In less than two weeks, Sept. 8-11, I will be in Las Vegas — with about 40,000 solar and storage industry executives, analysts, investors, researchers and PR folk — for the largest annual renewable energy conference in the country.
It’s called RE+, and I know the PR folks will be there because I’ve been getting emails from them daily, inviting me to visit their booths, talk with their executives and analysts and check out the projects, products and technologies they plan to showcase at the event.
German solar and storage company sonnen is offering me a sit-down with Blake Richetta, CEO of their U.S. subsidiary, to talk about the very cool virtual power plants the company has been standing up in Texas and Canada.
ES Foundry and its CEO Alex Zhu will be on hand to promote the all-American solar cells – a core component of solar panels – the company is producing in South Carolina. The big selling point here is that the cells are compliant with all the latest, very complex domestic content requirements needed to qualify for solar investment tax credits — that is, none of the materials in the cells come from China.
And industry analysts Wood Mackenzie have invited me to a lunch briefing on Sept. 10, co-hosted with the Solar Energy Industries Association, where analysts will talk about how the industry can navigate the market uncertainties it faces.
Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I must say that I hate Las Vegas — with a passion. The last time I was there, about nine years ago, I swore I would never go back. But this year’s RE+ is a pivotal event for the industry, the first following the passage of the Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill (H.R. 1), which was jam-packed with provisions cutting and clawing back major incentives for renewable energy.
(One example: the Environmental Protection Agency’s illegal termination of the $7 billion Solar For All program aimed at cutting electric bills in low-income communities by 20%, which I wrote about here.)
With the Trump administration continuing to pile on anti-solar and -wind executive orders and actions, the industry is under attack as never before, and RE+ is going to be all about what happens next.
Distributed energy resources
Distributed energy resources, or DERs, is industry jargon covering a range of clean technologies and how they can be combined – for example, solar and storage microgrids or virtual power plants, or electric vehicle-to-grid managed charging.
They are called “distributed” because they are generally installed on a utility’s local distribution system – the poles, wires and other equipment that bring power to homes and businesses – and they can make these systems more flexible, reliable and resilient.
With electric bills – and extreme weather events – on the rise, VPPs, microgrids and other DERs are being seen as a growing opportunity for distributed solar and storage to cut electric bills and increase system reliability.
They also provide a vital counternarrative to standard arguments that renewables are unreliable, and the only way to power data centers and keep the lights on is to build more fossil-fuel powered generation.
Plus, the technologies are totally cool and fun. I mean, sonnen’s VPP in Texas is giving homeowners free solar and storage, cutting their electric bills and ensuring they have backup power for extreme weather events or other emergencies.
I’m looking forward to my sit-down with Adib Nasle, cofounder and CEO of Xendee, which has a software platform to help companies design and optimize DER systems, presumably making them smarter, more efficient and more profitable. The company is gearing up to help data centers develop their own clean energy plans. I’ve asked for a demo.
Another really exciting story on my conference radar is the collaboration between Eaton, a provider of energy management systems, and EV charging company ChargePoint, to develop new vehicle-to-grid technology. The companies are rolling out their first product – a super fast charger that can provide 600 kW for charging passenger cars and 1 MW for trucks.
The new charger will “seamlessly synchronize onsite renewables, energy storage and vehicle batteries with local energy markets to help fleets significantly reduce fueling cost … [and] even help balance the electric grid,” according to a joint announcement from the two companies.
These and all the other DER companies at RE+ — including more than 30 microgrid firms — are on the cutting edge of electric power innovation. They are focused on clean energy and giving people and communities new and better options for producing and using electricity, and thus far, Trump isn’t slowing them down.
American-made solar
I went to my first RE+ — then called Solar Power International — in 2014, when I worked for the Smart Electric Power Alliance, which cohosts the event with SEIA. What knocked me out then — and still does — is just how big this industry is.
The tradeshow this year will cover several acres spread across two floors at the Venetian Expo Center and one at Caesar’s Forum. Major solar and storage developers and equipment makers will have booths, but so will companies like Southwire, which manufactures all kinds of electric cables — the wires that send electricity across states and to your home — and Okon, a metal and solar panel recycler.
Which brings me to the second big trend I’ll be following at the conference — an intense, cross-industry focus on American-made equipment that can improve performance and cut the time and expense of installation.
The driver here is the double whammy of Trump’s tariffs and the termination of the 30% solar investment tax credit, guaranteed for 10 years in the Inflation Reduction Act, but now set to run out at the end of 2025 for residential solar and the end of 2027 for commercial projects. Domestic content and start-of-construction requirements have also been tightened, making it even more difficult to qualify for the credits, while they last.
In other words, developers and investors are looking for ways to cut project costs via the financial advantages and supply chain security that American-made equipment can provide — which is where companies like ES Foundry and Bila Solar come in.
ES is located in Greenwood, S.C., where its new factory is working toward producing 3 GW of solar cells per year. Laid out on its website, the company’s sales pitch is all about its all-American, FEOC-proof supply chain, meaning ES has no connections or involvement whatsoever with “foreign entities of concern” – specifically China.
Its cells are eligible for a 10% bonus tax credit for domestic content, a key point in the press release I received, announcing that CEO Alex Zhu will be speaking on two supply chain panels at RE+.
Similarly, Bila Solar, a panel manufacturer headquartered in Indianapolis, will be at the tradeshow, promoting its new partnership with Origami Solar, which provides American-made steel frames for panels. The companies will have separate booths at RE+, but both will be pitching the economic case for their products — avoiding tariffs and qualifying for tax credits.
A related trend is the use of artificial intelligence to cut project costs. AES, a multinational energy company, will be in Vegas with a model of its AI-enabled solar robot, Maximo, which the company says can cut installation costs and time in half. The robot has already been used at AES utility-scale solar projects under construction, but some new developments could be coming in advance of the conference.
Following the money
The subtext here – clearly – is how the solar industry as a whole must put itself on a war footing and retool and refocus itself, Trump and the Republicans in control of Congress notwithstanding. Figuring out new finance, business and regulatory models are a critical part of what’s next, and the RE+ schedule has a range of forums and panels tackling these issues.
Following the money, I’m planning to attend the Wood Mackenzie briefing on Sept. 10 and the half-day Clean Energy Funders Forum on Sept. 8, which promises a deep dive on the challenges ahead.
A panel discussion on financing projects in the face of uncertain supply chains is on the schedule for Tuesday, while a Funders Breakfast on Sept. 10 will offer more informal, roundtable discussions on different funding strategies.
I am not talking about data centers, demand growth and rising electric bills here as they have become the overarching context for almost every U.S. energy conference, and I don’t expect RE+ to be any different, on stage or off. Ditto, conversations about how to position solar and other renewables amidst the conservative backlash against clean energy (which I wrote about here).
The industry has to recognize what it can and can’t control — like any chance of truly constructive dialog with the administration. The Department of Energy will be conspicuous by its absence in Las Vegas. Neither Energy Secretary Chris Wright nor any other top DOE officials will be speaking at RE+. Elizabeth Wolfe, a senior consultant with the Loan Programs Office, will be the sole DOE representative, taking part in a panel on grid-enhancing technologies.
Trump may have slowed the growth of clean energy in the U.S. for the time being, but the clean energy industry is innovative, resilient and feisty by nature. It will bounce back — bigger, cleaner and cheaper — in the long term.
Right now the odds are looking pretty good. The looming end of tax credits is powering a surge in renewable energy development, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration, cited by electrek and the Sun Day Campaign.
For the first six months of 2025, solar-powered electricity was up 29.7% year over year and, in June alone, was up 25% from June 2024, accounting for 10.2% of all U.S. power.
Natural gas may still be the biggest source of electricity in the U.S., but renewables – including solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal and biomass – are growing at three times the rate of electricity production overall – 9.2% versus 3%.
In the first half of 2025, solar and wind combined produced 25% more electricity than coal and 15.6% more than nuclear.
Even in Vegas, the house doesn’t always win. Ante up!