Dive Brief: Global solar companies’ total corporate funding, including venture capital, public market and debt financing,  declined 41% year over year during the first quarter of 2025, while energy storage companies’ funding fell 81%, according to Mercom Capital Group, a consulting firm. Uncertainty — primarily around the fate of the Inflation Reduction Act and renewable energy tax credits, but also around tariffs and supply chain concerns — has prevented many financing deals from moving forward because the negotiating parties can’t reliably calculate potential returns, said Raj Prabhu, CEO and co-founder of Mercom Capital Group. If Congress does not soon signal a consensus on the IRA’s fate, the renewable energy industry could end up snared in something like a sector-specific recession “in the sense that activity is going to stall because of the uncertainty,” Prabhu said. Dive Insight: Funding for solar, energy storage and smart grid companies plummeted essentially across the board during the first quarter of 2025 — an outcome Prabhu described as expected following the election of President Donald Trump, but one that could be concerning should the trend continue long term. Prabhu said investor interest in renewable energy had begun to cool even before the election in November in conjunction with Trump’s then-growing popularity. But the slump isn’t related as much to Trump’s specific positions, Prabhu said, as it is to the overall lack of certainty about how key elements of U.S. energy policy will ultimately fare. “Mergers and acquisitions can still happen, but financing is a whole other deal right now,” given that investors and developers don’t know what it will cost to import their equipment and how much they can expect to receive in tax credits, Prabhu said. “Yes, some venture capital deals can happen if you have a company with something really innovative. But beside the sure-fire

Dive Brief: The U.S. energy storage industry will invest $100 billion over the next five years to build and buy batteries made in the United States, the American Clean Power Association and company representatives said Tuesday. The announcement adds about $85 billion to a set of “active investments” worth $10 billion to $15 billion, executives with the trade group said in a press briefing. The commitment “represents a clear pathway to supplying 100% of U.S. energy storage projects with American-made batteries by 2030,” but depends on a “streamlined permitting environment” and predictable tax and trade policy, ACP said. Dive Insight: In 2018, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order 841 freed energy storage resources to participate in wholesale markets operated by regional transmission organizations and independent system operators. Stationary storage deployment has grown more than 25-fold since then, ACP said. More recently, surging electric vehicle adoption, particularly in China, and improved lithium-ion battery economics have helped drive average levelized energy costs for wind and solar installations firmed with batteries below the cheapest thermal alternatives. The stationary storage industry’s fortunes improved further with the August 2022 enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act, which included billions in federal tax credits for clean energy manufacturing, deployment and generation. U.S. energy storage supply chain companies now have 25 factories in development, 11 of which are under construction or operational, according to the ACP fact sheet. These manufacturing investments include a new Tesla refinery near Corpus Christi, Texas, and an expanded manufacturing footprint at its Megapack factory near Reno, Nevada; multiple Fluence plants in the southern and western U.S.; and the West Virginia factory where Form Energy is commercializing iron-air batteries that can discharge continuously for four days. COVID-era disruptions across the global battery supply chain convinced Fluence that an energy storage market as robust as the

Clean energy manufacturers canceled, closed or downsized nearly $8 billion in projects in the first quarter of 2025, as the Trump administration’s rollback of support for the sector sets in. Clean energy advocacy nonprofit E2 announced the cancellations earlier this month as part of its monthly tracking of clean energy project announcements in the U.S. It was the first time E2 has opted to include cancellations and downsizes as part of its tracking, as the number of abandoned projects grows across the U.S.  Cancellations included lithium battery maker Kore Power’s cancellation of its planned $1.2 billion factory in Arizona, as well as Freyr Battery’s cancellation of its $2.6 billion Georgia battery factory.  The cancellations, which spanned 16 projects in sectors such as wind, solar and electric vehicle manufacturing, are another sign of companies’ hesitation to push ahead with clean energy projects in the era of the Trump administration.  In the years following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, manufacturers poured hundreds of billions of dollars into clean energy projects in a bid to cash in on the law’s lucrative tax credits for domestic manufacturing, as well as its direct funding and loan financing.  Now, however, times have changed. On his first day in office, President Donald Trump froze IRA funding pending a federal review. Last week, a federal judge ordered the funding temporarily reinstated while a lawsuit from six climate groups is under consideration.  Trump has been critical of the climate law and what he calls former President Joe Biden’s “electric vehicle mandate,” referring to Biden’s 2021 executive order that called for half of new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2030. The president has also criticized EV tax credits provided under the IRA.  Further compounding this issue are the Trump administration’s tariffs, which could

In an oil report sent to Rigzone by the Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (SEB) team recently, Ole R. Hvalbye, a commodities analyst at the company, noted that the next OPEC+ meeting is set for May 5, “with the proposed June output hike expected to top the agenda”. “The group will likely choose between a scheduled, incremental increase of 138,000 barrels per day, or a more aggressive jump of 411,000 barrels per day – equivalent to … three months’ worth of increases rolled into one,” Hvalbye predicted in the report. “The latter scenario would put downward pressure on oil prices and highlight deepening tensions within OPEC+, while also exacerbating concerns in a market already clouded by weak demand expectations,” he warned. “Although the final decision on volumes remains unclear, OPEC+ has demonstrated it still has pricing power, and that it can pull prices lower quickly if it chooses to do so,” Hvalbye went on to state in the report. In a Stratas Advisors report sent to Rigzone by the Stratas team late Monday, which also highlighted the upcoming OPEC+ meeting, the company said it thinks it will be essential for OPEC+ to communicate that its members will maintain discipline and be proactive in aligning supply with demand so as not to undermine the long-term viability of OPEC+, which Stratas described in the report as “increasingly critical to the stability of the oil market”. In a market analysis sent to Rigzone on Tuesday, Osama Al Saifi, Managing Director for MENA at Traze, said several OPEC+ members are likely to advocate for additional output hikes in the coming months, potentially exacerbating supply imbalances. In another market analysis sent to Rigzone on Monday, Konstantinos Chrysikos, Head of Customer Relationship Management at Kudotrade, said the prospect of OPEC+ considering further increases in oil output at their

Three workers were killed and two were injured when a section of scaffolding collapsed early Tuesday at a liquefied natural gas plant that Sempra is building in Texas. The two survivors at the Port Arthur LNG project were rescued from the top of the structure after it gave way at about 2 a.m. local time, according to Captain Crystal Holmes of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. The other three fell several stories and died. The engineering company Bechtel Group, which employs the workers, has halted work at the site, about 85 miles east of Houston.  The injured workers were hospitalized, San Diego-based Sempra said in a statement. Regulators and local authorities are investigating the incident. Bechtel said it is fully cooperating.  Sempra began building the plant in 2023 and expects to finish in 2027 or 2028. The company didn’t say when work at the site would resume.   A local news station earlier reported the incident.  WHAT DO YOU THINK? Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed. MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR Bloomberg

Solaris Energy Infrastructure Inc. has reported $126 million in revenue for the first quarter of 2025, up 31 percent from the fourth quarter of 2024. Compared to the corresponding quarter in 2024, revenue was 86 percent higher. In its quarterly report, Solaris said its net income reached $12.96 million, below the $14 million reported for Q4 2024 but well above the $7.3 million posted for the corresponding quarter of 2024.   “I am excited about the momentum we are seeing across the power sector and believe that our offerings will play a significant and value-added role to this broad-based demand growth. Our contracted fleet expansion provides visibility to continue growing the company’s earnings, which will help us drive total shareholder value while maintaining a balanced and attractive financial profile”, Bill Zartler, Solaris Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said. In the past quarter, Solaris formed a joint venture named Stateline Power LLC. The joint venture has signed a term sheet and is in the process of finalizing the definitive documentation for up to $550 million, structured as a senior secured term loan facility anticipated to cover most of its capital, Solaris said. Due to the expansion of the commercial contract to back the joint venture, Solaris said its power generation fleet has a restricted amount of available capacity. In the first quarter, Solaris obtained around 330 MW of new generation capacity, with anticipated deliveries starting in the latter half of 2026. Solaris is engaged in talks with several customers to utilize this available capacity, it said. Solaris’ total operated capacity is expected to be approximately 1,700 MW (approximately 1,250 MW owned, net of the JV) by the first half of 2027, it said. “We are also excited to solidify our partnership with an industry leader and fast mover in the artificial