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Tech Brew

Green Tech

Tricia Crimmins

techbrew.com

TBR-Solar power audio embed

The solar industry is disappointed: After months of 

 Congress to preserve clean energy tax credits for solar power, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which President Trump signed last month, phases out tax credits for investment in and production of solar power.

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act granted subsidies for solar projects that started construction before 2033. Under Trump’s budget bill, those credits will only be available for projects that commence construction within the next year or are in service before the end of 2027.

Brendan Bell, COO and managing director of clean energy firm Aligned Climate Capital, told Tech Brew that the policy changes are bad for the climate and the US economy.

“All of the manufacturing that had come to the US to support these new rules—which was creating jobs in places that haven’t had jobs in a long time, creating an economic industrial base here in the US—that’s gone,” he said. “If there’s anything that is most disastrous about this, it is, there is no longer a reason to have a solar manufacturing plant in the United States.”

But that doesn’t mean solar won’t bounce back. Solar installers, developers, and investors told Tech Brew that the industry will go through a period of transition in which consumers and businesses face a lot of uncertainty about whether they’ll be able to receive those sunsetting tax credits, and power prices will rise. But once the dust settles, they said, solar will be able to survive without subsidies.

“Every developer who you’ve signed a contract with is going to come back and say ‘I need you to pay more for your power,’ because of tax credits,” Bell said. “But people will transition to a different world, and it just means that consumers, whether you’re [a business] or you’re a homeowner, you’re going to pay more for power.”

For now, Bell said Aligned will move forward with projects already in motion and work to “get ahead of the [foreign entity of concern] requirements,” a provision in the new law that restricts clean energy projects from using equipment from foreign entities, like China.

“Our contracts will just build in adjustments,” Bell said. “If you get the tax credits, it’s this price. If it’s not, it’s this price.”

However, developers (and the people paying them) won’t know if they’ll be able to receive tax credits because they don’t control when a solar power system is placed in service—utilities do. As for residential solar, Absolute Solar CEO Rob Kaercher 

 in the spring that some clients were pausing or canceling solar projects because they were worried that the tax credits would disappear. Now, he said, clients are confused about the phase-out process.

“There’s just unease about what [we can] trust,” Kaercher said of his clients. “Regardless of incentives or underlying policy, when you obscure what’s going on and make it difficult to follow, that uncertainty just hurts industries across the board.”

Absolute Solar is currently “extremely busy and booked out” with all types of solar projects, but Kaercher said he expects most of its projects will be commercial or nonprofit installations next year, given that the residential clean energy credit is only available until the end of 2025.

“It’s more prioritizing or benefiting larger industry, utility-scale projects,” Kaercher said, which “leaves your average person with less tools and less ability to invest in their own future and combat ever-rising rates.”

The loss of a continued solar boom will also hurt the grid, Kaercher said, as residential solar helps 

 the energy demand curve that strains the grid and leads to outages.

Though the tax credits are being phased out, many states still allow net metering, an energy billing policy that discounts the electricity bills of commercial or residential consumers whose solar energy systems send power back to the grid. And according to Steve Hamile, COO of Nevada solar provider Sol-Up, net metering is more important than tax credits when it comes to making solar energy systems affordable. Because of that, Hamile told Tech Brew he’d always wanted the tax credits to phase out—just not as fast as they will now.

“We’ve been a strong believer that subsidies need to sunset over time,” Hamile said. “We just feel that it should have sunset [at] a slower pace.”

 don’t have net-metering rules, and utilities aren’t required to provide compensation for consumers with solar energy systems. Solar in those states and areas, Hamile said, will be most affected by the elimination of the tax credits.

Hamile isn’t alone in wanting to see the solar industry stand on its own without subsidies: Jorge Vargas, CEO of solar development and financing company Aspen Power, told Tech Brew that the tax credits are being phased out too quickly.

“[The US’s] competitive edge was the fact that we made our infrastructure decisions over 10, 20-year spans—which is the right thing to do. But now this administration chose to change that, and in a very hasty and poorly drafted way,” Vargas said. “That’s what the biggest impact is: [the disruptive] way that we’re going to do this.”

Vargas also said he expects the solar industry to get a boost from another type of incentive: some “big, beautiful PPAs”—power purchase agreements—with companies looking to lock down energy prices before they start to rise.

“We’re ready to embrace what’s next. And in a world where power prices increase, we have a product that can compete,” Vargas said. “We will emerge from this.”

A house with solar panels on the roof over $100 bill next to the US capital building

Industry stakeholders say solar power will survive tax credit cuts—but consumers will pay

Sources tell Tech Brew solar is resilient, but power prices will rise amid increased demand.

Now that solar power subsidies are being phased out, solar systems of all kinds are about to become more expensive. But Andrew Birch, the founder of automated solar permitting nonprofit SolarApp+, told Tech Brew that some of those costs can be offset by streamlining the solar permitting process—and that now’s the perfect time to reform it.

“This is a massive opportunity,” Birch said, “to focus the industry on reducing our costs.”

Installing a solar power system in the US, Birch said, is two and a half times more expensive than in other countries he’s worked in, like Australia, because of “bureaucracy and process that you have to go through when you’ve sold a system to get it to an install.”

“In the US, you have about 16,000 jurisdictions—cities, basically. Each has their own individual permit process, which is very paperwork-heavy. It requires multiple site visits to the home, truck rules to deliver permit packs, a lot of uncertainty about what you are and are not allowed to install,” Birch said. “All of that creates rework and operating expenses and delay.”

Birch claimed that all the work that goes into correctly permitting solar systems doubles their cost because more people need to work on each project. So to combat timing, personnel, and cost increases, Birch created SolarApp+ to automate the solar permitting process. The software is free to use and collects and processes permits for local governments, “instead of asking people in a department in a city that haven’t been fully trained on electrical code to judge” the safety and efficacy of solar power systems, he said.

“It’s about saving customers money without subsidies, and that is something we know we can do. It’s been done overseas,” Birch said. “And if we deploy the right technologies and automated permitting approach, then we can deliver that in the US.”

Streamlining solar permitting can bring down prices after tax credit phases out, expert says

Solar industry leader Andrew Birch says complex permitting drives up system prices in the US.

Mainstay clean energy and home energy efficiency tax credits are being 

phased out by the “Big Beautiful Bill”

 signed into law by President Trump, and some green tech business owners are reminding consumers that their products can 

 and help insulate them from rising energy prices.

That’s certainly Cala Systems CEO Michael Rigney’s approach when it comes to marketing his company's smart heat pumps amid industry changes. In an interview with Tech Brew, he explained that because Cala’s smart water heaters optimize how much water is heated based on personalized home needs, they use less energy.

“The next generation of appliances in the world are going to have a design where they have sensors to better understand what’s taking place and improve actual physical components that let them control whatever it is they’re doing,” Rigney said. “It leads to better efficiency.”

And as energy costs rise as a result of less wind and solar power generation from tax credit cuts, so can potential savings from energy-efficient appliances, he said.

“A homeowner going to buy their next water heater in 2026, ’27, ’28, they’re going to be seeing rising electricity prices and therefore rising savings,” he said.

According to Rigney, it would likely take consumers three to four years of using the Cala heat pump for the savings they’re seeing on their electricity bills to overcome the initial price of the product—without the added discount of the 25C energy efficient home improvement tax credit, which will be phased out at the end of the year.

And in terms of Cala Systems in particular, Rigney said that rising energy prices, incoming foreign entity of concern tax excises, and increasing tariffs on international goods could be a “surprising positive” for their heat pumps, which are manufactured domestically.

“A variety of actions that the administration is taking are expected to drive up prices, and in ways that have the potential to be pretty significant,” Rigney said. “That’s going to make the savings even bigger.”

Rising energy costs could be a ‘surprising positive’ for energy-efficient home appliances

The CEO of Cala Systems told Tech Brew that appliances like its smart heat pumps can thrive without tax credits.

The debate over how the US will satisfy energy demand from data centers, EVs, and rising electrification continued this week in a divided Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing.

Republicans and Democrats offered different solutions to the problem, and were split on recent energy permitting executive orders from the Trump administration.

Committee Chairman Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) opened the hearing by claiming that wind and solar power aren’t reliable sources of energy—even when paired with battery storage—and that the US has “spent much of the last 20 years shutting down the generation that can actually meet that demand,” like coal- and natural gas-fired power plants.

“The federal government has been investing heavily in certain green energy technologies for decades, handing out tax credits like candy,” Lee said. “Renewables and storage have a place. They’re capable of helping do their part to make the grid more resilient and reliable, but 

And when faced with the reality of the greenhouse gas emissions that come from carbon-intensive energy sources like coal and natural gas, Lee and hearing witness Peter Huntsman advocated for making materials lighter so they require “less energy” to manufacture. Huntsman is the CEO of chemical manufacturer Huntsman Corporation, and said in the hearing that using only renewable energy sources “risk[s] losing both our manufacturing and consumer affordability.”

“Ruinous and unrealistic net-zero and decarbonization policies,” Huntsman said, foster the “failed idea…that you can power a modern economy without developing oil and gas resources.”

Democratic members of the committee, including Ranking Member Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), advocated for an “all of the above” energy strategy, which has been touted by 

 in the House, and cited batteries’ ability to provide stable, reliable power. Heinrich in particular bashed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” for phasing out clean energy tax credits that fast-tracked renewable power generation, and a recent Trump administration policy that requires Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to provide an “elevated review” of all proposed wind and solar projects on federal lands.

“I am deeply disturbed by the recent Department of Interior policy,” Heinrich said. “This nakedly political decision will risk delaying new generation additions to the grid when we need them the most.”

Democrats were also joined by Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in highlighting the importance of renewable energy. She cited off-the-grid communities in Alaska that usually have to rely on expensive diesel fuel to power their 

“If they can get 20% of their diesel-powered consumption offset by some incremental wind and solar, it’s 20% that they’re not spending [on diesel],” Murkowski said. “We’re operating in different worlds.”

Hearing witness Rob Gramlich, president of energy consulting firm Grid Strategies, presented a separate perspective on the energy generation divide, and one that has come up in debates about other national issues: It should be left up to the states.

“Each state uses markets or regulation or various combinations of investor-owned and other types of utilities to meet their power demand needs. And that’s where the process should take place,” Gramlich said. “I don’t think the federal government needs to be meddling right now in specific power plants.”

Still, Gramlich advised states to utilize the aforementioned “all of the above” approach.

“The power system is more like a basketball team. The point guard doesn’t do what the center does, and vice versa. You need it all,” Gramlich said. “Particularly in this moment of rapidly rising low growth, we can’t be taking one of those players off the court.”

Senators debate wind and solar power in energy demand hearing

Hearing witnesses offered competing strategies in the face of the country’s mounting energy needs.

Jordyn Grzelewski

 amid cooling demand and the looming expiration of federal incentives.

Flexibility could be the name of the game for EV sector players in the coming months and years—and a new deal between General Motors and battery recycler Redwood Materials may point to a promising opportunity: energy storage.

In a July 16 news release, the two companies announced a non-binding memorandum of understanding “to accelerate deployment of energy storage systems using both new 

 and second-life battery packs from GM electric vehicles.”

GM touted the deal as “a significant step toward taking GM’s advanced battery technology beyond EVs.” The automaker already had been sending used EV battery materials to Redwood under an existing agreement.

GM has its own burgeoning energy business, which in October 

 a stationary energy storage unit for EVs dubbed “PowerBank.” The product allows users to transfer and store energy from the grid. Other automakers, like Tesla, also offer energy storage products.

Driving the agreement, according to GM and Redwood executives, is the surging demand for electricity, in part from a proliferation of new data centers.

“The market for grid-scale batteries and backup power isn’t just expanding, it’s becoming essential infrastructure,” Kurt Kelty, GM’s VP of batteries, propulsion, and sustainability, said in a statement. “Electricity demand is climbing, and it’s only going to accelerate. To meet that challenge, the US needs energy storage solutions that can be deployed quickly, economically, and made right here at home.”

JB Straubel, founder and CEO of Redwood and Tesla’s co-founder and former chief technology officer, in a statement noted that “electricity demand is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, driven by AI and the rapid electrification of everything from transportation to industry.”

 around recovering end-of-life batteries and recycling their raw materials. The company reports receiving over 20 gigawatt hours of batteries per year, or the equivalent of about 250,000 EVs, “representing about 90% of all lithium-ion batteries and battery materials recycled in North America.” Redwood’s battery recycling customers include Lyft, Amazon, Nissan, Toyota, Ford, and Tesla and Panasonic’s battery manufacturing partnership, The Verge 

 dubbed Redwood Energy that it said would help “meet surging power demand from AI data centers and other applications.” Company leaders identified opportunities to put leftover usable capacity from used EV batteries back to work before recycling the batteries.

Redwood has established what it describes as “the largest second-life battery deployment in the world and the largest microgrid in North America,” which powers a data center for AI infrastructure company Crusoe.

In a story about Redwood’s new energy storage business, 

 noted that the company’s location east of Reno could be opportune given its relative proximity to data centers for the likes of Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

“Traditional grid expansion can’t keep up,” Redwood said in a release on its new line of business. “Renewables are intermittent. And imported, new energy storage is still too expensive to address the entire problem.”

The answer, according to the startup: “Repurposing used battery packs…into modular energy storage systems that bridge today’s infrastructure gaps with speed and scale.”

What’s driving a new energy storage partnership between GM and Redwood

Electricity demand from new data centers is expected to skyrocket in the coming years.

Frequent wildfires and other severe weather events in Oregon often leave communities at the end of power lines without electricity. Now, thanks to two new state laws, tribes, municipalities, and third-party developers looking to set up and own microgrids in rural areas will soon have the legal and regulatory framework to do so.

Governor Tina Kotek recently signed House Bill 2065, which requires public utilities to provide groups needing microgrids in their area with the required information, and House Bill 2066, which calls on the state’s Public Utility Commission to “establish a regulatory framework for allowing the ownership, deployment, and use of microgrids and community microgrids within the service territories of electric companies,” into law. Both are the first of their kind in the country.

“Red tape should never get in the way of technology that could mean the difference between fast, efficient electricity restoration and delays and risk when power outages strike,” Kotek said in a statement. “These new laws will help bring more microgrids online faster and deliver cost savings to consumers in every part of the state.”

Prior to these laws, entities hoping to build and own their own microgrids faced legal hurdles and bureaucratic bottlenecks when they tried to set them up, Sustainable Northwest President Dylan Kruse told Tech Brew. Sustainable Northwest is a clean tech and regenerative farming nonprofit that helped draft both bills and will help create the regulatory framework.

“We’re seeing increased demand on the grid and decreasing reliability. A lot of communities, particularly in these rural and tribal communities that are out at the end of the line with less reliable infrastructure, are really feeling the brunt of those changes,” Kruse said. “This is about creating another option, another tool in the toolbox. Because it’s going to take an all-of-the-above strategy.”

Kruse said that the laws are “technology-agnostic,” meaning future microgrids can run on any source of energy, but communities looking to install the technology that Sustainable Northwest has talked with are interested in renewables, including solar and hydro power, and backup power using battery storage.

“It’s an important step forward in the evolution of the energy space,” Kruse said of the laws. “And it’s showing state leadership and showing better local leadership for people and rate payers to get the best value out of what they’re ultimately paying for.”

Oregon’s new laws will allow for more community-owned microgrids

The legislation will remove barriers to entry for tribes and municipalities to set up microgrids in rural areas.

Airloom Energy, a wind energy startup, broke ground at its pilot site in Laramie, Wyoming, last month. The next week, President Trump signed his “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” into law, thereby sunsetting the clean energy production and investment tax credits for solar and wind. Although it’s going to be a big change, CEO Neal Rickner told Tech Brew the company will adapt: Airloom was created to deliver “the lowest-cost energy, subsidy-free,” but the loss of credits could hinder Airloom’s ability to commercialize.

Airloom’s ability to generate competitively priced energy is due to the design of its turbines. Instead of tall wind turbines that adhere to a traditional, windmill-like design, Airloom’s turbines consist of a group of poles in the shape of an oval connected by a track on which wing-like panels circulate, their movement powered by the wind. They’re shorter than traditional wind turbine blades, and, according to Rickner, faster to build.

“It is a hyper-flexible system. So the difference between our small system and the big one is just making it longer, adding sections in the middle. It can be deployed with straightforward infrastructure,” Rickner said. “You don’t need big, long, extendable bed trailers. You don’t need crews who are trained to work at 300 feet in the air with the largest cranes in the world.”

That said, clean energy investment and production tax credits would help Airloom cross “the chasm of commercialization,” which is a notoriously difficult process, Rickner said, particularly in the energy industry.

“We were definitely going to be relying on the tax credits to help us through that,” Rickner said, “because the first few systems we’re going to build are going to be more expensive.”

Rickner said he and the Airloom team are also figuring out how to respond to two other sizable uncertainties that will crop up during their commercialization process as a result of Trump’s policies: future tariffs or excise taxes on equipment from “foreign entities of concern,” and “what qualifies as construction,” which determines how long Airloom will be able to access the tax credits.

The new law states that wind projects have to begin construction within a year of its signing by Trump (or be in service by the end of 2027) to be eligible for the clean energy investment and production tax credits. In a follow up 

, Trump stated that the Treasury secretary will issue “new and revised guidance…to ensure that policies concerning the ‘beginning of construction’ are not circumvented” by “artificial acceleration or manipulation” of construction timelines.

“We are starting construction on our 2027 project this year, but I don’t know how they’re going to define ‘construction’ yet,” Rickner said. “I’m not going to plan for the government to do or not do anything. It’s too unpredictable.”

Despite some big unknowns, Rickner is optimistic because Airloom already has strong market demand—so strong that the company will be selling the power generated by its pilot to a data center customer. And as more data centers come online and need additional forms of energy, Airloom hopes to provide them wind power as the company commercializes.

“Chaos equals opportunity,” Rickner said. “When things are moving around, there’s potential to find opportunity in that chaos.”