Key clean energy industries are struggling despite the historic amount of cash that President Joe Biden is pouring into the technology — underscoring the uphill battle of transitioning away from fossil fuels and curbing the worst of climate change. Inflation, rising interest rates and unfriendly regulatory environments in some states are kneecapping solar, wind and other clean energy projects. Several Republican-controlled states (and some Democratic ones) are rolling back consumer benefits for rooftop solar installations, threatening Biden’s goal of a carbon-free electric grid by 2035, writes Jason Plautz. And, as Benjamin Storrow reports, progressive states like New York are struggling to meet their own carbon reduction targets amid a deteriorating economic environment. The demise of rooftop credits?
For years, residents of many states who installed rooftop solar received sizable credits for any excess electricity they produced and returned to the grid, under a policy called net metering. The administration had hoped to capitalize on such policies to outfit the nation’s estimated 8 billion square meters of rooftop with solar panels that cut carbon emissions and help lower household energy bills. But more than a dozen states have ended net metering in the past decade, according to a report from the National Academy of Sciences released this summer. And recent pullbacks are happening in some of the largest solar states and political battlegrounds, Jason writes. In the most high-profile example, the climate-hawkish state of California slashed its rates in a decision that took effect in April. The move was part of a suite of changes that, among other things, aimed to reduce electricity costs for low-income customers who have not installed solar. Other states weighing similar changes include Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Wisconsin, Florida and Arkansas, some of which have been battling over these policies for years. Power companies have been some of the biggest critics of net metering. The cost of inflation
New York, meanwhile, is at serious risk of missing its near-term climate targets, as inflation and rising interest rates threaten at least a quarter of planned clean energy projects. Those struggles illustrate the challenges facing liberal states as they race to reach climate targets that were ambitious even in the best of times, Ben writes. Renewables now account for 27 percent of New York’s electricity supply; state law requires that to rise to 70 percent by the end of the decade. But utility regulators have rejected a request from renewable energy developers to adjust their power contracts to account for inflation, and Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a bill that would have enabled an offshore wind project to connect to New York’s power grid on Long Island. The state’s overall emissions now exceed pre-pandemic levels. Without adding more renewables to the grid, analysts say, New York will struggle to shift cars, building heating and cooking from fossil fuels to electricity.
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