[Brief Report] Offshore Wind Industry in 2025

President Trump’s January 2025 White House Executive Order temporarily withdrew all areas of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) from offshore wind leasing, halting further lease activity while directing a full-scale review of the federal leasing and permitting framework. This marked a significant shift in federal energy priorities, placing offshore wind on regulatory pause amid concerns about project feasibility, environmental impact, and permitting inconsistencies. This report will examine the current status of the industry, the executive order’s impacts, industry reactions, and a future outlook of offshore wind in the US.

[Brief Report] FERC Order 1920 regarding regional transmission planning

On May 13, 2024, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued Order 1920, updating the 2011 Order 1000. The new rule aims to address issues that hindered effective transmission planning under Order 1000, such as inadequate coordination with regional institutions and minimal investment in aging infrastructure. Order 1920, which followed a proposed rule and extensive stakeholder feedback, was approved by a narrow 2-1 vote among the three FERC commissioners. It applies to all transmission operators, rather than just RTO/ISO regions, to prevent inefficient investments and unfair charges. This paper provides an overview of Order 1920 and reactions of stakeholders.


[Brief Report] The Impact of Data Center Proliferation on Texas and Virginia

This report examines potential reasons why Virginia and Texas, the top two states in commercial electricity consumption in 2023, are experiencing high energy demand. The analysis provides insight into how data centers, clean energy goals, state and federal incentives, utility support, and factors pertaining to each state have led to the current status. The report also considers issues and challenges that each state faces with the rapid expansion of data centers that adds a huge load to the power grids.

[Brief Report] Overview of the Biden Administration’s 2025 Fiscal Year Budget: Budget Requests Related to Energy and the Environment

On March 11, 2024, President Biden submitted to Congress his Fiscal Year 2025 (October 2024 to September 2025) Budget of the United States Government, with a total expenditure of $7.266 trillion (an increase of 5% over the previous fiscal year’s budget). President Biden will face former Republican President Trump in the US Presidential Election in November 2024, and this budget is the last major opportunity for him to present American voters with a specific example of his ideas. This paper provides an overview that focuses on energy and the environment.

[Brief Report] NuScale terminates first SMR construction plan in United States

On November 8, 2023, NuScale Power Corporation (NuScale), based in Portland, Oregon, and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) announced that they would terminate the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP), which would have deployed a small modular reactor (SMR) developed by NuScale in Idaho. The direct cause of the termination was that the power purchase agreement rate did not reach 80% of the planned total power generation, but the reason behind this appears to be skyrocketing costs.

The project was attracting attention as the first SMR in the United States, and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) was providing financial support. However, this once again highlighted the difficulty of constructing the first SMR. In this paper, we provide an overview of the project, the issues involved, and the impact of its termination.

[Brief Report] The Push for U.S. Solar Manufacturing in 2023

The U.S. is experiencing a solar energy boom. Utility-scale solar installations are on track to hit 23 GW in 2023, surpassing the previous record of 13 GW in 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). In 2024, another 36 GW is expected to come online. Annual growth in the solar industry over the next five years is expected to be 15% on average. To match this growing demand, solar module imports reached 24.4 GW through the first half of 2023, compared to 11.4 GW in the first half of 2022.

While the solar industry is growing in the U.S., solar manufacturing has lagged, and most of the supply chain now resides in China. Solar manufacturers and trade groups have raised concerns about foreign solar manufacturing. The situation has brought up arguments that over-reliance on Chinese clean energy technology could pose a security risk similar to Europe's dependence on Russian natural gas. A less-concentrated supply chain will be more resilient and bypass companies using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It may also emit less carbon—a study published in Nature in March 2023 found that reshoring all silicon photovoltaic manufacturing to the U.S. by 2035 would reduce estimated greenhouse gas emissions by 30% and energy consumption by 13%, compared to 2020. However, building up a domestic supply chain in the U.S. will not be easy and will necessitate more government help at the federal and state levels.

[Brief Report] Offshore Wind Overview and Issues in 2023

Although state and federal policy has been supportive of the offshore wind industry in recent years, the U.S. currently lags the global market in terms of installed capacity. China and the U.K. lead the market with over 31,400 MW and 13,900 MW, respectively. Meanwhile, the U.S. only has two pilot projects in operation, with a total of 42 MW of capacity. However, key market indicators such as commercial leasing, state energy planning targets, procurement policies, offtake agreements, and federal support for U.S. jobs and supply chain development signal sustained growth in the near future. On the other hand, inflation and supply chain issues have created large hurdles for the first generation of projects, which may stunt the industry’s growth in the coming years.

[Brief Report] Carbon Capture and Storage Status and Issues in the U.S.

While the Biden administration has set a goal of net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050, many industry experts have emphasized the difficulty of reaching such a goal and that it will take a combination of many technologies to achieve net zero. Several studies, such as the climate model produced by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have shown that reducing the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere is not enough to combat climate change. Net-zero emissions will require carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies.

CCS refers to the capture of CO2, typically from point sources that use fossil fuels. The CO2, if not used at the source facility, is compressed and transported by pipeline, ship, rail, or truck to be utilized or injected into deep geological formations. CCS has a range of potential uses in the path to decarbonization; it can be retrofitted to existing power and industrial plants, reduce emissions in hard-to-decarbonize sectors like cement and steel, and enable low-carbon hydrogen production. The Biden administration has been heavily supportive of this growing sector, but several challenges, both technical and social, still need to be solved.

[Report] Electric Vehicle Charging Challenges in 2023 and Beyond

Cars are a crucial part of American life—for example, more than two-thirds of Americans use their own cars to commute to work. The average American drives 14,263 miles per year according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Given this, much focus has been given to the electric vehicle (EV) market and public charging infrastructure as part of the country’s efforts to decarbonize. The market for EVs has grown significantly in recent years, reaching a new high in 2022, and it is expected to continue to grow at an accelerating pace. Dozens of new EV models are hitting the market. In addition, more policies are being put in place to help make EVs affordable and accessible. However, several concerns have arisen regarding how fast EVs will gain market share, how many chargers will be needed and where, what kind of chargers, and how the U.S. will ensure that the charging network work for consumers. In addition, industry observers say that as the market moves closer to mainstream adoption among light-duty vehicle (LDV) buyers, more consumers will be more concerned with charging reliability and expect a charging experience that mirrors their experience with gas stations. As a result, EV growth will demand significant charging infrastructure planning and maintenance over the next decade.

[Brief Report] Oil in Alaska: The Willow Project as a Case Study

As the U.S. has increased its domestic oil production in recent years, there has been an increased focus on oil exploration and drilling in Alaska, which has large reserves that could produce billions of barrels of oil. However, like many other fossil fuel developments, many environmental and native groups have argued against oil development in Alaska’s vast reserves. The most recent approval of the Willow project has highlighted the largely controversial decision of whether to open new oil projects in the state.

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[Brief Report] FERC's Recent Actions to Expand Transmission Rules

In the 1960s and 70s, the United States experienced a boom in transmission construction. At the time, most power plants being constructed were large, centrally located power plants, including coal, nuclear, and natural gas facilities. Therefore, the transmission network was built largely to suit the needs of these centrally located power plants. However, much of the transmission grid is now more than 50 years old, and the system now needs widespread maintenance, repair, and reconstruction. In addition, the energy grid has changed drastically since the first boom in transmission construction; renewables now make up a large portion of energy production. Unlike the large, centrally located power plants that coincided with the transmission boom, renewables are located where they produce the most energy and are often not co-located with demand.

There have been increasing calls for expanding and updating the transmission grid. For example, a study by Princeton University found that the U.S. will need to expand transmission capacity by 60% by 2035 and triple it by 2050. Furthermore, transmission expansion is widely viewed as a necessary precondition to meet the Biden administration's aggressive decarbonization goals. In the past few years, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has taken several steps to address issues in the transmission planning process and, most recently, has taken action to enact some of the reforms advocated for by the energy industry.

[Brief Report] U.S. Solar Panel Tariffs and the Auxin Solar Petition

At recent events, industry professionals and policymakers have emphasized the importance of building a domestic manufacturing industry to support the ambitious level of solar deployment called for in Biden’s decarbonization plans. Although the U.S. was once a leader in solar panel manufacturing, much of the value chain has moved to other countries like China. According to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) 2020 Annual Solar Photovoltaic Module Shipments Report, solar PV imports to the U.S. totaled just under 19.3 million peak kW, and exports totaled 376,483 peak kW. Vietnam is the top importer, with 8.1 million peak kW, followed by South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia.

Manufacturers have called for several policy measures, such as targeted tax credit incentives, which were included in the now stalled Build Back Better Act (BBBA). Solar manufacturers have also been large proponents of imposing tariffs on imports from other countries, citing concerns about being able to compete with foreign made products. However, tariffs have largely been controversial among the solar industry and clean energy advocates, who say that tariffs will prevent further solar development.