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The Fed’s First Rate Hike Since 2023 Is a Problem for Renewables

And the news gets worse.

Kevin Warsh.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate by a quarter point, the central bank announced Wednesday afternoon, its first rate change since Chairman Kevin Warsh took his seat in May and its first rate hike in over three years.

The federal funds rate will now sit between 3.75% and 4%. According to projections by regional Federal Reserve presidents and members of the Board of Governors, the central bank expects to hike rates one more time this year.

In its now characteristically brief statements, the Federal Open Market Committee said that the hike “will support a timelier return to the Committee's 2 percent goal” for inflation. Inflation is currently running at 3.4% and has been above the Fed’s 2% target since 2021.

The FOMC’s (brief) statement explaining the hike pointed to “resilient” domestic spending and “robust” capital investment. It characterized the economy as “expanding at a solid pace,” albeit with “elevated” uncertainty due to “geopolitical developments.”

This combination of factors — high oil prices due to the partial shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz and high investment in data centers — have helped push up yields on Treasury bonds, which helped maneuver the Federal Reserve into its rate hike. These rising Treasury yields have made raising capital more difficult for sectors besides artificial intelligence, very much including the capital-intensive renewable and clean energy industries.

Warsh attributed higher Treasury yields to “economic strength, competition for capital, and geopolitics,” in his press conference following the rate announcement. The yield on the 10-year treasury bond, often used as a benchmark for the cost of money throughout the economy, rose to over 5% on the news, the highest level since 2007.

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Sparks

Why SoCal Electricity Customers Are Paying for Utility Reforms

The August Electricity Price Hub data is in.

The Hollywood sign and power lines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

It’s another hot and expensive summer.

Across the country, average household electricity bills are up 2.7% in the first eight months of the year, according to the latest update to Heatmap and MIT’s Electricity Price Hub, tacking on $4 per month to the typical bill. This level of rise is consistent with the pace set in 2024 and 2025, but faster than 2021 and 2023.

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The Startup Behind Lamppost-Mounted EV Chargers Pulls Into the Garage

Voltpost announced two new models today designed to mount on walls and ceilings.

Voltpost chargers.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Voltpost, the company putting electric vehicle chargers on lampposts, is now expanding to parking garages.

On Wednesday, the company unveiled two new configurations that can attach to the walls and ceilings of parking garages, lots, and other locations without easy access to streetlights or utility poles. Like Voltpost’s signature pole-mounted design, the ceiling- and wall-mounted options avoid the expensive construction work required by freestanding charging infrastructure. In theory at least, that should allow the company to deploy more chargers faster.

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Sparks

Trump’s USDA Using Farmland Rule to Go After Energy Companies, Democrats Say

A proposed change in how the agency implements an obscure Cold War-era law would impose onerous reporting requirements on renewables and pipelines.

Wind turbines and a farm.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Democrats in Congress claim that a new Trump administration proposal will have a chilling effect on the energy sector by subjecting renewables and fossil fuel pipelines alike to an obscure, rarely cited Cold War-era law requiring detailed information on foreign farmland ownership be submitted to the Agriculture Department.

In late June, the Agriculture Department released a proposal to change implementation of the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978, which requires companies to provide information to the federal government on foreign investors in farmland holdings, acquisitions, and sales. If finalized, the new rule would expand the definition of “agricultural land” in regulation to include all renewable energy facilities and pipeline corridors by explicitly tying the term to those industries’ formal codes under the North American Industry Classification System.

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