During a 10 September panel on communicating renewables through a Conservative lens at the RE+ trade show in Las Vegas, US, participants discussed how to gain support from Republicans for battery energy storage systems (BESS), solar, and more in the wake of the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Act.
What’s happening in the industry?
Of course, the industry’s talk has been surrounding the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Act (OBBB), which left energy storage tax credit timelines largely the same but brought major changes to solar and wind projects.
Foreign entity of concern (FEOC) restrictions on technology procurement and changing tariff policies, meanwhile, significantly increase the risk of buying energy storage components outside of the US.
As noted in an Energy-Storage.news report earlier this month by Solar Media analyst Charlotte Gisbourne, overseas energy storage suppliers have yet to experience significant financial difficulties. It is still too early to know what the full ramifications of the OBBB for them will be.
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Further actions by the US president include declaring a national energy emergency, vowing to fill the country’s strategic oil reserves, and reinforcing his promise to “drill, baby, drill”. He intends to boost fossil fuel production in Alaska and export natural gas.
Significant changes have also occurred at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO). Under the Biden administration, Jigar Shah headed the LPO, which regularly announced loans and investments for a wide array of renewable energy projects.
Recent activity from the LPO has focused on restarting the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan.
On 16 September, the office announced the release of a sixth loan to support the plant’s restart, disbursing around US$156 million of the up to US$1.52 billion loan guarantee. To date, this total is still less than half of the guarantee, with US$491 million disbursed.
The shifts in policy have come with shifts in messaging, with the administration often citing threats to national security from “foreign controlled energy sources,” and in turn, creating a “National Energy Dominance Council”.
Experts weigh in at RE+
Isaiah Menning, External Affairs Director at American Conservation Coalition, highlighted, “The animating force (for Conservatives) right now is what serves the American interest. Everyone knows that America First is what President Trump is going for.”
Menning also stated that the party’s main objections to renewables are reliability and dependence on foreign countries.
Heather Reams, President and CEO of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (CRES), said the way to address these concerns is to focus on lowering energy costs and highlighting American innovation.
“That is really going to be compelling for Republican members of Congress: It’s solutions-oriented, we’re innovating, we’re shoring up supply chains, we’re ensuring there’s a healthy balance, and we’re driving costs down.”
Tom Starrs, Vice President for government and public affairs at EDP Renewables, shared how EDP is changing its tactics in an attempt to appeal to “rural” communities.
Starrs said the company realised “we can’t have a developer, a guy with, you know, long hair and an earring walking into a hearing room in a rural community in the Midwest, and expecting him to have any credibility.”
“We decided a couple of years ago to hire someone from that local community for every project we have advancing through the development cycle.”
“The perfect examples are a family man, or the guy who runs the local chamber, or the owner of a local diner where all the old white guys go for morning coffee and chat. It doesn’t really matter who it is, as long as they have credibility within the community.”
The panel members then addressed a question from the audience about how to counter misinformation about renewables.
This is a topic that Kevin Smith, CEO of Arevon Energy, recently spoke to ESN Premium about, saying: “Our philosophy is to engage early and often with town officials, fire departments, and the local community. Some developers try to proceed quietly, hoping not to attract attention, but this approach can lead to misinformation spreading in the community. We prefer to be upfront.”
Starrs emphasised that these conversations come down to highlighting the economic advantages of BESS, solar, and other renewables. He said, “We have to fight, we have to combat this information with actual good information.”
Reams pointed out the support that Republicans currently have for these projects, using a recent study from CRES as an example.
“Our organisation just put out a poll, which found that solar enjoys 80 to 90% of support from Republicans, so nothing’s changed with voters.”
A change to renewables’ messaging
A point emphasised throughout the panel was how to frame solar, particularly as a technology that serves “American interests” and “American energy dominance.”
This messaging has been proving successful for energy storage.
After the OBBB was signed into law, Isshu Kikuma, energy storage analyst at BloombergNEF (BNEF), while speaking with ESN, provided some insight into why energy storage may have retained the Investment Tax Credit (ITC).
“I think that’s because the current administration focuses on reliability quite a lot. Right now, they don’t talk much about decarbonisation or the energy transition, but I think they do care about reliability. To maintain reliability, dispatchable power sources, or power sources with flexibility, are definitely key for the power grid. I think that’s why they’re keeping the support for energy storage, as well as other technologies like geothermal and nuclear.”
Peak Energy president and CCO, Cameron Dales, spoke with ESN about the state of the US battery storage industry after the signing of the Budget Reconciliation Act into law. This conversation also gave insight into the changes in the positioning of BESS technology.
Dales said, “In the end, from a national security perspective, it’s one of a handful of really critical technologies that there’s a bipartisan consensus that we need to control our own destiny, and the ability to store energy is one of the critical needs in the economy.”
Recently, some of this messaging has been taken a step further, such as with Fermi America, co-founded by former US Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Fermi America is looking to build out energy storage, solar, natural gas, and nuclear power at a private grid in Amarillo, Texas.
When announcing this project, Fermi highlighted comments from US Congressman Ronny Jackson, stating, “This strategic investment and key innovative partnership between Fermi America and the Texas Tech University System is expected to establish the world’s largest energy-driven data centre, placing America firmly at the forefront of the global AI race against the Chinese Communist Party.”
It is undoubtedly vital to develop a secure supply chain for BESS, solar, wind and other renewables in the US and to stimulate American manufacturing, creating jobs and meeting our growing energy demands.
However, as Starrs and Reams noted during the RE+ panel, focusing solely on the reliability of renewables, without being completely swayed by the administration’s whims, could be a viable approach.
Starrs and Reams noted that no action has been taken to build out transmission infrastructure for data centres, leaving the grid vulnerable in the near future.
Reams said, “I think that we need to hold the administration and other federal policy committees accountable for the lack of investment in transmission infrastructure and other regulations.”
Starrs continued, “Republicans are already blaming us for the overnight price hikes in cities, and they have a history of criticising us in the clean energy sector, attacking the Democratic party for major grid outages during thunderstorms. So, I think we need to be more effective in both defence and offence in our advocacy strategy.”
