|
|
 |
|
|
|
Good morning and happy Valentine’s Day,
This Monday, President Donald Trump set 25% trade tariffs for aluminum and steel imports from most countries, a move that could spur a 7% rise in onshore wind costs. Meanwhile, a 10% tariff on Canadian electricity imports could take effect next month, with impacts for northern U.S. states; and even clean energy metals are getting caught in the crosshairs. Check out Politico Energy’s podcast on how Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs will impact energy.
A new report finds that U.S. clean energy had a record-breaking year in 2024; solar was a particular standout, accounting for 81.5% of new electricity sources added to the grid, and in Texas, more new power came from solar and battery storage than from any other source. But can this pace be sustained? There’s widespread concern about the future of the sector amid threats from Donald Trump’s administration.
And, a correction: last week we told you that the Army Corps of Engineers had halted renewable energy permitting; well, unbeknownst to us, before the Dispatch was dispatched, they sneakily paused the pause – except for wind projects.
Read on for more.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Collateral Damage
The IRA unleashed billions of dollars of investment in clean energy manufacturing, but the new administration’s funding freeze has created uncertainty about the future of many planned projects and the jobs they promised to create – and Republican congressional districts are being hit the hardest. Here are some examples of the collateral damage:
-
Since the IRA was passed, nearly $166 billion in factory investments have been announced, with more than 1,000 announced facilities potentially creating more than 350,000 jobs – and some 75% of this money was directed toward red districts.
-
The administration has been ordered to end the freeze, “but there is evidence that several agencies are still blocking funding,” and the resulting uncertainty “is delaying projects and halting investments in areas that voted for Mr. Trump.”
- The threat that projects will be cancelled and workers laid off (or not hired) places members of the GOP “in the tricky position of defending a White House that deems money for clean energy a ‘waste of taxpayer dollars’ while working behind the scenes to protect their towns from the loss of new manufacturing jobs.”
⚡️ The Takeaway
Scrapped or paused. The “chaos surrounding federal funding” has already caused some firms to scuttle or delay plans for billions of dollars of investment in manufacturing. The DOE’s Loan Programs Office issued more than $107 billion in lending to 53 projects under President Biden, but Trump’s new LPO director is exploring canceling existing deals. Whether or not that can be done is an open question, with some observers saying clawbacks would be “very difficult,” and others saying “it’s still possible.”
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Time for a Rethink?
A new study released by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability finds it may be possible to add more than 100 GW of new load to the grid without the need for additional capacity. The key? “Flexibility solutions,” meaning load that can curtail on demand. Here’s the scoop:
-
A rising chorus has been warning about forecasts of dramatic load growth expected over the next few years, driven mostly by data centers and increased usage of AI. In the U.S. alone, the next decade could see peak load grow over 20%.
-
What’s striking about the Duke study’s findings is that a relatively small amount of curtailment could yield huge benefits: An average load curtailment rate of 0.25% could support integration of ~76 GW of new load, “equivalent to 10% of the nation’s peak demand.”
- For a data center, that might amount to curtailing the new load they’re bringing onto the grid “by the equivalent of 90% of one single day in an entire year”. And at a 1% curtailment rate – the equivalent of 3.6 days offline in a year – the potential for new load is as high as 126 GW.
⚡️ The Takeaway
Demonstrated, feasible, and happening already. Voluntary curtailment is already commonplace in the commercial and industrial sector, particularly in constrained energy markets – and data centers are ideally suited to act as flexible load, thanks to “batchable workloads and load shifting between data centers.” “A more tailored analysis” for each market is needed, but the findings are “seismic,” and potentially, “flexibility could be the whole ballgame.”
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Hail Yes…
If you’re a fan of solar energy, March 15, 2024 was a dark day. That’s when catastrophic hail storms – three of them, each one meeting the criteria for >500-year severity – swept through Fort Bend County, Texas.
Four utility-scale solar projects were exposed to hail; three managed to withstand the storms. The Fighting Jays solar project wasn’t so lucky.
VDE Americas provides technical advisory and risk mitigation services for utility-scale solar and energy storage projects; it says the growing fleet of utility-scale solar assets in the US is “dramatically underprepared” for severe hailstorms.
VDE has performed extensive analysis of the hail damage at Fighting Jays, and concludes that the available defenses offer effective protection. This week, it announced a new Hail Risk Atlas designed to help solar developers forecast economic risk from hail loss.
|
 |
|
|
|
The company says the atlas will make it possible to easily ascertain the level of risk associated with hail events, “informing key decisions for project locations, equipment selection, insurance coverage and most importantly, effective hail defense protocols for both construction and operations.”
It would be wonderful if solar projects across the country could get through 2025 (and the rest of their operational lives) without any hail damage, but just in case, you might want to bookmark this blog post from SEIA explaining why you don’t need to worry about broken solar panels.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Building American power requires a powerful team. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
