.9bn for the 2025 Net‑Zero Technologies call, €1.3bn for the third European Hydrogen Bank auction, and €1bn for the first EU heat decarbonisation auction. Application deadlines are 23 April 2026 for the NZT call and 19 February 2026 for the hydrogen and heat auctions, with Info Days in December 2025 and grant agreements expected by Q1 2027 (NZT) or within nine months after auction closure.