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Good morning and happy Friday,
Houston is recognized as the “Energy Capital of the World,” and this week it hosted the annual CERAWeek confab. Naturally the Iran war and its impacts on oil and gas markets were top of mind for attendees. “Global energy leaders have been jolted by the enormity” of the crisis, which has brought unprecedented disruption, worse than that triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In terms of clean energy, E&E News aptly noted that Monday was a cloudy day with a silver lining for U.S. offshore wind, as TotalEnergies accepted a $1B buyout to walk away from its leases—a legally questionable move that may set a dangerous precedent—while Dominion’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project sent power to the grid for the first time.
Energy storage got a boost this week as the latest ACP / WoodMac US Energy Storage Monitor finds that 2025 deployment increased 52% over 2024 to reach a record of 18.9 GW in installations—with a predicted 500 GWh of storage installed between 2026-2031.
In other news, clean energy investors are taking the gloves off and showing they’re ready to play hardball when it comes to politics, pouring money into campaigns to punish lawmakers who voted to strip away renewable subsidies and to signal that opposing the industry will come with consequences.
It’s a welcome move in what has thus far been a lopsided fight—in the 2024 elections, “oil and gas interests donated $75 million to elect Mr. Trump…and the fossil fuel industry spent a total of $450 million on a combination of donations, lobbying and advertising,” compared to about $2.5 million in candidate donations from the renewable energy industry.
Read on for more.
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Development Derailed
The 94-MW Crossroads Solar Grazing Center appeared to be on track after extensive stakeholder engagement and mitigation planning, but in a late-stage reversal last Thursday—apparently fueled in part by questionable public comments and political pressure— the Ohio Power Siting Board denied the project a permit. Here’s a closer look:
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The board cited “strong opposition” as the basis for its ruling, but an investigation by Canary Media found many comments were duplicative, anonymous, or even submitted under false names. Once invalid submissions were removed, support was far more balanced—prompting questions about how public input is weighted.
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Some critics argue the decision was politically driven rather than objective, noting that regulators appeared to credit unverified claims (fires, water contamination, etc.) without rigorous scrutiny and prioritized the sheer volume of opposition (which as noted, was falsely inflated) over the substance of public input—raising concerns about fact-based decision-making.
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Project concessions—including agrivoltaic sheep grazing, visual buffers, and construction safeguards—failed to carry weight, highlighting the limits of traditional community engagement strategies.
⚡️ The Takeaway
Proceed with caution. The story highlights what developers are increasingly confronting: permitting risk now extends well beyond environmental studies or interconnection queues—it’s about narrative control, political dynamics, and procedural volatility. Projects that look bankable on paper can still face binary outcomes late in the game. Open Road plans to seek reconsideration, but the broader takeaway is structural: until siting processes become more transparent and evidence-driven, states like Ohio risk pushing capital to more predictable markets—at a time when new generation is urgently needed.
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Leveraging Limitations
California’s Central Valley is undergoing a structural shift that’s as much about water as it is about energy. In the San Joaquin Valley, declining water supplies and stricter groundwater rules are forcing large swaths of farmland out of production. The Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan (VCIP) offers a way for local residents to respond to these limitations with a bold pivot: hosting up to 21 GW of solar plus storage across 136,000 acres. Here are some fast facts:
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VCIP’s programmatic approach tackles California’s permitting bottlenecks head-on. By completing a single, comprehensive environmental review and standardizing land-use and contractual frameworks, the plan could cut years off development timelines and reduce soft costs—offering a replicable model for large portfolios.
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Transmission is the cornerstone, not an afterthought. Enabled by Assembly Bill 2661, the project includes ~70 miles of new high-voltage lines and multiple substations, directly addressing interconnection delays and enabling capacity at a scale individual projects can’t achieve alone.
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Land aggregation is unusually aligned. Farmers retain ownership and water rights under lease structures, allowing them to stabilize income while reallocating scarce water to productive acreage—unlocking participation at a scale rarely seen in U.S. solar development.
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Social and workforce challenges could shape outcomes. Agricultural job losses, limited local workforce readiness, and delayed community benefits create risks for local opposition, making early engagement and tangible economic inclusion strategies critical.
⚡️ The Takeaway
Transforming constraints into opportunities. For developers, VCIP offers a new model that will prioritize projects aligned with a carefully planned framework around land use, environmental goals, and transmission access. Success means working within this coordinated approach, which, if it takes hold, could transform how utility-scale renewables are built in constrained regions—turning tough land and water issues into drivers for clean energy expansion. The next step is execution: developers must collaborate across stakeholders, finance transmission alongside generation, and deliver community benefits early—not years after commercial operation.
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Parked Power Plants
Puget Sound Energy is turning EVs into more than just a way to get from A to B—it’s testing whether they can double as mini power plants for the home and the grid.
In a first-of-its-kind Washington pilot, the utility is teaming up with Ford, Kia, Wallbox, and ChargeScape to trial bidirectional “vehicle-to-home” (V2H) charging. Using vehicles like the Ford F-150 Lightning and Kia EV9, the program lets EV batteries send power back into homes—and potentially the grid.
What’s new (and exciting) here is the stacking of value streams. These EVs aren’t just backup generators for outages; they’re also being orchestrated for time-of-use optimization (charging when power prices are low, discharging during times of high demand) and demand response (helping the grid during peak stress).
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In other words, the family vehicle could lower the electric bill, keep the lights on during an outage, and earn its keep as a grid asset, all in the same week.
The pilot is small—just five vehicles for now—but it’s a proving ground for a bigger idea: EVs as distributed energy resources that utilities can actively manage. That aligns with Puget Sound Energy’s broader push into virtual power plants and flexible load to integrate more clean energy.
If all goes well, this experiment could be a blueprint for scaling bidirectional charging programs—turning parked EVs into a flexible, customer-owned grid resource just when utilities need it most.
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Thanks for diving into the Developer Dispatch with us.
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Building American power requires a powerful team. |
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