Intersect Power has become the latest player in the energy storage space to feel the adverse effects of tariff increases and policy uncertainty.
As reported last month by Energy-Storage.news, several prominent developers have already reported the negative impacts of recent tariff uncertainty, with reports of stockpiling and increasing prices.
With negotiations ongoing, the US and China have since paused their reciprocal tariff war until 12 August. At one point, the dispute saw the US threaten to impose a 145% tariff on all Chinese imports. Although this is somewhat good news for the industry, tariffs on Chinese-made batteries have still increased to 40.9% as of today due to the Trump Administration sticking with a set of smaller tariffs that it introduced earlier this year.
As correctly predicted by several industry figures, these tariff increases, coupled with future uncertainty, are now beginning to trickle down and impact the country’s power purchase agreement (PPA) market.
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Intersect Power renegotiates for third time
To mitigate potential tariff increases associated with a PPA relating to one of its hybrid solar and storage projects in California, Intersect Power recently approached offtaker Ava Community Energy to discuss a pricing adjustment.
The project in question is the developer’s Aramis Solar and Storage project located in Alameda County, which will pair a 100MW solar farm with a 100MW/400MWh BESS.
Although the agreement was first approved towards the end of 2020, Intersect Power has “encountered numerous challenges during development” of its Aramis project. This has resulted in the associated energy storage agreement (ESA) already requiring renegotiation twice for the project to remain viable.
As part of a 2020 presentation carried out by Ava’s procurement team to its BoD, the Aramis project was initially expected to commence construction during 2023, with the project expected to commence delivery to the community choice aggregator (CCA) electricity supplier in April 2024.
Under the 10-year agreement, which was first amended during September 2021 and then again during March 2025, Ava is contracted to receive 25MW/100MWh of resource adequacy (RA) from the storage portion of the project.
“Construction is now impacted by the changes in import tariff rates… These unplanned and additional costs are straining the economics of the project,” explained Ava in materials created for its most recent Board of Directors (BoD) meeting.
As explained by the community choice aggregator (CCA), the tariff increases mean “construction [of Aramis] is not possible without amendment to the ESA.”
Due to confidentiality, Ava didn’t disclose exact numerical figures, but explained that the amendment “adjusts the ESA’s price to raise or lower relative to the amount of [Intersect Power’s] additional important tariff costs exclusively for the battery cells,” up until a predetermined price cap.
As reported recently by Energy-Storage.news, this is a similar structure to an offtake agreement negotiated between Stellar Renewable Power and Peninsula Clean Energy, which, alongside including provisions for tariff uncertainty, also included protections against potential tax credit loss.
In justifying future price increases within the cap, Intersect Power agreed to a provision allowing an independent engineer to validate the accuracy of increased costs caused directly by import tariff increases.
According to Ava, despite the increase, the amended ESA will “remain competitive in today’s market.” Ava’s BoD approved the contract amendment during its most recent monthly meeting as part of its consent agenda, without any additional discussion.
The project is expected to commence delivery on 1 January 2027.
CleanPowerSF also involved
Another California community choice aggregator (CCA), CleanPowerSF, is contracted with Intersect Power for a portion of the Aramis project.
Under a much longer 25-year agreement, CleanPowerSF is expected to receive the remaining 75MW/300MWh of BESS capacity from Intersect Power’s Aramis project, alongside 75MW of solar. The final 25MW of solar capacity remains unaccounted for.
Based on the information provided by Ava, the offtake agreement between CleanPowerSF and Intersect Power could also be affected by the tariff situation. However, the CCA has yet to address this publicly.
Energy-Storage.news has contacted both Intersect Power and CleanPowerSF for comment.
Offtaking CCA has 700MW of energy storage under contract
Established in 2018 under the name East Bay Community Energy (EBCE), Ava has since grown its procurement portfolio to 24 projects in size, covering 1.295GW of generation capacity across solar, wind and geothermal technologies, and 703MW of battery storage capacity.
Making up a large part of this capacity is a 125MW/500MWh portion of NextEra Energy Resources’ (NEER) 400MW/1,600MWh Kola Energy Storage project located in San Joaquin County, California.
The Juno-Beach, Florida-based developer broke ground on the project last summer, which is slated to commence commercial operations next quarter.
