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So far, the US data center buildout has brought the most computing capacity to relatively wealthy areas—so these communities can handle the energy cost spikes, right? Not exactly.

Energy Central took a close look at the 20 counties with the most data center capacity, and found that the majority have median household incomes above the country-wide mark. But another stat paints a more complex picture: a county’s energy burden (the average percent of income that households spend on energy).

A report published Monday estimates that “repowering” existing solar farms, or replacing old panels with new ones, could unlock about 9.6 gigawatts of solar power by 2030, 29 gigawatts by 2035, and 67 gigawatts by 2040. (For comparison, the U.S. added 27.2 gigawatts of utility-scale solar last year.)

If every project up for repowering between now and 2040 installed batteries, as well, that would add up to 13 additional gigawatts of storage to the grid by 2030, and nearly 92 gigawatts by 2040. The U.S. has just over 50 gigawatts of storage online today.

The Solar for Schools program, first funded in 2024, has given grants to 85 schools across the state, including 10 in Philadelphia. Grants cover up to 75% of the solar project costs, or up to $900,000. Proponents say the solar will save schools money on utilities, lower their climate pollution and teach students about careers in renewable energy.

Supply challenges in copper are building toward a shortage in the next decade. The International Energy Agency projects that global demand for copper could outpace supply in 2035 thanks to expanding grid infrastructure and electrification of transportation and industrial processes.

Innovative recovery technologies could bring some copper to market sooner than new mines. Companies are exploring ways to harvest copper from some sources that have been too difficult to process with traditional methods. New technologies may unlock copper supply from legacy mine water, electronic scrap and difficult ores.

In contrast to most of the state’s solar permitting cases, no parties in the case opposed the project, proposed by developer Recurrent Energy, at the Ohio Power Siting Board — largely because it will be built on reclaimed coal mine land.

For nearly a century, Detroit automakers like General Motors led the world in engine design and mass manufacturing. That helped them maintain a large share of global car sales at least through the late 1990s, even as German and Japanese automakers entered the market.
 
Now, the battery market is the competitive battleground, both for electric vehicles and storage. GM is betting that investing in next-generation technology is the best way to gain an edge, pouring $900 million into a first-of-its-kind research and prototype facilities on the same campus where GM has innovated in cars for decades in the Detroit suburb of Warren, Michigan.

Last month, the mayor announced a major expansion of the Bureau of Coastal Resilience, promising to add almost 70 new staff members to a unit that had been on a shoestring budget under prior mayor Eric Adams. The first members of this new team will deploy the flood gates and clear the coastal zone in the run-up to big storm events.

Mamdani will have to make some big decisions about where and how to spend the city’s limited capital budget. Is it better to fund marsh restoration in outer Queens, or a coastal park in Harlem, or a bulkhead in the waterfront of Brooklyn? If you want to do all of those things, which of them do you do first?

These decisions are fraught with political and economic risks.

Grid United’s North Plains Connector will be a 420-mile, 3-gigawatt high-voltage direct current (HVDC) link between Montana and North Dakota. It will require an estimated $6billion in investment across both states, and won’t be completed until 2032 at the earliest.

When it’s done, North Plains Connector will be able to share power between three grid regionsspanning three time zones across the U.S. West, Great Plains, and Upper Midwest. Today, such region-spanning connections are extremely rare. But study after study has shown they can yield major benefits that extend far beyond the states the line transects.

Across the developed world, yields on government debt are rising, driving up the cost of borrowing with potentially particularly dire effects for renewable and clean energy.

The bulk of spending on a renewable project — say a solar farm — comes up front as capital expenditure that often has to be financed through borrowing. For a gas-fired power plant, on the other hand, the spending is split more evenly between upfront costs and operational costs (namely fuel), which can be paid for out of cash flow from operating the plant. Where the cost of operating a gas plant is at the mercy of natural gas prices, for a renewables project, interest rates can dominate the economics.

Sure enough, that inflationary pressure showed up in the second-quarter results of America’s renewables companies.

The silver lining for renewable energy — and all energy developers — is that, while the costs of capital, materials, and labor are going up, electricity itself has never been in greater demand.

After Republicans voted to undo much of the Inflation Reduction Act, a few cleantech professionals set out to exact electoral revenge. So far, it seems to be working.

President Donald Trump canceled the federal Solar for All program last August. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called the larger program it was a part of a ​“boondoggle.”

Indiana had been awarded a total of $117 million for solar, battery, and microgrid installations for marginalized communities under the program, which was created by the Inflation Reduction Act. Tens of millions of those dollars had been earmarked to pay for the Gary projects, which would have also brought 100 jobs to the once-thriving industrial city now notorious for disinvestment.

One of the community solar projects and about a dozen residential systems were planned for Gary, where poverty, crumbling infrastructure, unstable housing stock, and high rates of health problems exacerbate the damage and danger caused by power outages.

The rise of domestic PV module production in the US is gathering pace, but some parts of the local supply chain have fallen behind. Among the biggest gaps is solar glass, a market dominated globally by a handful of predominantly Chinese companies.

US module manufacturing grew more than 50% last year, with 65.5GW of capacity online, up from 42.5GW at the end of 2024, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Although actual production has lagged well behind nameplate capacity, the potential market for locally made glass has nevertheless expanded rapidly.

Despite the supply gap, activity is increasing. Stewart Glass is expanding its Ohio facility, with a second line expected online in June 2027. Solarcycle is planning a first-of-its-kind US facility that would use recycled materials to produce new solar glass, although it still needs additional financing before construction of its furnace can begin.