Sunrun CEO Warns Against Congressional 'Rug Pull' on Clean Energy

Newsweek

2 days ago

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
The U.S. solar industry took a hit late last month when Republicans in the House of Representatives passed the "big beautiful" budget reconciliation bill that would largely eliminate tax credits for clean energy.
Those Biden-era incentives for renewable energy, battery manufacturing, EVs and other clean tech have driven hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in renewable energy. Without the tax policy, analysts warn, more than $500 billion worth of announced but pending investments in the clean tech sector are at risk.
Shares for rooftop solar companies tumbled on news of the bill's passage. California-based Sunrun, a leader in combining rooftop solar with home battery energy storage, saw shares plunge nearly 40 percent on news of the bill's passage.
"We immediately went to work on how we can ensure our message about the importance of what we do for Americans on energy independence and advancing the agenda around energy dominance is heard," Sunrun CEO Mary Powell told Newsweek as she and colleagues in the clean energy sector attempt to change the bill. "Without changes it would be ripping the rug out from under 5 million plus customers."
The company's stock price has since regained much of its value as attention turns to the Senate where the renewable energy industry is hoping that cooler heads will prevail and restore some elements of support.
Sunrun CEO Mary Powell said the budget bill produced by the House would pull the rug from under the solar and battery storage industries, harming the U.S. ability to meet energy demands.
Sunrun CEO Mary Powell said the budget bill produced by the House would pull the rug from under the solar and battery storage industries, harming the U.S. ability to meet energy demands.
Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva/Sunrun
Industry executives argue that as the U.S. enters a period of surging demand for electricity, solar, wind and battery storage are often the fastest and cheapest ways to add power. Last year, some combination of renewable energy and storage accounted for roughly 90 percent of new additions to the nation's electric grid.
The House bill's draconian cuts to renewable energy pose particular threats to rooftop and community solar. In addition to repealing tax credits far sooner than initially intended, the bill would eliminate the ability to transfer the credits and restrict the use of tax credits in lease arrangements for solar installations, which is a common business model for solar companies.
Clean tech companies are also counting on the local economic impact of investments that flowed to red states and Republican Congressional Districts as the renewable energy industry brings more manufacturing on shore to reduce dependence on imported products. About two dozen Republican members of Congress have signed letters supporting the clean energy tax credits, including four influential members of the Senate.
Newsweek spoke with Powell, a power industry veteran, about how the industry and her company hope to persuade members of the Senate to make changes. Powell has been Sunrun's CEO since 2021and before that she led Green Mountain Power Corporation, Vermont's main electricity provider, for more than a decade.
This conversation has been lightly edited for length.
Newsweek: What are your chances of getting this bill to change? And, I guess it would have to change somewhat dramatically from the version that passed the House.
Mary Powell: We had multiple conversations with Members to make sure the depth of what we bring to the United States from an energy independence perspective was understood.
All of that work will be imported as the Senate now tackles the latest language that ultimately came out of the House. I've been in energy for about 24 years, and I like to say there's always a gravitational pull towards things landing in a commonsense way, something that is supportive of what needs to happen in terms of the American economy and energy capacity.
So, I continue to believe that this will land in a reasonable place because that's what would make the most sense for Americans. It also makes the most sense in the context of the President's agenda, which is really about growth, about energy capacity, about making sure that we have enough resources to grow and ensure that we're meeting all the demands of the future.
Given how much of the development and economic benefits from the clean energy sector have happened in Republican districts, I think it was a disappointment to a lot of folks in the sector to not see any of those Republicans who had signed letters of support for the credits actually stand up. What do you make of that? It seems like that indicates soft support for the tax credits given the other hard choices they have to make.
The reality is America has built a thriving storage and solar industry, which is powering over 300,000 jobs. We now have 330 U.S.-based manufacturing facilities and $285 billion of investments. So yes, to your point, there are a lot of reasons for folks to support this.
There was strong support in the House, there have been strong supporters and statements in the Senate.
This was middle-of-the-night legislation and resolving of party differences. And I feel very clear that a lot of those leaders in the House are still going to be working very hard ultimately to land us in a place that makes sense. The process is rarely, in my experience, clean, straightforward and simple.
On the Senate side, we have four fairly prominent Republican senators who have signed a letter in support of keeping the clean energy tax credits. What makes you think that those senators would be more inclined to follow through on that versus what we saw happen in the House?
The language as written now would have dramatic impacts in a lot of states that are really important to Republican Senate leadership. And I think the Senate is known for historically really working hard to strike that balance of what ultimately makes sense for Americans. I think they're very sensitive to not doing dramatic rug pulls out from under industry.
So, as things work through the process and people start to stare at the stark realities of moving in such a knee-jerk fashion, I think you'll see more and more really start to focus on, 'How do we land this in a way that is not so disruptive to the American economy and so disruptive to the American energy independence agenda?'
Many are very concerned about this issue of capacity. At Sunrun, we're really America's storage company. We're bringing on the equivalent of a nuclear power plant a year in terms of dispatchable energy capacity because we are leaning in so hard to storage.
My experience would suggest—and my conversations would suggest—that their job is to land in a place that is not so highly disruptive to the economies of the very states that they all go home to.
And what do you say to the critics of the tax credits who argue that your business, your industry, should be able to compete without the subsidies?
What's really important is we're deploying way newer technology. So, we're using the tax structure to accelerate the adoption of storage, which from a mass market perspective has really only been around for a couple of years. It's really important to remember that the tax structure for us, for the work we're doing is not, it's not about supporting a technology that has been around for 15 or 20 years, it's actually supporting innovation around technology
As a former utility executive, I care deeply about America having enough energy capacity. I'm all in on nuclear, on all these resources that we need. But the reality is, they're really hard to build and they take a lot of time. So, we can scale fast with these [storage battery] technologies. I think as people understand that it opens up a different perspective.
On top of that, I would also say that what we've been advocating for is just a reasonable glide path. The languages as it sits now is sort of the opposite of fostering capitalism and a productive economy in the United States. You just don't do rug pulls, you come up with a structured way to allow capitalism and innovation to respond.
On that topic, what might a glide path for phasing out the credits look like?
I'll point back to what the House Ways and Means Committee did. I think things needed work from that bill, but you know, in, in the context of how I might structure a glide path, it would be maybe more extended than what they did. But it was very thoughtful.
And what do you say to folks on the Hill in regard to the U.S. positioning itself to compete with China and other countries for this industry of the future?
That's one of the many reasons why it's so important that we come up with a really smart, thoughtful glide path. Because we don't have a chance of winning the race with China if we don't scale at a faster clip in terms of our own energy capacity.
Just look at what's happening with AI. We need to scale quickly, and this is a really strong way to contribute to that effort. This industry has contributed to America's energy dominance across the world and independence at home.
A lot of onshoring has been done. Are there challenges going deep into the supply chain? Yes, as is true for a lot of products in the United States. With the appropriate glide path, you're incentivizing all of that innovation and capitalism to do that sort of last step in the onshoring. That really puts America in an incredibly strong place from an energy independence and manufacturing perspective.