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Renewable Loophole in the One Big Beautiful Bill

August 8, 2026 The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) of 2025 phased out hefty solar and wind tax credits created under former President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in 2022. But instead of phasing out battery storage tax credits along with the wind and solar tax credits, the OBBBA phases them out much later — in 2036— which solar developers are now capitalizing on by adding battery storage components to new builds, allowing them to keep earning lucrative clean energy tax credits despite the phaseout. Warren Buffett pointed out more than a decade ago : “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” Under the OBBBA, solar and wind projects that have not started construction no longer qualify for the IRA tax credits. Because of lucrative tax credits, wind and solar projects have made up a majority of the energy sector’s growth since 2019. According to t...
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How solar donors helped take down a Trump-backed Republican

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By Timothy Cama   08/07/2026 An aggressive new political action committee backed by renewable energy supporters claimed its biggest and clearest win yet Thursday by helping unseat conservative Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee despite President Donald Trump’s vocal support.   The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition PAC spent $2 million opposing Ogles and boosting Republican primary opponent Charlie Hatcher — more than both candidates combined — and the group is now poised to be a force in future contests. Ogles was the third Republican this year to lose a race after being targeted by the super PAC, launched by solar executives wanting to get back at Republicans who actively work against renewables.   "[W]e will continue to punish members of either party who want to play politics with American jobs, energy security, and utility prices. The entire map is in play and we will take this fight across the country through November,” Tom Matzzie, CEO of solar company CleanChoice E...
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Inside the Urban Machine: Where America's Data Centers Actually Live

When people picture a data center, they often imagine something remote: a huge warehouse humming quietly far from the city. New research from NYU Tandon School of Engineering shows that assumption is largely wrong. The study, published in Nature Cities , examined the locations of 4,283 data centers across the contiguous United States and found that 97.5% of them sit inside metropolitan or micropolitan statistical areas, meaning urban cores and their immediate surroundings. The roughly 2.5% of facilities technically outside city limits are, on average, just 8.5 miles from the nearest urban edge. The cloud lives downtown. "There is a prevailing narrative of these data centers being somewhere in the middle of nowhere, in rural areas, being a positive force for employment, and being the future of rural communities," said lead researcher, NYU Tandon Institute Professor Maurizio Porfiri , who is the Director of Tandon’s Center for Urban Science + Progress and of the NYU Urban I...
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Troubled WA solar project withdraws application

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  By  Greg Kim Seattle Times climate reporter The Seattle Times’ Climate Lab explores the effects of climate change in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The project is funded in part by the Bullitt Foundation, CO2 Foundation, Jim and Birte Falconer, Mike and Becky Hughes, Henry M. Jackson Foundation, Martin-Fabert Foundation, Craig McKibben and Sarah Merner, Mary Snapp and Spencer Frazer, University of Washington, Walker Family Foundation and Kristi and Tom Weir, and its fiscal sponsor is Seattle Foundation. The Seattle Times maintains editorial control over all its coverage.   After five years of running into one obstacle after another, the developer of a proposed 2,400-acre solar farm east of Wenatchee has decided to walk away. The Badger Mountain Solar project was mired in controversy from the start due to its location. However, it also faced broader challenges weighing down many wind and solar projects as Washington races to meet its clean-energy deadlines. Avangrid,...
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Wind and Solar Safe Harbor Fight Outlives Credit Deadline

  Monday, August 3, 2026    By Environment+Energy Leader | Infrastructure + Energy Systems   Wind and Solar's Safe Harbor Fight Outlives the Tax Credit Deadline The July 4 deadline decided which wind and solar projects tried to qualify for federal tax credits, but it never decided which legal rule they qualified under, and that gap is now sitting on someone's balance sheet as an open liability with no expiration date. The deadline did not decide which legal rule these projects qualified under, and that unresolved question is now an open liability with no expiration date . A federal court restored a cheaper path to establish tax credit eligibility just four weeks before the deadline, but the ruling itself remains under appeal . Any project that used the restored rule to qualify is carrying a tax credit position that could still be reversed, retroactively, once a higher court weighs in . That is not a closed question left over from a passed deadline. It is a live expo...
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Wind Concerns – Alberta

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  In what Wind Concerns considers to be a “major step forward” in the battle against damaging industrial wind turbines, the County of St. Paul, Alberta, has passed an amendment to establish a 1500m setback of turbines from human dwellings. It’s significant because the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC), who gives the thumbs up or down to energy projects, has said they will respect those distances. During their consultation with municipalities in the Spring of 2026, the AUC stated: Where a municipality sets setback distances in its land-use planning documents, and the setback distance falls within the approved minimum and maximum ranges, the AUC intends to accept and apply those setbacks in future facility application decisions in that municipality…. The maximum setback reflects the 1.5-kilometre noise receptor review distance already used under Rule 012… The minimum setback [800m] is based mainly on noise requirements in established AUC Rule 012. “ Proposed Standardized Setbacks fo...
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NY ISO --- System & Resource Outlook

  The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) has released its 2025-2044 System & Resource Outlook (The Outlook), a long-term planning assessment that finds New York will need substantial new investment in reliable generation and transmission infrastructure to serve growing electricity demand and state policy targets.   Press release:   https://www.nyiso.com/-/press-release-nyiso-report-highlights-need-for-new-generation-and-transmission-investment-to-meet-growing-demand-and-state-policy-targets
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