Audrey Streb
DCNF Energy Reporter
Major global asset managers including BlackRock and Blackstone have been looking to buy power utilities across America in a move that some industry insiders warn could harm consumers, raise electricity costs and advance a climate-driven energy agenda.
In recent months, Blackstone reportedly sought regulatory approval to buy utilities in New Mexico and Texas all while a BlackRock-led group won approval Friday to purchase a major utility in Minnesota. While BlackRock and other huge asset managers have distanced themselves from environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment practices in recent years, some energy experts and consumer advocates that spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation are concerned that buying up utilities may represent a new frontier of financial giants orchestrating “climate mandates.”
“BlackRock isn’t just influencing utilities anymore, they’re buying them. After years of ESG-driven coercion that pushed utilities to abandon reliable energy in favor of China-dependent renewables, BlackRock is now taking direct control. The result will be more of the same: higher costs, weaker grids, and millions in unpaid bills, all driven by the very climate mandates they lobbied for,” Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, told the DCNF. “Minnesotans should brace for more unreliable power, rising rates, and a media narrative that blames Trump for ending taxpayer-funded handouts instead of holding the woke politicians and Wall Street elites responsible for the crisis.” (RELATED: A Major Backer Of Green Energy Admits Again That Solar And Wind Power Alone ‘Can’t Reliably Keep The Lights On’)
Electricity demand is on the rise after years of stagnancy as the artificial intelligence (AI) race ushers in the build out of power-hungry data centers. Utility costs are also spiking as demand takes off in a trend that dates back to the Biden administration.
Against this backdrop, private investment titans like BlackRock and Blackstone are reportedly moving to buy power utility companies and invest in data center expansions and startups.
Minnesota recently granted the BlackRock-led group known as Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) approval to buy one of the state’s major power utilities, Allete. GIP is also reportedly on the cusp of acquiring the major energy company, AES, according to sources familiar with the matter that spoke with Reuters. The Financial Times reported that the deal may be for $38 billion.
BlackRock referred the DCNF to Allete’s statement on regulators approving its partnership with GIP and declined to comment further for this story.
Allete’s statement notes that the impending partnership with the BlackRock-led group includes “guaranteed access to capital to fund ALLETE’s five-year plan for advancing transmission and renewable energy goals [and a] $50 million Clean Firm Technology Fund to support regional clean-energy projects and partnerships.”
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) renewed BlackRock’s ability to own up to 20% of utility voting shares in April, with former FERC Commissioner Mark Christie stating that BlackRock “pledged not to use its holdings to influence utility management” and that utilities need the access to capital.
Christie also warned in September 2024 that “this is an issue that deserves much greater scrutiny” and that “the influence that large shareholders, BlackRock or otherwise, can potentially exert across the consumer-serving utility industry should not be underestimated.”
Blackstone has reportedly sought regulatory approval to buy out the Public Service Company of New Mexico and Texas New Mexico Power Co. recently, according to The Associated Press. The asset management giant also secured a 19.9% stake in a Northern Indiana public utility for over $2 billion in January 2024.
“Blackstone’s sustainability strategy prioritizes accelerating decarbonization by investing in the energy transition and driving value accretive emissions reduction in our portfolio,” Blackstone’s 2024 sustainability report states. “We believe the transition to cleaner energy creates meaningful investment opportunities for private capital. For over a decade, we have pursued attractive investments in companies and assets that are part of the global energy transition as part of our broader energy investing strategy.”
Blackstone also announced on Sept. 15 that private equity funds affiliated with Blackstone Energy Transition Partners will acquire the Pennsylvania-based Hill Top Energy Center natural gas plant for almost $1 billion. The company also announced in July that funds managed by Blackstone Infrastructure and Blackstone Real Estate would invest over $25 billion to help build out Pennsylvania’s energy infrastructure to support the AI “revolution.”
“Renewable” energy goals and ESG investment tend to align with emissions-reduction targets, with some power companies, utilities and states that set goals to cut emissions striving to retire conventional energy sources like coal plants. Isaac added that companies like American Electric Power, in which BlackRock owns a significant stake, have been decommissioning coal plants and replacing them with intermittent sources like solar.
“What happens is when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining, then you have to ramp those generational assets back up, and that’s when price spikes happen,” Isaac said. (RELATED: ‘A Huge Win’: Woke ‘Cartel’ Of Financial Giants Dealt Death Blow 11 Days Before Trump Takes Office)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor of finance Greg Brown told the AP that the reason behind these buyouts are “very simple. Because there’s a lot of money to be made.”
Other experts devoted to consumer protection like Executive Director of Consumers’ Research Will Hild told the DCNF that investment companies like BlackRock stand to gain more than just a profit from these purchases.
“There is no world in which BlackRock’s ownership of American energy benefits ordinary American consumers,” Hild told the DCNF. “This is the same firm that proudly brought us the radical ESG rules and Net-Zero nonsense that forced all our energy bills to skyrocket. We wouldn’t have the scourge of woke capitalism without Larry Fink, who already controls nearly $13 trillion in assets and has been sued for violating anti-trust laws.”
ESG investors weigh a company by its social and environmental choices as well as its finances in a move that critics say bogs down businesses with new costs while doing little to combat climate change. One August 2023 InfluenceMap report showed that as Republicans at the state level and in Congress ramped up their opposition to ESG-focused practices, BlackRock and other major U.S. asset managers decreased their support for climate-related resolutions.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink also said in June 2023 that he no will no longer use the term ESG because it has been “politicized,” less than a year after he noted that climbing energy prices are “accelerating” the green energy transition.
“BlackRock has backpedaled on its ESG messaging and its aggressive, unapologetic imposition of ESG on everything they touch. But the leopard hasn’t changed its spots,” President of the Heartland Institute James Taylor told the DCNF. “It still has the same management group with the same values, and it’s still doing whatever it can to impose ESG on everything it touches, in actuality, if not in name.”
Taylor argued that whether BlackRock buys or acquires a large stake of a utility, it “can now assert itself over legislatures in dictating energy policy.”
Notably, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) threw their weight behind an antitrust lawsuit against major asset managers that alleges the firms colluded to tank coal production with their embrace of zero-emissions goals in May.
The lawsuit, backed by 11 state attorneys general, alleges that BlackRock and multiple other asset managers used their market power to suppress coal production, thereby hurting consumers by causing the price of coal to climb.
The DOJ and FTC’s “support for this baseless case undermines the Trump Administration’s goal of American energy independence,” a BlackRock spokesperson previously told the DCNF. “As we made clear in our earlier motion to dismiss, this case is trying to re-write antitrust law and is based on an absurd theory that coal companies conspired with their shareholders to reduce coal production.”
Blackstone did not respond to the DCNF’s multiple requests for comment.
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An issue is removing the perverse financial incentives to close written down conventional sources in favor of intermittent “renewable” wind and solar. It was deliberate policy by the greens in Democratic administrations, who were also ignoring the reliability effects of doing so.
BlackRock and Blackstone have been looking to buy power utilities across America
Quite literally, a power grab.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, met with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves at Downing Street. With $10 trillion under management, BlackRock is more than a financial institution—it’s a shadow government shaping economies and societies across the globe.
…
The message was clear: BlackRock is not just an investment firm; it’s a stakeholder in the UK’s political and economic future.
https://labourheartlands.com/blackrocks-britain-how-corporate-giants-are-rewriting-the-social-contract/
BlackRock and Blackstone: Not building better worlds.
And Larry Fink should not be allowed to take any stakes in any UK utility without leaving the USA, answering questions to the UK public, not their corrupted representatives.
He is not a shadow government, he is a mafioso. He only cares about making money and his modus operandum is to make the majority pay far, far more.
You can, sadly, count on Kier & Co to sell us all down the swannee…
Kier Starmer decided a legal opinion was somehow binding (self-loathing, guilt etc) and is giving the Chagos islands – Diego Garcia and all – to Malaysia, a firm ally of Beijing; and it will cost us at least £30 odd billion for the privilege, but it does get worse – with Labour in charge it always does.
UK and US security sources have confirmed to Guido local media reports and social media speculation that Mauritius has signed an agreement with India to allow New Delhi to set up a ‘satellite tracking station’ near Chagos. The facility will be on Mauritius territory – which now means the Chagos Islands – near the base area on Diego Garcia…
Indian outlet The Economic Times describes the new base as a “strategic asset for monitoring the region”. It reported: “India and Mauritius also signed an agreement on hydrography to conduct joint surveys, prepare navigation charts and share hydrographic data of the Mauritius EEZ. Modi said India remained committed to enhancing maritime security and capacity of Mauritius.” – Guido Fawkes
You completely miss the point.
Larry Fink is not interested in money,
but total power and control and pushing a transformative global Agenda with the aim to end national sovereignties .
And for this he is willing to sacrifice billions, as many corporations already did
by going woke.
Blackrock is at the very center of green energy transition.
Blackrock is also major stakeholder of the MIC companies (Raytheon etc).
(now guess who is behind all those endless wars).
And Larry Fink openly stated”We will force behavior ”
Behavior is what you eat( the war on meat production),
who you are allowed to criticize,
that you must worship LGBT , love open borders(Fink is a huge fan of that)
mandatory vaccination etc.
It’s not only Keir Starmer and UK.
” Germanies” chancellor Merz is a Blackrock employee.
And before Starmer , Sunak was a Goldman Sachs, Johnson had the same Goldman Sachs mentor,
and Merkels bos…advisor was a Goldman Sachs.
Blackrock is nothing more than the East India Company of the 21st century(even in a literal sense, while Vanguard is its branch of oligarchs that they established).
Avi Yemeni asked the Blackrock CEO at Davos after a meeting with top politicians what he talked about with his employees rulers?
Larry Fink did not answer.
I wonder why?
China has spent decades on its belt and road, worldwide. And now certain favours are being called in.
The collapse of the spy trial is literally the tip of the iceberg. They don’t want to talk about that secret basement in the proposed Chinese Embassy.
Only China would redact the architectural drawings.
“Blackstone” and “BlackRock” are just different names for coal.
When you electrify everything the oppoorunities for the utility to make money boggle the mind.
Hmm. An asset manager taking over utility companies and doing things that raise prices while claiming that customers are better off for user hardships and asset manager profits. Seems
unlikely.Green is the perfect scam.
We need an independent source enabled to compete. (Enabling to compete has to be intentional/governmental, because the one you would compete against already has the advantage of intentional government enabling.) Or at least remove green’s rigged advantages?
How is this different from what the current owners are doing?
‘Major global asset managers including BlackRock and Blackstone have been looking to buy power utilities across America in a move that some industry insiders warn could harm consumers, raise electricity costs and advance a climate-driven energy agenda.’
Large utility holding companies have been gobbling up local utilities for decades. Even if they don’t own generating assets, they promote renewables due to the need to increase the amount of transmission assets they have in rate base.
Frank,
As you likely know there were problems with utility holding companies in the 1920s. Adding luxury assets to utility rate base was one abuse of their government granted monopoly that was finally reined-in with the “used and useful” doctrine.
I think this doctrine can be employed again. How would it be possible that generating sources with an inherent capacity factor (a capital utility or utilization factor) of 25% or less would not trigger an adverse “used and useful” finding that would limit what could be added to the rate base?
I pointed this out in a summary I put together after Wyoming Senate fact-finding hearing in February 2024, but I’m not sure that anyone quite followed my reasoning. At least no one responded to it. The biggest problem is that public service commissions lack sufficient engineering help, and are also, generally, pretty ignorant of the history of electric utilities. They are also afraid of becoming entangled in court with big entities like Blackrock.
By the way, I think Warren Buffet is well aware of how this could go — abuse the rate payers sufficiently and your utility ends up being owned by the State; an outcome that no one should cheer.
‘How would it be possible that generating sources with an inherent capacity factor (a capital utility or utilization factor) of 25% or less would not trigger an adverse “used and useful” finding that would limit what could be added to the rate base?’
Excellent point / question, Kevin!
If I recall, prior to U&U, ‘gold plating’ of utility rate base, particularly generation, not only ensured higher earnings, but also minimized the number of pesky calls utility executives received from the control room in the middle of the night (or while playing golf). This, of course, also had the adverse effect that these surplus assets need not be run particularly efficiently.
What’s apparent today is that many of the utilities here in the North East, that have long since undergone ‘deregulation’ (divested themselves of their generation assets), are now in cahoots with their blue state regulators (i.e., energy Marxists) to encourage the buildout of renewables as a means of stuffing more transmission and demand-side management (DSM) assets into rate base.
That is exactly what National Grid has been doing in the UK, passing themselves off as a “neutral” party. Now with the split, NESO hold the planning remit. All the solutions they go for are for more grid, because it’s the same people.
I am now pushing a narrative about stranded grid and renewables assets as a counterweight. Not sure how far I’ll get, but I do have some important ears listening to me.
I am in the throes of putting together some analysis on the plans for extensive grid investment in the UK. Offshore wind has perhaps slightly better capacity factors as potential, but by the time you start looking at likely curtailment as capacity grows those rates fall dramatically. The result is heavy underutilisation of grid assets, pushing up bills.
I looked at wind curtailment in 2024 which peaked at 7GW. I found you would struggle to justify much more than 1GW of extra transmission to try to handle it, even assuming you could find a market for the output. With low values when output gets curtailed the economics get even harder.
Energy companies providing public utilities are regulated heavily by the State bureaucracy. They are guaranteed a profit no matter how poorly they mis-manage their plant and resources. They can pass almost all costs on to their customers.
They are overseen in the end by politicians whose main goal is getting and keeping power and money. If the electorate is not “woke”, meaning aware and living in reality, God help us as they will take us down the path of ruin and energy shortages.
Wind and solar energy have negative value on open markets. It cannot be dispatched to meet demand. Utilities only pay for it if they are mandated too.
On that level I can’t see where renewables and making profit are connected. I am not seeing where owning the utility is the place to be if you want to promote them.
If they only take power from wind/solar on a PPA, then all the utility can do is pass the purchase price on to the customer. If they can own the wind/solar plant, however, they can not only charge for O&M, taxes, and depreciation, but add the value of the plant to their rate base and earn 7.5% easily — in fact earn maybe 10% on their own contributed capital if they borrow say 50% at 5% interest.
Building wind/solar is much faster than building thermal plants, thus bulks up rate base more quickly.
I see this as an opportunity, none of these deals can move forward without regulatory approval. All future projects must provide a 24/7 power supply less down time for maintenance and updates. No project will be approved that depends on government money to stay afloat. No source of generation will have preference over another to the grid. No source will be paid for not generating power. No source will be guaranteed a certain rate. All sources must have end of service plans and money. I’m sure there should be other requirements but these are enough to insure a bright future for clean, reliable, safe and affordable fossil fuel and nuclear power.
Subsidy mining is where it’s at as the climate changers are stuck between the Blackrocks and a hard place-
‘Money train continues’: Absurd number of subsidies to make sustainable energy viable
When the lights begin to flicker they know there’ll be more slushfunding to kiss it better.