How safe are today’s big energy bets?

Want these sent right to your inbox each Friday? Subscribe now

Las Vegas hosted a double header this week: RE+, the clean energy industry’s biggest stage, and Yotta, a new conference for digital infrastructure and data centers. These are two very different gatherings, but they increasingly overlap. 

Clean power and computing are now fused together. Nearly every conversation about renewables is a conversation about load growth, and nearly every conversation about data centers is a conversation about access to power. We’ll have coverage and observations from both events in the days ahead.

As we touched on last week, the unease running through the clean energy industry has been visible in the reaction to the stop-work order issued in late August on Ørsted’s $5 billion Revolution Wind project. The farm was 80% complete and weeks from delivering 700 MW to New England when the Trump administration froze construction — stranding workers at sea, and costing Ørsted $2 million a day.

The immediate impact is on offshore wind, but the reverberation is likely much bigger: If fully permitted, nearly finished projects can be derailed, how safe are other utility-scale investments? 

On Open Circuit this week, the hosts looked at how the White House’s deliberate attempt to make clean energy an unsafe investment is spooking investors. Virtually every step of the approval process for a project is now another point of uncertainty. And that raises the cost of capital across the board, making it harder to finance not just wind, but also solar, storage, and nuclear.

Meanwhile, solar developers are scrambling to break ground on projects and reorient their supply chains in reaction to policy changes. Below, Maeve Allsup looks at the rush to install projects before tax credit deadlines, and Bianca Giacobone tracks the push to secure domestic production along the solar supply chain. Plus, Lisa Martine Jenkins explores the wider impacts of all the political attacks on emissions, just as power demand surges.

THE ROUND-UP

Where do U.S. emissions go from here?

The emissions impact of the Trump administration is becoming clear. According to new research out this week from the Rhodium Group, emissions reductions are expected to slow significantly between now and 2035, relative to 2005 levels. 

Last year’s “Taking Stock” report found that greenhouse gas emissions would fall between 38% and 56% by 2035; this year, the report’s 11th installment found that range has dropped to 26-35%. (For context, under the Paris Agreement — which President Trump pulled out of for the second time on his first day in office — the country committed to achieving a 50-52% reduction by 2030.)

Those emissions reductions parallel an anticipated increase in power demand especially from data centers, nudged along by the Trump administration’s artificial intelligence-friendly policies. 

The Rhodium Group expects the data center sector to amount to 47%-65% of demand growth in 2030, and 44%-59% in 2040. This means that data center power demand is expected to nearly double by 2030, and more than triple by 2040, as compared with 2024 levels. In the scenarios mapped, Rhodium Group found that “data centers make up 14% of total US electricity demand in 2040.”

(Continue reading Lisa Martine Jenkins’ piece, “Where do US emissions go from here?”...) 

Running the numbers on solar’s ‘rush to construction’

Nearly 18 gigawatts of new solar came online in the U.S. in the first half of 2025, according to an analysis out this week from Wood Mackenzie. Solar and storage installations dominated deployments, making up 82% of all new power added to the grid during that time, the analysis found. 

That analysis forecasts that a total of around 40 GW of solar will be installed this year, driven in part by “demand pull-in” from the early phase-out of the investment tax credit, explained Kaitlin Fung, a research analyst at Wood Mackenzie focusing on utility-scale solar.

“We see two rushes of construction happening, mainly in 2027 and 2030,” Fung added, pointing to the new “commence construction” and “enter into service” deadlines for solar projects under the GOP reconciliation bill passed in July.  

However, there’s a massive pipeline of large load commitments, primarily from hyperscaler data centers, that points to sustained, near-term demand for solar deployment, said Fung. Utilities have already committed to 99 GW of new large load capacity, and Wood Mackenzie’s project tracking estimates about 125 GW of high probability load.

The impact of the energy capacity crunch, combined with the premature end of the tax credits can be seen in the earlier stages of the solar buildout pipeline, she added. 

This report landed right as the renewable energy industry gathered for the first major conference since the passage of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” at RE+ in Las Vegas. According to a client note from Jefferies, the conference is “generally reaffirming” the improving backdrop to solar; basically, the sentiment on the ground was that things aren’t as bad as they could be for solar — especially for utility-scale solar, but also for residential.  

That said, it was storage, which retained key tax credits in the OBBB negotiations, that is “increasingly in the spotlight.” Jefferies expects storage development to “stay robust” in the years to come. 

(Continue reading Maeve Allsup’s piece, “Running the numbers on solar’s ‘rush to construction’”...)

As solar deployment accelerates, it also means mounting pressure on the relatively fragile domestic supply chain.

U.S. module manufacturing capacity expanded by 13 GW in the first half of 2025, reaching a total of 55 GW production capacity. Upstream investment, however, stalled in the second quarter, in the face of policy uncertainty and trade disputes.

Companies are moving to vertically integrate and secure domestic production capacity. Just this week, Nextracker acquired Origami Solar, a U.S.-based maker of solar panel frames, and last inverter maker Tigo Energy recently announced plans to establish U.S. manufacturing to capitalize on federal incentives and developer demand for domestic content.

(Continue reading Bianca Giacobone’s pieces, “Nextracker acquires solar panel frames producer Origami Solar” and “Why solar manufacturer Tigo Energy is setting up US production now”...)

MORE STORIES + PODCASTS

CATALYST WITH SHAYLE KANN | When to colocate data centers with generation

BIANCA GIACOBONE | Is Fermi America’s IPO all hype?

MAEVE ALLSUP | A status update on data center flexibility

LISA MARTINE JENKINS | How is the transferable tax credit market evolving under Trump?

ALEXANDER C. KAUFMAN | Exclusive: Atomic Canyon, Idaho National Labs to set AI standards for nuclear

BIANCA GIACOBONE | How Nuclearn is using AI to streamline nuclear development

GREEN BLUEPRINT | Confronting cleantech’s sunk cost dilemma

BIANCA GIACOBONE | Why solar manufacturer Tigo Energy is setting up US production now

LISA MARTINE JENKINS | Report: Where do US emissions go from here?

BIANCA GIACOBONE | Nextracker acquires solar panel frames producer Origami Solar

LATITUDE STUDIOS | Sponsored from Bloom Energy : How fuel cells are meeting the power needs of data centers at speed and scale

IN OTHER NEWS

Foreign Affairs | Brian Deese and Lisa Hansmann delve into what the U.S. must do to meet the energy crunch that’s coming. 

The Wall Street Journal | At a Georgia Hyundai electric vehicle manufacturing complex that President Trump had previously praised, hundreds of South Korean workers were arrested in a chaotic immigration raid.

Politico | Holtec is considering restarting the Indian Point nuclear facility, but says it would need state and federal help to make it work.

Want these sent right to your inbox each Friday? Subscribe now