Latest news with #Grumet
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Clean power deployments neared record in Q1, but development pipeline growth slowed: ACP
This story was originally published on Utility Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Utility Dive newsletter. Eight of the top 10 states for utility-scale clean energy deployment in the first quarter of 2025 voted Republican in last year's Presidential election, the American Clean Power Association said on Thursday. Texas was the runaway leader with more than 1,700 MW of wind, solar and energy storage deployments and a 20% year-over-year increase in total clean energy capacity. Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Wyoming rounded out the top five, ACP said. The 7.4 GW of new clean power capacity in the U.S. was the second-strongest Q1 on record. Energy storage was the fastest-growing segment, with nationwide battery storage capacity increasing 65% year over year. Total utility-scale clean energy deployments in the first quarter of this year came in 9% shy of the record-setting first quarter of 2024, when developers commissioned 8,089 MW of wind, solar and storage capacity, ACP said. ACP's data reflects the increasingly broad geography of utility-scale solar and storage deployments. Indiana quadrupled its energy storage capacity, adding 435 MW, while Illinois, Mississippi, Wisconsin and Ohio all deployed far more solar than California. Total U.S. clean energy capacity sits at about 320.9 GW — of which, 80.7 GW is in Texas, ACP said. The clean power development pipeline expanded as well, growing 12% year over year to reach about 184.4 GW and an estimated $328 billion in completed value. But that marks a slowdown from a year ago, when fully permitted clean power capacity under construction or in advanced development rose 26% from Q1 2023. Developers have canceled more than $14 billion in clean energy projects so far this year amid uncertainty over the future of federal tax credits for clean energy investment, production and manufacturing, according to the consulting group E2. ACP's latest report hinted at the scale of the potential risk to state and local economies if the House GOP's proposed rapid wind-down of energy tax credits remains in the final budget reconciliation bill that now sits before the Senate. Domestic manufacturing and energy production investments now generate $3.4 billion in annual tax revenue and landowner payments in rural communities and have created nearly 650,000 jobs, ACP said. 'We have the technology, investment capital and workforce required to build the $300+ billion of clean energy projects in our development pipeline,' Grumet said, describing those projects as shovel-ready. 'The greatest threat to a reliable energy system is an unreliable political system.' Utilities and independent power producers across the South, Midwest and West have proposed dozens of gigawatts of new gas-fired generation projects since 2023, including an up to 4.5-GW project in western Pennsylvania that could begin operations next year and eventually become the United States' largest gas power plant. But utility-scale gas power plant developers that have yet to order turbines may not get them for years as executives for major turbine OEMs GE Vernova, Mitsubishi and Siemens Energy warn of multi-year backlogs. Solar installations with signed interconnection agreements are comparatively fast to deploy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In 2023, the median solar project took 25 months from interconnection signing to commissioning and only about 19% of solar projects had to delay commissioning — a decrease from 23% in 2022, they said Recommended Reading House's 60-day deadline for IRA eligibility would trigger 'scramble': EY experts
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Amid tariff uncertainty, US grid battery industry faces an uphill climb
Companies making and deploying lithium-ion batteries in the U.S. recently gathered in Washington, D.C., to ask the federal government for the policy support they say they need. Their request came alongside a big promise: to cumulatively spend $100 billion by 2030 to build a self-sufficient, all-American grid battery industry. 'Within five years, and with $100 billion in investment, we can satisfy 100% of U.S. demand for battery storage,' said Jason Grumet, CEO of the American Clean Power Association, a trade group. 'This is unquestionably an ambitious commitment, but it is absolutely achievable if the private and public sectors work together,' he said. The $100 billion promise represents a major increase in the $10 billion to $15 billion that the American Clean Power Association estimates was invested in U.S. grid battery manufacturing and deployment last year. As recently as a few months ago, industry analysts largely agreed that a domestic ramp-up on the scale of what Grumet proposes was at least possible, if not inevitable. Lucrative federal tax credits for companies that build and deploy clean energy technology within the nation's borders have helped close the price gap between U.S.-made batteries and those made in China, the world's main supplier of lithium-ion battery modules, cells, and materials. These tax incentives, created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, have also helped bolster the economics of installing large-scale batteries alongside solar power. Solar and batteries are by far the fastest-to-deploy option for utilities seeking to meet rising electricity demand from data centers, factories, electric vehicles, and broader economic growth. The two energy sources have dominated new additions to the U.S. grid in recent years. But that's changing under the Trump administration. Republicans in Congress may kill the Biden-era tax credits that make domestic battery manufacturing possible. The Department of Energy Loan Programs Office, which has lent huge sums to battery manufacturers like Eos and Kore Power, could soon be shuttered or radically scaled back. And President Donald Trump's aggressive and ever-shifting tariffs are making it more expensive for manufacturers to produce batteries in the U.S., since the duties raise the costs of everything from cells imported from China to general-purpose materials like steel and aluminum. On Monday, China and the U.S. announced they'd temporarily ease tariffs on one another, but the situation has not been permanently resolved and leaves tariffs on Chinese imports at 30%. Manufacturers and developers still lack clarity about what the underlying economics of their business will look like months from today. As Grumet conceded in a briefing with reporters before the American Clean Power Association's D.C. media event in April, 'there is a remarkable tension right now between probably the best fundamentals for investment in the energy sector that we've seen in a generation and the greatest amount of uncertainty that we've seen in a generation.' When it comes to plugging batteries into the U.S. power grid, tariffs are the most immediate threat by far. The impacts are already showing up in sagging forecasts and postponed projects. In February, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted the country would deploy more than 18 gigawatts of batteries in 2025, up from 11 gigawatts in 2024, continuing what's been a meteoric increase over the past several years. But the forecast for 2025 grid battery additions has fallen in recent months, at least according to the latest analysis from the American Clean Power Association and consultancy Wood Mackenzie, which is tucked into the end of the clean energy industry group's fact sheet for its $100 billion-by-2030 investment pledge. They predict that a little over 13 GW of energy storage will be plugged into the nation's grid this year. Several factors play into that drop-off, but the primary one is that nearly 70% of lithium-ion batteries in the U.S. came from China last year — and that tariffs on Chinese lithium-ion batteries and components had spiked to 156% as of last month, according to BloombergNEF. Monday's news that the U.S. and China had agreed to a 90-day pause on their dueling tariffs means that the blanket 145% tariffs that the Trump administration had imposed on China in April will fall to 30% as of Wednesday — at least if the deal holds. Now, once again, energy storage companies will be recalibrating the economics of their projects, almost all of which currently rely on battery materials or components from China. 'For the next five to seven years, there is no cost-effective, time-critical alternative to battery storage to meet domestic electricity demand,' said David Fernandes, chief financial officer of OnEnergy, a grid storage and microgrid developer with 120 megawatt-hours of projects in operation and 3 gigawatt-hours in development across the U.S. and Latin America. 'That means cells from China.' Tariffs on Chinese imports simply mean the batteries that the U.S. grid needs 'will just be more expensive,' he said, which will in turn drive up electricity prices. Regardless of where tariffs settle, they have already disrupted some grid storage projects. Take Fluence, a major U.S.-based energy storage provider that's made more than $700 million in commitments to manufacture battery cells and modules in the U.S. to date, according to John Zahurancik, Fluence's president of the Americas. In its second-quarter earnings call last week, the company reported a significant downward revision in its 2025 revenue forecasts, driven by decisions to 'pause U.S. projects under existing contracts' and 'defer entry into pending contracts until there exists better visibility and certainty on the tariff environment.' More delays are on their way, according to Ravi Manghani, senior director of strategic sourcing at Anza Renewables, a data analytics firm focused on solar and energy storage. Of the batteries bound for grid storage deployments in the U.S. in 2025, roughly half are 'at risk of getting delayed or renegotiated to make the economics work in 2026 and beyond,' he said. Some larger-scale projects scheduled to come online this year have likely already brought their batteries into the country, escaping the tariff premium, Manghani said. But many that are procuring batteries now for delivery from late 2025 to early 2026 'are indefinitely postponed until we get more clarity around where the tariffs end up, and what happens to non-Chinese manufacturing at large,' he said. Projects that are being built as part of state-regulated utilities' broader generation and grid plans may be able to absorb cost increases, he said. But 'merchant projects' that are operated by independent power producers in competitive energy markets are 'still figuring out if they can pencil out,' he said. In a Monday email, Manghani updated his view based on the latest news of a U.S.-China trade rapprochement. 'We will have to see if suppliers can actually ship out within this 90-day window,' he wrote. The determination of which countries end up having the most affordable battery components in the long run 'will depend not only on which countries have tariffs, but where the tariff percentages exactly land.' Trump's seesawing on tariffs 'just adds another layer of complexity for long-term investments,' Manghani added. Those dynamics could crimp the rapid pace of development in the competitive energy market of Texas, the country's grid energy storage leader. Stephanie Smith, chief operating officer at grid battery developer Eolian, said during the American Clean Power Association's April briefing that Texas has been well-served by its fleet of grid batteries, which have helped the state ride through summer heat waves while avoiding grid emergencies that have plagued it in the past. But it's going to be harder for Texas, and the rest of the country, to keep rapidly installing grid batteries in the face of rising prices for Chinese batteries. Eolian is scrambling to 'source as much outside of China as possible right now' to deal with the tariffs, Smith said. But 'obviously, there are some limitations on that.' Despite the uncertainty and rising prices, utilities and grid operators desperate to meet rising electricity demand have little choice but to build more batteries, said Gary Dorris, CEO and cofounder of clean energy-focused consultancy Ascend Analytics. That's because the alternative — new gas-fired power plants — takes much, much longer to build. Manufacturers of the turbines used in gas power plants are reporting up to four-year wait times for customers seeking to build power plants not already in the works, Dorris told Canary Media in an email. Solar panels and batteries, by contrast, can be ordered, shipped, and deployed in less than a year. While the specifics of Trump's tariffs matter — there is, after all, an enormous difference between 156% and 30% tariffs on China — at this point the hardest thing for manufacturers is 'the confusion surrounding' trade policy, Dorris said. Firms are asking, 'What are the goals? Will they stay in place? How will other countries react?' he said. 'This has created a lot of uncertainty, which suppresses appetite for making large, irreversible capital investment decisions.' This unpredictability, paired with the immediate price hikes on imported materials and equipment needed to build and expand factories, has hurt the U.S. manufacturers that the Trump administration's tariffs are ostensibly meant to help. These impacts are particularly dangerous for the still-nascent U.S. battery manufacturing sector. The American Clean Power Association is tracking 25 major projects to build or expand grid-scale energy storage factories in the U.S., of which 11 are in operation or under construction. Much of this manufacturing capacity is for battery modules, meaning it continues to rely on Chinese battery cells and materials. 'The domestic supply chain is unfortunately going to be at the receiving end of the tariff,' Manghani said. 'A lot of the raw materials that would go into domestic batteries, as well as the manufacturing equipment you need to build these cell factories, are still slated to come from China. We don't have a lot of alternatives yet.' That dependence on Chinese-made cells underscores just how vulnerable today's battery-manufacturing industry is to tariffs, Grumet said. Some domestic facilities are also starting to make those cells and refine and manufacture battery materials. Those include the facilities that Fluence has invested in that are making battery modules, cells, and associated equipment in Utah and Tennessee. It also includes Tesla's expanding cell-manufacturing capacity from its factories in Nevada and Texas, and its lithium-refining facility in Texas. Speaking at the American Clean Power Association's D.C. event, Michael Snyder, Tesla's vice president of energy and charging, highlighted the EV and grid battery manufacturer's advances in lithium iron phosphate cells. These cells are safer and easier to source materials for than nickel manganese cobalt cells and have become the favored technology for EV batteries and grid batteries alike. Today, Chinese companies make 99% of the world's lithium iron phosphate cells, according to Benchmark. 'We think we're going to be the first non-Chinese company making these cells at scale, and we know there are a lot of other companies working on that as well,' Snyder said. South Korea-based LG Energy Solution in February announced plans to invest $1.4 billion in U.S. lithium iron phosphate cell production for grid storage, which will take place at the firm's existing factory in Holland, Michigan. But those efforts are in their early stages, and they'll only succeed if they have customers to buy their products — a prospect made less certain by the chill settling in over grid battery deployment. The Trump administration's hostility to Biden-era climate policy and its broad support for fossil fuels is undermining investor confidence in the continued growth of U.S. grid battery markets, with consequences for the domestic manufacturing projects that would aim to supply them. The first three months of 2025 saw cancellations of billions of dollars in planned battery cell-manufacturing investment from Freyr Battery (now T1 Energy) in Georgia and Kore Power in Arizona. But the bigger threat to U.S. clean energy deployment and manufacturing is the possibility that Republicans in Congress will undo the tax credits created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to benefit companies that build and deploy lithium-ion batteries and many other clean energy technologies. Republicans in Congress have pledged to extend tax cuts passed during the first Trump administration that will add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit, and they are hunting for federal spending cuts to make that possible. The estimated $780 billion in clean-energy tax credits is a tempting target. Some Republicans are arguing to keep the tax credits that undergird major investments in factories and power projects in their districts, while others have called for eliminating them completely. These incentives currently boost the economics for grid battery projects with a 30% base credit on the cost of the up-front investment, but developers can get more if the projects obtain a certain amount of materials from domestic suppliers or if they are built in 'energy communities' that face losses in jobs and economic activity due to closures of fossil fuel infrastructure. The tax credits have accelerated storage deployments — and boosted demand for batteries from U.S. manufacturers. But for battery manufacturers, the most vital piece of policy is the 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production tax credit. That credit is tied to every unit of battery module, cell, component, and material produced domestically, at a level designed to make them cost-competitive with Chinese products. 45X has been the primary spur for investors committing hundreds of billions of dollars to U.S. clean technology manufacturing. It's hard to see how those investors could keep their commitments if that support went away — and harder still to see how any new factories will be planned now, while the fate of that incentive is up in the air.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
American-Statesman columnist Bridget Grumet wins National Headliner Award
American-Statesman Editorial Page Editor Bridget Grumet has won the National Headliner Award for local newspaper columns, a prestigious honor recognizing the best community-based commentary in newspapers of all sizes across the country. The award, announced Wednesday, recognizes Grumet's 2024 work as Metro columnist covering the sudden sweep of an Austin homeless encampment without the support services the city had promised; the state refusing for a year to hear the appeal of a Texas Ranger disciplined over the response to the Uvalde school shooting; and the resolution of Attorney General Ken Paxton's securities fraud charges that failed to deliver the reckoning sought by many Texans. In announcing the award, the judges praised Grumet's work for 'excellent use of shoe-leather reporting, memorable details, snappy quotes and passion to shine a light on wrongdoing.' "Once again, Bridget has been awarded for her commitment and passion for her community by digging into issues that are often glossed over or intentionally recast by those in power. She is the voice of reason we so desperately need at this moment in time," Executive Editor Courtney Sebesta said. "There's no one better at uncovering wrongdoings and exposing hypocrisy of elected officials than Bridget." The National Headliner Awards honor the best journalism in the United States, with various categories for newspapers, TV, radio and digital media. The annual contest, created by the Press Club of Atlantic City in 1934, is one of the oldest and largest in the country that recognizes journalistic merit in the communications industry. Other finalists in local newspaper column writing were Karen Tolkkinen of the Minnesota Star Tribune and Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times. Separately, Grumet's work earned second-place honors in general column writing in the Texas Managing Editors Awards over the weekend. That entry included an in-depth piece about Austin's handling of homeless camp sweeps, in which city officials acknowledged Grumet's earlier coverage of the mishandled cleanup off Brandt Road in Southeast Austin was 'a wake-up call' and a catalyst for developing a policy on addressing encampments. Last year, Grumet received the national Sigma Delta Chi Award for general column writing and the Best of Gannett honors in opinion writing for other pieces published in 2023. Her series on the 2003 murder of Ortralla Mosley on an Austin high school campus received the top honor among the Best American Newspaper Narratives of 2023, and the series was a finalist last year for the Edwin "Bud" Shrake Award for Short Nonfiction, a prize for newspaper and magazine writing administered by the Texas Institute of Letters. Grumet left the Metro columnist role in March to oversee the Statesman's Opinion section. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: American-Statesman's Bridget Grumet wins National Headliner Award
