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Q&A

Just Having Fun at RE+ Edition

Talking with the director of the Energy Department’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, the CEO of Empact Technologies, and more

Jael at RE+
Heatmap Illustration.

This week I’m in Anaheim wandering the halls of RE+ for the first time. It’s been a thrill to learn about the cavalcade of companies working on the frontlines of the energy transition. I’ll have a LOT more to say about my trip in next week’s edition of The Fight. But during my first day there I decided to ask a few impressive individuals to sit in my hot seat. Here’s what they said!

Becca Jones-Albertus – Director of the Energy Department’s Solar Energy Technologies Office

  • Does the federal government’s neutrality on what U.S. regions are best for renewables help or hurt the energy transition, given how many competing interests are at play? “I think for our country it helps. It provides more opportunities for local areas to engage and take charge of their own futures. The clean energy transition doesn’t depend on whether we develop a plan in [one] particular area. That means there are more communities that can engage, can push for benefits for those systems. There’s more room and opportunity there.”

Kevin Diau – CEO of 1Climate, an AI permitting assistance tool

  • Can AI help with NIMBY problems? “I think AI can make it easier to understand where all those regulations are that exist. But I think that a lot of the challenges when it comes to people having NIMBY conflicts, that’s a lot of interpersonal dynamics that AI can’t necessarily address head on. I think developers still have these NIMBY challenges from people in the community.”

Charles Dauber – CEO of Empact Technologies, policy consulting firm

  • What’s the question you’ve been asked most about the IRA at RE+? “Even though the IRA’s been around for like, two years, it turns out given safe harbor last year, many companies didn’t have to deal with this until now. So we’re just now starting to get questions about dealing with prevailing wage and apprenticeship compliance requirements. We see that probably from 70% of the people that walk up here: How do I go do this? I’m getting requirements from my investors that want to prove we’re going to be compliant with these requirements.

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Spotlight

How Bad Information Is Breaking the Energy Transition

Why an attorney for Dominion Voting Systems is now defending renewables companies.

A doctor and solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

My biggest takeaway of this year? Bad information is breaking the energy transition – and the fake news is only getting more powerful.

Across the country, we’re seeing solar, wind, and battery storage projects grind to a halt thanks to activism powered by fears of health and safety risks, many of which are unfounded, unproven, exaggerated, or conspiratorial in nature. There are some prominent examples, like worries about offshore wind and whales, but I’ve spent a large chunk of The Fight’s lifespan so far investigating a few crucial case studies, from wildfire fears confronting battery developers in California to cancer concerns curtailing a crucial transmission line in New Jersey. To tell you the honest truth, it is difficult to quantify just how troubling this issue is for the industry.

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Hotspots

The Top Five Renewable Energy Fights of the Year

A look at 2024’s most notorious conflicts in the energy transition.

A map of America.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Alright, friends. It’s time for a special edition of The Fight’s Hotspots, where we walk you through what we believe were the five most important project conflicts of the year. We decided this list based on the notoriety of the fight within the renewables sector as well as whether our reporting found it to be significant for the entire industry. And we included the opposition scores for these projects based on our internal Heatmap Pro data to help you better understand whether these fights were flukes or quite predictable.

We hope this helps you all in this, errhmm, trying time for developers right now.

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Q&A

Trump and the Keystonization of Renewable Energy

A conversation with Devin Hartman of R Street

Devin Hartman.
Heatmap Illustration/Courtesy Devin Hartman

Today’s special Q&A is with an old source of mine, Devin Hartman, energy and environment policy director for the conservative D.C. think tank R Street.

When I used to cover Congress, Devin was one of the few climate-minded conservatives willing to offer a candid, principled take on what could happen in that always deliberative body. I decided for our year-end edition to ask him a lot of questions, including an important one: will Trump make it easier or more difficult to permit solar and wind projects?

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