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Good morning and happy Friday,
This week, Treasury released final rules pertaining to Section 48 tax credits (ITCs), while new data shows the Biden-Harris Administration has spurred $1 trillion in clean energy investments.
Meanwhile, ACP’s latest quarterly market report finds that American clean energy broke new records in Q3, and according to SEIA’s Solar Market Insight Q4 2024 report, the U.S. added a record-breaking 9.3 GW of new solar module manufacturing capacity in Q3 – meaning total capacity is enough to meet nearly all domestic demand.
And, although president-elect Trump may be likely to phase out tax breaks for renewables, the reality of repealing green credits is starting to sink in for a divided GOP, as some Republicans say “not so fast,” perhaps because the IRA has sent nearly $120 billion in private investment to their congressional districts.
Read on for more.
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Riled Up Over RRI
Renewable energy developers and many others are speaking out against PJM’s proposed Reliability Resource Initiative. The tariff would allow up to 50 proposed natural gas projects to jump the interconnection queue and “enter a cluster of previously proposed power facilities” – almost entirely renewables – that have been waiting for PJM’s approval for more than three years. Here’s what’s being said:
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PJM says its proposal is necessary to prepare for the needs of power-hungry data centers that “could leave the grid dangerously short by the end of the decade.” Under the RRI, “priority would be given to those resources that have a greater chance of contributing to reliability.”
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Horse apples, say Invenergy, AES, clean energy trade groups, a former FERC Chairman, PA Governor Josh Shapiro, several state agencies, and a coalition of environmental NGOs, who called the RRI “unjust and unreasonable.”
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Criticisms being leveled against the RRI include that PJM has “historically overestimated load” and is “exaggerating the likely additions of massive data center loads;” further, the proposal “violates the filed rate doctrine and FERC’s prohibition against retroactive ratemaking” and is “contrary to open access principles.”
⚡️ The Takeaway
Contentious. PJM intends to file its proposal with FERC this month. A Nov. 27 letter submitted to both entities on behalf of unnamed renewable energy developers warns that moving ahead with the RRI will “spark lawsuits,” “lead to ‘the most strenuous’ protests at FERC and, if approved by the agency, a court battle.” For its part, PJM says it’s been documenting its grid reliability concerns for nearly three years, and “The challenge of having enough supply to meet increased demand due to data centers and other factors is a national problem; it is not in dispute.”
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One Hand Giveth...
Back in October, the Commerce Department imposed countervailing duties (CVD) on silicon solar cell imports from Southeast Asia; last week, it announced a preliminary decision to also enforce antidumping (AD) tariffs. Here are a few things to know:
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The American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee represents domestic manufacturers, and earlier this year, it asked Commerce to investigate solar imports from four countries, resulting in the October decision.
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The current investigation “looks into a surge in solar imports from the four countries, which led to a U.S. price collapse.” A lawyer representing the Alliance said “We welcome these positive preliminary determinations and their potential to level the playing field for solar manufacturers and workers across America.”
- One wrinkle related to all of this is that in 2022, President Biden ordered a two-year “tariff holiday” to calm market jitters; that moratorium ended in June, and any panels imported under it had to be installed by December 3. If not, the companies that imported them are “on the hook” to pay big tariff bills.
⚡️ The Takeaway
...the other taketh away. While the AD/CVD action may be seen as positive for some domestic panel manufacturers, at least one is less than thrilled with president-elect Trump’s threats of tariffs, which it says will hurt its ability to import equipment, effectively penalizing it for creating jobs. “It’s an example of the government’s left hand not knowing what its right hand is doing,” says Heliene’s CEO, adding that the company is losing millions of dollars, money “that could go into more equipment or working capital, things that actually make the economy move.” |
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A Clean Energy Orchestra
Balancing electrical grids, particularly ones that integrate large amounts of wind and solar, is similar to conducting an orchestra. While the dedicated staff at our nation’s RTOs may not look like Venezuela’s Gustavo Dudamel in the course of their day-to-day duties, they too have to keep track of a lot of constantly changing variables.
Storage is of course essential to smoothing out differences in supply from intermittent renewables and demand for electricity, and long-duration energy storage (LDES) has a particularly valuable role to play in the transition to a low- or zero-emissions energy future.
A study published last month in Nature Communications explores the value of long-duration energy storage under various grid conditions in a zero-emissions future, with a focus on the Western Interconnection.
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LDES technologies include flow batteries, the use of underground caverns to store compressed air and water, and pumped storage hydro, which has been used by utilities for more than 100 years.
Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that deployment of LDES would benefit ratepayers by lowering costs. Another key benefit is that LDES can reduce or eliminate the need for new transmission lines to import power to an area during times when production from local renewables dips. We support buying local!
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