The 4.9 earthquake that shook Anaheim on the last day of RE+ 2024 did little to rattle the enthusiasm seen and felt at the largest energy conference in North America.
RE+ 2024, the largest energy event in North America, was as full of energy and action as the U.S. solar industry itself. The talk in the sessions and on the show floor focused on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the upcoming election, domestic content, transferability and the issues of interconnection and permitting bottlenecks along with the long lead times for electrical equipment. While the industry appears to be full steam ahead, it would be accelerating faster without these challenges.
Election
In a briefing on the newly released U.S. Solar Market Insight Q3 2024 report, experts from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie said if a Republican administration were to win the election, it is unlikely that the IRA would be repealed. Panelists agreed that some funding appropriated to cover tax incentives may be repurposed, but the IRA is having too great an effect on jobs and revenues in both red and blue states for a repeal to have appeal.
IRA
In the session “What’s new in the IRA,” Gary Hecimovich, partner with the Washington National Tax Office of Deloitte Tax LLP, said “final rules have opened up the floodgates in transferability,” noting that Deloitte has advised as much as $5 billion of transactions on the buy side. “That shows how big this market is, and that it’s working.” Rodrigo Inurreta Acero, U.S.-Mexico Federal Affairs Lead for EDP Renewables said that EDP is committed to U.S. products and is finding the domestically produced modules they need because of the IRA.
Demand creates challenges
According to the Q3 2024 Solar Market Insight Report, the numbers achieved by the U.S. solar industry are remarkable, though, according to Michele Davis, head of global solar at Wood Mackenzie, “we’re entering a slower more challenging phase of growth.”
In Q2 2024, the U.S. solar market installed 9.4 GW of capacity, which is a record second quarter for the industry. The utility-scale segment alone installed 7.6 GW, an increase of 59% year-over-year. But this high-level growth is creating demand that is not unique to the solar industry. Interconnection backlogs, long lead times for electrical equipment and other challenges will result in slower growth than the industry has experienced over the past few years.
Creative solutions
On the show floor, we saw evidence of manufacturer alliances that bring domestic content solutions to buyers, providing one-stop shopping that can also ease some O&M pain of dealing with multiple suppliers. U.S. solar tracker provider, OMCO, for example, is partnering with module maker Heliene on the distributed side and Create Energy for C&I and utility-scale markets, providing tracker/module/racking and other components in a packaged solution that qualifies for the domestic content adders.
U.S. module maker Mission Solar announced a partnership with Origami Solar, using Origami’s domestically produced steel frames to make the modules more resistant to hail damage. Called the “Defender” series, these steel-framed modules are expected to qualify for the domestic content adder.
Tell the stories
The enthusiasm and optimism around the renewable energy industry was palpable at RE+, but we heard repeatedly that it is time to tell the story. Not everyone is aware of the momentum, the achievements and the promise of clean anergy and “this is the time to tell the story,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of SEIA. In front of a packed house in the opening session, Hopper said with the election looming, “the stakes couldn’t be higher.”
