Don't let OBBBA get you down!

One of my reasons for starting E/lectrify was to find new ways to tell stories about the U.S. energy system and clean energy transition, to make all the weird tech and regulatory stuff cool and interesting for ordinary people.  

But I hadn’t quite reckoned with utility bills. Making them cool and interesting is taking time. (I’m not blocked; I’m incubating!) So, I decided what I needed to do was have some fun writing about things that are going right in the clean energy transition, in the U.S. and around the world.

The Environmental Protection Agency may be trying to roll back key rules on controlling greenhouse gases, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright may be arguing that climate change is just a side-effect of progress, but the growth of clean tech is unstoppable.

The stories documenting this growth don’t quite fly under the radar, but they are covered mostly in industry publications – like pv magazine and Energy Storage News – that have industry-focused audiences. If you need a quick shot of optimism, you can find it in these and similar industry publications. (Full disclosure: I was a freelance contributor to pv mag from 2020-2021.)

Here are some of the stories that are keeping me hopeful this week.

On the pv mag website, the first headline that jumped out at me was about a British solar cooperative – called, appropriately, the Big Solar Co-op – that has raised about $1.3 million from 200 private investors to fund a 3.5 MW solar project on the site of a former open-pit coal mine.

What’s extra cool here is that the co-op says the project will use “ethically sourced” solar panels, from a top European manufacturer (no forced labor), as well as repurposed solar panels from a decommissioned project. 

According to the BSC website, “we’ve optimised the design based on the fact that our grid connection is limited to 2.05 MW export. At times of the highest solar input, we will max out that capacity just from the new panels, and the second-life panels will not be required. But at all other times (93% of the time),the second-life panels will be enabling us to put extra power down the line, contributing around 35% of the total energy we will generate in a year.”

They are also going to plant native hedgerows and trees on three sides of the 10-acre site, sow wildflowers, provide nesting boxes for birds and “provide access for mammals such as brown hare.” (Solar bunnies, yay!!)

What’s relevant here is that the co-op’s business model, raising funds from a growing group of private investors – with a low minimum buy-in of £100 ($132) – was developed after the British government ended its main solar subsidy program. U.S. developers, take note.

Portugal doubles down on solar, storage

Next is a story from Energy Storage News that I absolutely love. In the wake of the April 28 power outage in Spain and Portugal, Portugal is doubling down on the latest and greatest grid management technology and a healthy dose of solar and energy storage.

Maria da Graca Carvalho, the country’s energy and environment minister, recently announced €400 million ($466 million) in system upgrades. The funding will include:

• €137 for grid management upgrades to help the country “deal with complex intermittent renewable power sources such as wind and solar”

• €25 million to improve the resilience of “critical infrastructure” like hospitals, by equipping them with solar and storage

• €100 million from the EU to stand up 43 energy storage projects totaling 500 MW

Portugal only has about 13 MW of battery energy storage today, but has set a goal of 750 MW.

Why this is super cool and important is, of course, that in the aftermath of the outage, speculation was rife that a lack of system inertia was a key factor, caused by the large amount of solar on the Spanish and Portuguese systems. (Check out my recent Energy Literacy post on inertia, here.)

Actually, grid management issues – voltage and frequency control – were the main triggers. 

While the Trump administration pursues backward-looking strategies for ensuring grid stability – standing up more fossil-fueled power plants – Portugal is building out a more flexible, dynamic and reliable grid while adding clean energy. 

"We have to make our grid more secure, digital and modern ... to support this new, more complex energy production model," Carvalho said, as reported by Reuters. The Portuguese government is working on a decree to roll out the new investments as quickly as possible.

The bigger picture here is that Trump’s energy policies continue to isolate the U.S. and hamstring the country’s ability to compete in global markets. According to a recent report from the International Energy Agency, electricity demand worldwide is projected to grow 3.3% in 2025 and 3.7% in 2026. 

This explosive demand growth will be met overwhelmingly – 90% – by renewables, IEA says. The top takeaway here is that clean power is not unreliable. Amazingly cool and interesting.

States, businesses staying the course

The passage of the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act – and its termination of many clean energy tax credits and incentives – has been a major downer, but states and businesses aren’t taking the feds’ abandonment of clean energy lying down. 

OBBBA did not terminate tax credits for energy storage, so we can expect a boom. Similar to Portugal, New York is looking to get a whole lot of new large-scale energy storage online fast – in this case, 1,000 MW, or 1 gigawatt – as part of its drive to get 6 GW of storage online by 2030. 

The state’s solicitation for the new projects is the first of three aimed at “adding bulk energy storage to New York’s grid [to] lower costs, optimize the generation and transmission of power, enhance energy grid infrastructure, and ensure the reliability and resilience of the state’s electricity system.”

What is particularly cool here is that New York is providing a new incentive, called the Index Storage Credit, that is intended to offset any gap between developers’ costs and market prices. Projects will also have to meet new fire safety standards. 

As reported in Utility Dive, another industry publication, Kristina Persaud of Advanced Energy United hailed the solicitation as one of the largest energy storage procurements in the nation. “Coming at a time when a lot of states may be walking away from a lot of their clean energy goals … it sends a really clear market signal to developers that New York is serious about affordable clean energy … [and] staying the course in the long term,” she said.

Let’s close this out with good news from Solar Landscape, a commercial developer, and SolarEdge, a top clean tech manufacturer, teaming up to put solar on more than 500 commercial rooftops – like warehouses, distribution centers and similar facilities – over the next two years.

As reported in electrek, Solar Landscape has leased 40 million square feet of commercial rooftops across the country, and SolarEdge will provide American-made inverters and other technology that maximizes output from the panels.

(Beyond its inverters, SolarEdge is known for its wildly creative holiday videos, like this one, from the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020.)

At a time of rapidly rising demand, where every electron and megawatt counts, commercial rooftops are a “largely untapped resource” for locally sited solar projects. As Solar Landscape CEO Shaun Keegan said, "Generating electricity on commercial rooftops and distributing it into the grid is America’s most shovel-ready energy option."

These commercial rooftop installations could produce enough electricity to power 80,000 U.S. homes – and the projects should meet domestic content requirements so they can qualify for some of the remaining solar tax credits.

And to put things in perspective – planning is underway for a 1 GW floating solar project in Zimbabwe, to be located at Lake Kariba, the world’s largest artificial lake and reservoir. The African Export-Import Bank is backing the project with $4.4 million for feasibility and bankability studies. Africa is a hugely untapped market for clean energy development – to provide cheap, locally generated power for the hundreds of millions on the continent still living without electricity.

P.S. Photo credit above: SolarEdge.