Back
This story was originally published by Floodlight.
Republicans and Democrats alike are less likely to support renewable energy than they were five years ago, according to a survey released last week by the Pew Research Center.
The results mirror growing pockets of opposition to solar farms, reignited political support for coal plants, and moves by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to kill federally funded clean energy projects.
This shift in opinion dates back to when Democratic President Joe Biden took office, said Brian Kennedy, Pew senior researcher and one of the study’s authors. “This isn’t a new trend,” he said.
Still, Kenneth Gillingham, professor of environmental and energy economics at the Yale School of the Environment, was surprised.
“I see this shift … as a successful effort to link climate change and renewable energy to broader culture war issues,” Gillingham said. He added that in the past, “prominent” Republicans supported renewables and sought solutions to climate change, but those stances could now be seen as “disloyal” to Trump.
The survey of 5,085 U.S. adults taken April 28 to May 4 revealed that while 79% of Americans favored expanding wind and solar production in 2020, that number has dropped to 60%. And 39% of Americans today support expansion of oil, coal, and natural gas — almost double the 20% that supported it in 2020.
Combustion of fossil fuels — in transportation, energy generation, and industrial production — is the No. 1 cause of climate change.
Much of the change in opinion is driven by Republicans, whose support of oil and gas grew from 35% in 2020 to 67% today. But Democrats also indicated less support for renewable energy and more for fossil fuels than five years ago.
While many results reflect Trump’s policies opposing most renewables and boosting fossil fuels, Pew found a few notable exceptions: 69% of all respondents favor offshore wind — a technology Trump has specifically targeted.
Both Democrats and Republicans indicated stronger support for nuclear power, with Republicans’ favorable opinions increasing from 53% in 2020 to 69% in 2025. Democrats’ support rose from 37% to 52%. The Trump administration has signaled support for a nuclear renaissance, despite its high cost.
There were wide partisan splits on several topics. In March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it would scale back environmental regulations. Pew asked whether it was possible to do that and still protect air and water quality: 77% of Republicans said yes, and 67% of Democrats said no.
Pew didn’t ask the respondents why their attitudes have shifted. But Kennedy said in Pew’s past surveys, Republicans have expressed concern about the economic impacts of climate change policies and transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.
Mike Murphy, a Republican consultant and electric vehicle backer, said when the environmental benefits of clean technologies are touted, it polarizes Republicans. Instead, Murphy said messages should be about pocketbook issues — like lower fuel costs — and jobs.
“It’s hard for pro-climate people to understand,” said Murphy, who has advised dozens of state and national GOP campaigns, including John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid. “[They think] we just need to shout louder and hit people over the head about climate, climate, climate. The key is you want to talk about jobs and national security and other events that naturally resonate a lot more with right-of-center people.”
That’s what Murphy’s groups, the EV Politics Project and the American EV Jobs Alliance, are trying to do to depoliticize electric vehicles. “Whenever electric cars are seen through a climate lens,” Murphy said, “their appeal narrows.”
It’s a strategy also being used by the Electrification Coalition, a left-of-center pro-EV group. Ben Prochazka, the coalition’s executive director, echoed Murphy’s strategy, adding that EVs have “become overly politicized and caught in the culture wars, impacting markets and ultimately hurting our ability to realize their many benefits for all Americans.”
Prochazka noted that once introduced to EVs, consumers support them: “EV drivers love their vehicles, with more than eight out of 10 reporting that their next car will also be electric.”
Perhaps those practical messages are getting through. In the Pew survey, electric vehicles were the one item that saw an uptick in support — 4 percentage points in the past year.
But popular support might not be enough to stop Congress from killing a $7,500 electric vehicle credit, which Murphy said would be “policy disaster.”
Republicans, he said, are in a “real squeeze,” because “they don’t have enough money for the tax cuts the president has promised.”
Said Murphy: “It’s easier for Republicans to cut Biden electric cars … than it is for them to cut more Medicaid.”
Gillingham is still optimistic that solar, wind and other greenhouse gas-reducing technologies will move forward — because they are the cheapest.
“The continued decline in the price of renewable energy and battery technologies, as well as other new technologies, is a reason to continue to have hope that the worst impacts of climate change can be addressed,” he said.
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.
Residential customers of Duke Energy in North Carolina could pay $87 million more per year for electricity under a proposal rocketing through the state legislature, a new study shows. The figure represents about a 4% jump in household bills.
The legislation, Senate Bill 266, would change how Duke distributes the cost of electricity it buys to supplement generation from its own power plants — significantly hiking the share paid by residential consumers and cutting the portion paid by industrial electricity users, like chemical manufacturers and textile mills.
The analysis shows the legislation is a better deal for industrial customers than the status quo, said Will Scott, Southeast climate and clean energy director for the Environmental Defense Fund. “They will pay less to use the same amount of energy, and residential ratepayers will pay more,” he said.
SB 266 is the latest version of a Senate-passed measure that would unravel the state’s climate targets. It was publicly unveiled moments before it was debated and approved by the House Energy and Public Utilities Committee last week, and received fulsome praise from Duke, industrial groups, and others in testimony.
On Tuesday, despite protests from clean energy advocates and some Democratic lawmakers, the bill easily cleared the Republican-controlled House and now returns to the Senate, also run by the GOP.
The study, conducted by independent analysis group EQ Research, has a narrow scope, homing in on the ramifications of just one section of the 30-page bill — the part that covers how purchased power is billed to customers.
“We were pretty laser-focused,” said Justin Barnes, president of EQ Research, “because that’s the analysis we could do with readily available information quickly.”
While Duke generates much of its own electricity from a fleet of fossil fuel and nuclear plants, it also contracts to buy some of its solar power from independent producers and purchases energy from other generators under certain conditions, such as when demand spikes.
Under current law, the entire cost of this purchased power is passed on to customers annually along with a charge for natural gas and other fuels. The utility divvies up the costs of this fuel “rider” between residential and industrial customer groups based partially on their peak electricity demand and partially on their overall energy use.
According to EQ’s analysis of Duke’s latest filings with regulators, the fuel rider totals about $2.75 billion for the company’s two North Carolina entities, Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Carolinas. The purchased power portion is around $1.1 billion.
Of the purchased power portion, residential customers currently pay about 41.2%, and use just over 40% of the energy.
SB 266 eliminates any weight given to overall energy use in allocating purchased power costs, according to EQ, shifting charges from large industrial users of electricity to residential consumers. The result is that households would pay just under 49% of those costs while using the same 40% of energy, the group’s study found.
“It is not going to be a savings for us ratepayers,” said Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Guilford County Democrat, speaking against SB 266 on the House floor. “It is going to be an increase.”
The EQ study does not incorporate the potential effects of other parts of the bill, including alleged savings from eliminating a 2030 deadline by which Duke must cut its carbon pollution, and the impact to customers of allowing the utility to recoup some costs for power plants not yet delivering electricity.
Rep. Dean Arp, the Union County Republican championing SB 266, said last week in committee that erasing the 2030 climate target would save all customers a total of $13 billion by 2050. He said allowing Duke to recover plant-construction financing costs early would net them another $1.4 billion. He echoed those claims Tuesday on the House floor, rounding up the total savings by over half a billion dollars.
“A vote against this legislation is a vote to make all ratepayers pay $15 billion more in electricity costs,” Arp said.
But opponents of the bill reject the allegation that striving for more wind and solar energy in the near term will contribute to rising rates, an assertion stemming from an elusive study from the state-sanctioned customer advocate, Public Staff, that hasn’t been provided widely to legislators or members of the public.
Clean energy advocates say the Public Staff analysis considers only the cost of building new power generation, not the rising price of fossil fuels. And they continue to question the wisdom of allowing Duke to charge consumers for costs related to nuclear and gas plants that may never come online.
Perhaps above all, EQ’s findings show why more time is needed to vet the bill with all interested parties, including clean energy and consumer advocates, not just Duke and large industrial customers, critics contend.
“When we rush processes like these and don’t include all the stakeholders, we can end up with results that unfairly burden North Carolina households,” said Scott with the Environmental Defense Fund. “I hope that we can slow down and make the adjustments we need so that this bill doesn’t cause unnecessary pollution or unnecessary costs.”
But the House’s public deliberation of the measure has been anything but slow. In less than a week, it cleared two committees and two required floor votes. It could appear on the desk of Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, as soon as this week.
“There are all kinds of reasons to vote no on this bill,” Harrison said to the full House on Tuesday, including its treatment of residential customers, its abdication of climate targets, and the process by which it was rushed through the chamber.
As the House prepared to vote around 7 p.m., she said, “It’s not clear why we’re doing this tonight.”
A legislative proposal in Maine that would impose new fees on community solar projects is having a chilling effect on solar developers, some of whom say they may stop working in the state, or even already have.
“The problem is that they’re looking to change the rules of the market after the fact,” said Brendan Bell, chief operating officer of Aligned Climate Capital, which owns several community solar projects in the state. “We’ve already stopped investing in Maine because of this. Simply the risk of this happening has made us stop.”
The legislation, which was approved in late May by the Energy, Utilities, and Technology Committee, aims to reform Maine’s net energy billing program — often called net metering in other states — which pays the owners of solar panels for the excess energy they share with the grid.
Nationally, net metering programs have been contentious, with states like California, New Hampshire, and North Carolina making big changes to mixed — and sometimes litigious — receptions. Maine’s system has been under scrutiny for years, as many critics say it has created excessive profits for developers while unfairly shifting costs to consumers who don’t even use solar power.
While many renewable energy advocates and developers agree that the program needs some reform, they say the current bill goes too far. The legislation outlines a new system for compensating commercial and industrial customers who own solar panels. Currently, the compensation rate is based on standard utility electricity rates, meaning solar owners make more revenue when power prices rise. The bill would require a new mechanism of gradual, annual rate increases to avoid excessive windfalls for solar owners when energy costs go up.
Of particular concern, however, are other provisions that apply to community solar developments, larger-scale installations that sell power to multiple subscribers.
In 2019, reforms to Maine’s net energy billing program paved the way for community solar to take off in the state. As of 2021, 79 megawatts of community solar capacity had been installed; as of May, that number is up to 1,008 MW.
“Community solar is incredibly important to Maine,” said Kate Daniel, Northeast regional director for the Coalition for Community Solar Access, a national trade group. “It’s been the driver of the new clean energy that’s gone onto the grid in recent years.”
The bipartisan legislation now under consideration would impose a monthly fee, paid by community solar owners to utilities. The money would be intended to cover the cost of delivering the solar power to consumers. Those “distribution costs” would otherwise be borne by utility customers.
Projects between 1 MW and 3 MW in size would pay $2.80 per kilowatt of capacity — so $5,600 a month for a 2-MW project, for example. Larger arrays between 3 MW and 5 MW would pay $6 per kilowatt — so, $24,000 per month for a 4-MW installation. These rates would be increased as needed to keep up with the cost of maintaining and expanding the grid. The goal, proponents say, is to continue supporting solar in a way that does not add to residents’ financial hardships.
“It is really important to me that we are fighting climate change in an economically just way,” said Rep. Sophie Warren, a Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors.
However, renewable energy advocates and solar developers say the monthly fees could scare away new projects as well as put existing operations at risk.
“It basically … will consume all of our free cash flow and put us in a position where we may default on our loans,” said Cliff Chapman, CEO of Syncarpha Capital, a New York-based clean energy investment firm with eight community solar projects operating in Maine.
Opponents question the way these fees came to be included in the bill. They were not in the original draft legislation, but the idea was raised and voted on during committee debate. The language is in the process of being officially added to the bill so that lawmakers can report it out of committee and send it to the House floor. It is concerning that the fees received no public hearing, and many stakeholders and lawmakers are not even aware they are being added in, said Eliza Donoghue, executive director of the industry group Maine Renewable Energy Association.
Even if this bill fails to pass, the damage may already be done: Investors in all sorts of clean energy segments are becoming wary of doing business in a state that would even consider retroactively changing the rules for projects that were designed and financed under a different set of expectations, opponents said.
“It’s a retroactive policy proposal that many folks strongly believe would cause significant financial harm to the solar industry in Maine,” said Lindsay Bourgoine, director of policy and government affairs for Maine-based solar company ReVision Energy.
Opponents also worry that the bill sends the inaccurate message that increasing solar adoption makes energy more expensive, when research suggests the reverse is true. In 2024, solar development in Maine yielded about $1.42 in benefits for every dollar of cost, according to a report by state utilities regulators. As of the second half of 2024, net energy billing added about $7 per month to the average residential electric bill in the state.
Warren, however, says reining in even this modest increase could help some of her constituents.
“I know there are people on reverse mortgages, on fixed incomes, who are rationing their medicines,” she said. “These [compensation] rates are far too high, and unnecessarily high for what we’re getting from them.”
Bill proponents are also not convinced by claims that the new rules would cause financial problems for developers. The provisions are designed to have less financial impact on smaller companies that are less able to take the hit, said Maine Public Advocate Heather Sanborn, a supporter of the bill.
The bill also contains important consumer protections that opponents aren’t talking about, Sanborn said. Community solar operators would be required to rightsize customers’ subscriptions, preventing them from paying for more credits than they can use. Should a customer still end up with more credits than they need, the operator would be required to issue a refund. The legislation would also encourage the installation of battery storage in conjunction with solar.
“It is a responsible and balanced solution,” Sanborn said.
For opponents, however, the community solar fees are an intractable problem that outweighs any other provisions.
“What we don’t do in America is change rules retroactively and blow up existing investment,” Chapman said. “Being a state that does something like this has huge implications — they’re making themselves a pariah for investors.”
Amid rising power bills and surging energy demand, Republicans in Congress are set to undermine the country’s primary source of new electricity — clean energy.
The “Big Beautiful Bill” passed in May by House Republicans and now being considered by the Senate would rapidly phase out key clean-energy tax credits, casting uncertainty over more than 600 gigawatts’ worth of solar, battery, and wind projects slated to come online in 2028 or later, according to new analysis from research firm Cleanview.
To be fair, the 600-GW figure is based on what’s currently in the interconnection queue, and a good number of those projects won’t get built regardless of the fate of the tax credits. (Projects often drop out of the queue for all kinds of reasons.) But if the bill kneecaps even a fraction of what’s anticipated, it will have serious consequences for the U.S. energy system. For context, the entirety of the U.S. had a generating capacity of around 1,200 gigawatts at the end of 2023.
The current version of the legislation would rapidly phase out federal tax credits that encourage clean energy development. As it stands, developers would be eligible for the tax credit only if their projects begin construction within 60 days of the bill’s passage and if they come online before the end of 2028.
That puts the 318 GW worth of projects planned to be completed in 2029 and later at explicit risk of losing their tax-credit eligibility. It also jeopardizes 2028 projects that either can’t break ground with just two months’ notice or which might hit snags that push their completion into 2029.
That doesn’t necessarily mean those projects would be cancelled, but it would scramble their economics, which were calculated under an entirely different set of policy assumptions. It’s near certain that some would fall through. Many more would be delayed as developers hash out new financial terms — read: higher power prices that will be passed onto consumers.
A slowdown in clean energy construction is the exact opposite of what the moment demands.
These days, when a new energy project is built in the U.S., more than nine times out of 10 it is a solar, battery, or wind installation. That’s not an exaggeration. In 2024, solar, batteries, and wind made up 93% of new energy resources. The year before that, it was 94%. Meanwhile, construction of new large-scale fossil-gas power plants is constrained by turbine shortages that are unlikely to ease in the near term.
At the same time, electricity demand is surging and expected to climb even higher in coming years as the development of AI sets off a race to construct power-hungry data centers.
If congressional Republicans pass a bill that stifles solar, batteries, and wind, study after study predicts the same outcome: higher energy bills — and more planet-warming emissions.
On Wednesday, the U.S. EPA proposed repealing Biden administration rules that limit toxic pollutants and planet-warming emissions from coal and gas plants across the country. These plants “do not contribute significantly” to “dangerous” air pollution, the EPA claimed — something that many, many studies have shown isn’t true. Power plants are the second-largest source of carbon emissions in the country, and they’re responsible for a lot of health-harming pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury, too.
When the Biden administration first announced the rules last year, the EPA estimated they would stem 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon pollution through 2047. That’s the equivalent of taking 328 million gas cars off the road for a year, and amounts to an estimated $370 billion in climate and public health benefits.
Those benefits would’ve helped communities surrounding gas and coal plants around the U.S., according to the Sierra Club’s Trump Coal Pollution Dashboard. For example, Montana’s Colstrip 3 plant would have to reduce its toxic pollution under the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard, while a slew of plants across the Midwest and Southwest would have to install carbon-capture systems or shut down under the greenhouse gas rules.
The changes will allow coal plants around the country to keep burning. In North Dakota, some state officials are celebrating what they say is a big step toward protecting jobs and the coal industry. But in Georgia, health advocates and scientists warn the preservation of coal plants in their state will fall hard on vulnerable communities, especially those surrounding the facilities.
Still, none of this is set in stone. The EPA’s proposals are vulnerable to several legal pitfalls, including challenges involving the Clean Air Act, the agency’s insistence that power plants don’t produce “significant” emissions, and the health, economic, and other costs of increasing pollution, E&E News reports. Analysts with TD Cowen expect the EPA to finalize the rules by early next year, but say legal challenges and uncertainty will continue through all of 2026.
“Big, Beautiful Bill” threatens rooftop solar
President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” is already having big impacts on the rooftop solar industry. The bill, now undergoing negotiations in the Senate, looks to repeal tax credits for solar installations and other clean energy projects. That includes credits that allowed a North Carolina food bank to install solar panels on the roof of its headquarters, which it anticipates will save the organization $143,000 each year. Other nonprofits are looking to follow suit — but they probably won’t be able to if they can’t access federal incentives, Canary Media’s Elizabeth Ouzts reports.
The bill is also causing problems for two solar companies. Lender Solar Mosaic filed for bankruptcy last week, specifically citing “legislation that threatens to eliminate tax credits for residential solar” as a forthcoming challenge. Residential solar giant Sunnova followed with a bankruptcy filing over the weekend.
While both companies’ difficulties predate the Trump administration, it’s clear that the residential solar sector is facing a difficult and uncertain moment, one analyst told Canary Media’s Jeff St. John. An analysis by Ohm Analytics estimates that the House’s version of the bill would lead rooftop solar installations across the country to drop by half next year, and another from Morgan Stanley projects an 85% decrease through 2030.
Bright spots for clean energy
Amid a sea of bad news for clean energy companies, some are still finding success.
Take Sublime Systems, which recently had its $87 million federal grant cancelled: Sublime says private-sector support is allowing its $150 million low-carbon cement factory in Massachusetts to move forward anyway.
Solar panel manufacturer Qcells said it’s launching a new recycling operation in Georgia to repurpose retired panels. Heirloom Carbon is meanwhile keeping its operations rolling by winning over Republican state leadership in Louisiana, where it aims to build a facility that extracts carbon dioxide from the air. Developer Intersect Power got the green light Wednesday to build what would be the biggest solar-and-storage plant in the nation.
And in the Chicago area, Sun Metalon just raised $9.1 million from investors — including Japan’s Nippon Steel — to build its steel decarbonization business, Canary Media’s Kari Lydersen reports. The startup has created an oven-sized box that melts down waste metal and sludge from steel and aluminum production, churning out pucks of reusable, recyclable metal.
Vehicle emissions blowback: A group of 11 states sue after President Trump signs a congressional resolution rolling back California’s vehicle emissions standards, which several other states have adopted. (The Hill)
Budget bill update: Democrats — and some Republicans who voted for the House-passed version of the “Big, Beautiful Bill” — look to convince Senate Republicans to preserve clean energy tax credits as budget discussions continue. (The Hill, Politico)
Community electrification: California researchers report success and lessons learned from an experiment aimed at cutting electrification costs by upgrading multiple households in a single neighborhood, which saved contractors time and allowed residents to buy products in bulk. (KQED)
GM reverses on EVs: While General Motors is still ramping up EV production, its new plan to spend $4 billion on mostly gasoline-powered cars means the company has given up on a goal to make only EVs by 2035, analysts say. (E&E News)
Texas’ gas commitment: A study finds developers have proposed more than 100 gas-fired power plants totaling 58 gigawatts in Texas, which have the potential to emit an estimated 115 million metric tons of greenhouse gases every year. (Inside Climate News)
Charging forward: A J.D. Power survey finds fewer attempts to charge at public EV stations are ending in failure than in years past, and that the total number of public chargers is rapidly expanding. (New York Times)
Batteries’ battle: U.S. battery recyclers face“a limbo moment” because the Trump administration has endorsed efforts to produce critical minerals while also imposing tariffs and threatening to repeal clean energy tax credits. (Grist)
Supporters of a major clean energy bill that fell short in the final days of Illinois’ legislative session are licking their wounds and trying to figure out what went wrong — and what comes next.
Solar and battery companies, clean energy groups, and consumer advocates just months ago had high hopes for the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, which would have created a bonanza of state incentives for energy storage and other grid investments, building on the success of 2017 and 2021 laws that have made the state a clean energy leader.
The legislation failed to pass as the legislature wrapped up at the end of May.
“There were some pretty significant wrenches” thrown in the works in the final days of negotiations, said Hannah Flath, spokesperson for the Illinois Environmental Council, an advocacy group. “Some things we just couldn’t untangle.”
The bill would have made Illinois one of a number of states offering subsidies for battery storage on the grid, with the goal of spurring 6 gigawatts of storage by 2030. Solar industry leaders enthusiastically backed the bill, seeing it as a way to build on the solar boom sparked by the two previous state laws, by facilitating solar-plus-storage projects.
Solar and batteries may also be the nation’s best bet to quickly meet growing electricity demand, as equipment backlogs slow down plans to build gas-fueled power plants. “The only resource that we believe can [be deployed] in a time frame of a few years is energy storage,” said Andrew Linhares, the Solar Energy Industries Association senior manager for the Central U.S. “And of course, pairing it with solar is by far the cheapest new generation you can bring online.”
Cost concerns appeared to be the main reason that some powerful groups opposed the bill and that legislators didn’t embrace it. Utility customers would have picked up the tab for incentives paid to storage developers, which spooked some large industrial consumers and the labor unions representing their workers, according to people involved in the bill negotiations.
Groups that filed witness slips to the legislature in opposition of the bill include the American Petroleum Institute-Illinois, a labor union representing electrical workers in Southern Illinois, the Illinois Farm Bureau, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, a chemical industry group, and an Illinois manufacturers’ trade group.
But investing in battery storage should actually lower energy bills, according to bill proponents, since it could be cheaper for utilities to develop storage than to supplement their power supply with pricey energy from regional markets.
Now proponents wonder whether expected energy-price spikes this summer could ironically persuade lawmakers to revisit the storage plan. Prices are expected to rise in coming months because the grid operators that cover Illinois recently reported high capacity costs to ensure that the grid has enough power-generating capacity if demand suddenly spikes. In the Chicago area, that’s expected to raise customers’ power bills by an average of over $10 a month.
An analysis by the Illinois Power Agency, which procures power on behalf of ComEd and Ameren, found that customers would pay less for electricity under the legislation. By 2035, the average Ameren residential customer could see bills drop by up to $20 a month, and the average ComEd residential customer could see monthly bills drop by up to $8.50.
“All the cost estimates were how much this [bill] would help lower costs. That is the big tragedy here,” said MeLena Hessel, Midwest deputy program director for the national clean-energy advocacy organization Vote Solar. “This bill would have saved people money. It would have immediately enabled us to deploy renewables and storage and energy efficiency too, which are the fastest, cheapest ways to address the rising capacity costs.”
Legislators aren’t scheduled to meet again until a short veto session in the late fall, but Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, could reconvene the legislature sooner. The 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which created expansive solar incentives and equity provisions, was passed in such a summer special session.
“The consensus language around energy storage and solar is a response to this crisis, and we have broad buy-in from lawmakers. We’re pretty confident at the end of the day this will happen,” said Linhares. “We just need everybody to be pulling in the same direction. We’re eagerly awaiting an announcement about when this might be taken up, whether in the veto session or special session, and we’ll be ready when that announcement comes.”
Illinois’s two previous big energy laws — the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act in 2021 and the Future Energy Jobs Act in 2017 — were passed after clean-energy developers and advocates squared off with fossil-fuel companies and utilities. In both cases, incentives for nuclear energy provided the political push over the finish line.
This time around, there is no incentive for nuclear on the table; nor is the industry seeking one since increased electricity demand — including from data centers — has boosted the fortunes of the state’s once-financially-ailing nuclear plants.
The bill did call for lifting a moratorium on new nuclear development, but that was considered largely symbolic since a 2023 law allowed development of small modular nuclear reactors.
Labor unions and workers groups helped push for the state’s 2021 climate law, but this time around, some unions opposed the bill. People involved in legislation negotiations said it seemed the unions had allied with oil refineries and utilities that were concerned about cost increases to fund battery storage.
“There were an incredible amount of stakeholders,” said Kady McFadden, legislative strategist for the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition. “Advocates, consumer groups, environmentalists, utilities, generators, clean-energy companies, dirty-energy companies, data centers, towns, cooperatives. It’s a lot of work to run a process that involves them all and gets them all where you need them to be politically to pass a package.”
“This is the first energy bill of its size that didn’t have a big trade-off,” meaning incentives for nuclear, McFadden continued. “The recipe was a little different here. This is a really big jobs bill, but organized labor was neutral. The utilities would be getting a ton from the energy-efficiency programs, but they were neutral.”
Julie Russell, the chief county assessment officer in central Illinois’ Fulton County, said the bill would help county governments by creating uniform tax-assessment standards for battery storage projects.
“It removes the guesswork from how to value really complex projects such as this, plus it helps remove these from going to the property tax appeal board or getting caught up in court for several years being in limbo, with all the taxing districts involved,” Russell said.
Russell is also the county’s zoning supervisor (“fortunately or unfortunately for me” as she put it), and said a provision capping permit fees at $75,000 for energy projects could be problematic, since it “might not cover all the fees associated with making sure we are doing our due diligence” on sprawling proposals. “It would have had the potential to be a financial strain on counties.”
Along with installing large-scale batteries on the grid, the legislation would have created a “virtual power plant” program, allowing the networking of batteries scattered across homes and businesses that could be called on to provide power to the grid in times of high demand. The bill would have also created incentives to help low-income people get batteries in combination with solar arrays, potentially allowing them to earn revenue from a virtual power plant program.
McFadden said “the secret coolest part of the bill” was the mandate for state regulators to develop an energy generation and transmission inventory plan similar to the type of “integrated resource plan” that utilities are required to carry out in many other states. This planning process would alleviate the need for arduous legislative efforts, advocates said.
“It would be a transformation in how we would do energy planning and modeling in the state,” McFadden said. “It’s so significant because passing a giant energy omnibus bill every four to five years is a very poor way to do energy planning and modeling.”
An integrated resource plan would also be mandated for the many rural cooperatives and municipal utilities in Illinois. That would “increase transparency for people receiving power from these utilities, really putting the people power back into public power,” Vote Solar Illinois campaign manager Kavi Chintam said.
The setback in negotiations could allow proponents of the bill to build more support for provisions that had been stripped out during the session, namely one nicknamed BYONCE, pronounced like the singer but standing for “Bring your own new clean energy.”
That would mandate that power-hungry data centers fund their own new generation capacity, protecting other utility customers from subsidizing the mushrooming demand that data centers are expected to create in the Chicago area.
Once the federal budget passes, expected cuts to clean energy could also help motivate state leaders to enact legislation to fill the gap, advocates said.
“I’d love to see lawmakers respond to that opportunity to reconvene and tackle things on the state level,” said Flath. “Ideally, we’ll come back in the fall with an even stronger package.”
Li-Cycle once seemed like a leader among the startups trying to recycle electric vehicle batteries in the U.S. Now it’s mired in bankruptcy proceedings.
The company’s board replaced the CEO and CFO in a decision announced May 1, when Li-Cycle publicized that it was looking for buyers. A potential deal with mining giant and lead creditor Glencore evidently had not come to fruition: Two weeks later, a Canadian bankruptcy court appointed Alvarez & Marsal Canada Securities to oversee a sale of Li-Cycle’s assets. A Li-Cycle spokesperson referred Canary Media to the company’s public bankruptcy announcements.
Prospective buyers for the partially completed recycling empire can state their intent by early June. In the meantime, Glencore has loaned $10.5 million to keep things going during the proceedings. Glencore also entered a “stalking horse” offer of $40 million for most of Li-Cycle’s holdings, setting a floor for bidding (if any other investors want a piece of the action). Glencore could emerge with a real deal on its hands, but it won’t be recouping the $275 million it previously invested in Li-Cycle.
“The Company represents a compelling investment opportunity, uniquely positioned to benefit from rapid growth in the battery materials and [lithium-ion battery] recycling market, amid increasing global focus on sustainability and critical raw material supply chain resilience,” Alvarez & Marsal pitch in a flyer for the sale.
That “compelling” opportunity amounts to five battery shredding plants, a massive unfinished recycling center in Western New York, and a business predicated on the growth of a nascent North American EV supply chain that currently faces far-reaching disruption from the Trump administration. A buyer would not be able to fully recycle any batteries without spending a few hundred million dollars more, and even then, it’s not clear they would make any money doing so.
The startup’s collapse underscores the struggles of the fledgling battery recycling industry in general. A few years ago, the sector was flush with venture capital and charting out rapid timelines for commercializing breakthrough technologies that would enable the transition to EVs while minimizing mining. The sector was also seen as a way to achieve the bipartisan goal of reducing dependence on China, which dominates the global battery supply chain.
Li-Cycle was founded in Canada in 2016 and went public in 2021 through a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC (generally a red flag for early-stage cleantech companies). Its engineers developed a technique for shredding whole lithium-ion battery packs while they’re submerged in liquid; this prevented fires and saved considerable effort compared with painstakingly discharging and dismantling the packs for processing.
Li-Cycle successfully built five “spoke” facilities to collect and shred whole electric vehicle battery packs, turning them into the powdery mixture known as black mass. The spoke operations have paused in Arizona, Alabama, New York, and Ontario, while a German outpost continues to function during bankruptcy proceedings. Collectively, these facilities can break down up to 40 kilotons of batteries a year.
The spokes were supposed to feed their black mass to Li-Cycle’s hub in Rochester, New York, which would refine it and isolate useful battery materials to reintroduce into the supply chain. This never came to pass because Li-Cycle halted construction in fall 2023, citing runaway costs. It became clear that Li-Cycle needed to find a lot more cash to complete the nearly 2-million-square-foot site.
The company hoped for a lifeline from the Biden-era Department of Energy: In November, its Loan Programs Office finalized a $475 million loan for Li-Cycle to complete the recycling hub. But Li-Cycle never drew on that federal money because it couldn’t secure additional private funding to hold in reserve, as stipulated in the loan terms.
Li-Cycle is not the only battery recycling firm in a tough spot. Since last year, a number of challenges have beset the industry.
The adjacent U.S. EV sector has seen slower growth than expected, which has in turn reduced the urgency of building out a North American battery supply chain. Core battery materials like lithium, nickel, and cobalt have plummeted in price, lessening the value of whatever recyclers might glean. And battery makers have increasingly turned to lithium iron phosphate, a cheaper alternative to nickel- and cobalt-based chemistries, further reducing the value of recycling these batteries.
In the past year, a fire destroyed the largest battery shredding plant in the U.S., Interco’s Critical Mineral Recovery site in Missouri. Reno, Nevada–based Aqua Metals ran low on funds and laid off staff while it searched for financing to build a commercial-scale recycling line. Ascend Elements delayed construction of its flagship recycling plant in Kentucky, citing a customer’s decision to postpone buying the recycled materials. In March, Ascend canceled plans to make cathode active materials in Kentucky to focus on precursor materials and lithium carbonate.
Redwood Materials is the rare bright spot. The venture by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel raised a couple billion dollars and has been building out a major compound in the desert outside Reno, not far from Tesla’s factory there. In 2024, Redwood Materials broke down 20 gigawatt-hours of batteries and earned $200 million in revenue from recycled materials.
The industry’s challenges come as the Trump administration says it aims to expand U.S. mineral supplies. Paradoxically, the administration has taken steps to undermine the fledgling U.S. EV and battery industries, which are the big drivers of demand growth for rare earth metals. The budget bill passed by the House last week would strip tax incentives for EV purchases and battery installations, weakening demand for the domestic supply chain that recyclers like Li-Cycle hoped to serve — and making the tough road for recycling firms even tougher.
A new state law aimed at expanding gas and nuclear power plants in Ohio may also provide opportunities for solar developers — if they can overcome other policy and political barriers.
Solar industry advocates say House Bill 15, signed by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine in mid-May, contains several technology-neutral provisions that could benefit clean energy projects, including property tax breaks for siting them on brownfields and former coal mines. The law also loosens restrictions on behind-the-meter electricity generation and lowers the overall tax burden for new power plants.
“This is just smart economic development. We need the energy,” said Michael Benson, board president of Green Energy Ohio, whose members include a variety of clean energy companies. In his view, a market-based approach should work in favor of renewables and battery storage, which can generally be deployed more quickly and cheaply than power plants that burn fossil fuels.
Much of the public discussion around the legislation focused on its repeal of coal plant subsidies mandated by HB 6, the 2019 law at the heart of Ohio’s ongoing public corruption scandal. HB 15 also will end the use of “electric security plans,” which let utilities add special charges to customer bills without reviewing all revenue and expenses in a full rate case.
But many of the measures in HB 15 are meant to encourage new electricity production in the state.
“We should open the market to dispatchable energy generation to address future energy shortages,” the bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Roy Klopfenstein (R-Haviland), said in his February testimony, in which he also noted growing energy demand from data centers and other large electricity users, and energy supply issues raised by grid operator PJM Interconnection. The term “dispatchable” is often used to refer to power plants that can be turned on or off as demand requires, as opposed to solar or wind without battery backup.
Most of the law’s incentives for new energy production are technology-neutral, however.
Under HB 15, new electricity production on brownfields and minelands designated as priority investment areas will be exempt from property taxes for five years. Grants of up to $10 million each will be available to clean up or prepare the sites for construction. And the Ohio Power Siting Board will speed up its review of energy projects in those areas.
“It’s a huge opportunity,” said Rebecca Mellino, a climate and energy policy associate for The Nature Conservancy in Ohio. Last year the organization estimated that Ohio has more than 600,000 acres of minelands and brownfields suitable for renewable energy production. The sites often have good access to roads and transmission lines, too.
As Mellino sees it, solar in priority areas would avoid objections raised by some people about displacing farmland. And counties with renewable energy bans could presumably modify them to allow development in priority investment areas without affecting other parts of their jurisdictions, she suggested.
The law also removes a restriction that has required behind-the-meter generation to be located on the premises of the customer who is using the power. The change might allow data centers to tap into gas-fired backup generators on an adjacent property, for example. But it could also create new opportunities for clean energy-powered microgrids, in which a group of customers share solar panels and a large battery.
“That is significant, all by itself,” because it provides more flexibility, said Dylan Borchers, an energy attorney with law firm Bricker Graydon in Columbus, Ohio. Just as importantly, the law “allows essentially a portfolio approach for customers and energy resources.”
In other words, multiple businesses could form a shared “self-power” system with equipment for electricity generation or battery storage on adjacent land or on premises controlled by one or more of them. Such a system could include numerous generation or storage facilities, allowing a cluster of data centers, factories, or other large energy users to combine multiple behind-the-meter resources, whether they be natural gas, solar, batteries, or small nuclear when it becomes available.
The ability to combine resources means customers wouldn’t necessarily need lots of land to add renewable energy, said Benson. “If you want the most power quickly and cleanly, you can use rooftops and parking lots and build out a lot of small-scale generation.”
The law also reduces the overall tax burden for new electricity production. Local governments may collect less revenue but still welcome the jobs and other spending that come with new energy investments. And less stringent requirements might even benefit some communities when new power generation is sited, Borchers suggested.
Ohio’s current tangible personal property tax rates have been so high that companies have often used “payments in lieu of taxes,” also known as PILOT programs, to avoid getting walloped by huge tax bills as soon as energy production starts. But counties face somewhat strict requirements for how they must allocate PILOT payments. Developers that take advantage of the lower tax rates available under HB 15 may have more financial flexibility to be able to fund some projects that local governments want most, such as a new fire station or community center, Borchers said.
Taken together, the provisions in HB 15 promise to make it easier to build more solar in the state, industry representatives say.
The governor and legislature saw “the urgent need to expand energy generation as Ohio confronts rapidly increasing demand and the threat of escalating costs and supply shortages,” said Will Hinman, executive director for the Utility Scale Solar Energy Coalition of Ohio. “House Bill 15 is a critical step towards addressing these challenges by reducing barriers to energy development — including utility-scale solar projects.”
The law still requires projects to meet multiple criteria to benefit from its provisions. For example, power-generating facilities and transmission lines exceeding certain thresholds may need approval from the Ohio Power Siting Board. The state’s director of development must approve local governments’ designations of priority investment areas. And self-power systems have to be independent of the main power grid.
The biggest downside is that the new law left in place a 2021 statute, Senate Bill 52, which requires utility-scale renewable energy developments to get local approval, said Molly Bryden, a climate and sustainability researcher with think tank Policy Matters Ohio.
Under that earlier law, 34 of Ohio’s 88 counties have banned new solar generation in all or part of their territories. Even where the local law doesn’t bar a new project, local officials can still block projects before a developer even seeks a permit from the Ohio Power Siting Board. A county representative and a township representative also get to vote with state siting board members on whether facilities get a permit, even for some projects that were in the grid operator’s queue before the 2021 law.
Another law took effect in early 2023, letting local governments limit small solar and wind projects that connect to the grid but don’t otherwise fall within the scope of the 2021 law.
Requirements of the 2021 and 2023 laws don’t apply to generation fueled by natural gas, coal, or nuclear power. And Ohio’s high court has ruled local governments can’t ban or regulate gas wells and related infrastructure or even enforce broader zoning laws that would prevent such development.
Lawmakers also cut out provisions from an earlier version of HB 15 that would have allowed community solar development. Community solar lets residential customers save money by sharing the electricity from a local solar array, which doesn’t have to be on their own property.
“There’s still a real need for permitting reform,” Bryden said.
American manufacturing has already surged in the clean energy sector, bringing with it significant economic rewards.
That’s the main takeaway from a census of U.S. clean energy factories, published today by the American Clean Power Association trade group. The report identifies 200 operating across 38 states as of early 2025. The production of solar panels leads the count with at least 90 facilities. About 65 factories are making batteries, while a smaller number produce equipment for onshore and offshore wind. A broader population of over 800 facilities plays a supporting role in the clean energy supply chain, manufacturing materials and subcomponents that turn the solar panels and batteries into full-fledged power plants.
Those facilities already contribute 122,000 jobs and create $33 billion of economic activity annually, which includes earnings, goods and services produced, and payments to supporting industries, ACP found. Notably, 73% of these factories operate in what the report describes as “Republican states” (as determined by presidential vote). That economic impact could grow to $164 billion by 2030 if the currently planned and announced factories come to fruition.
The report came out as ACP met for its annual conference in Phoenix, but the intended audience includes the Republican members of Congress who will soon vote on cuts to the slew of tax credits underpinning this factory buildout. The report asserts that the burgeoning cleantech factory sector could “be the foundation for American energy dominance that is built by Americans for Americans.”
“We have seen a tremendous amount of momentum over just even the past couple of years in clean energy manufacturing growth,” MJ Shiao, ACP’s vice president of supply chain and manufacturing, said on a press call Friday. “With stable tax and stable trade policy, we can really continue to amplify, grow that momentum.”
Clean energy leaders have spent the months since the November election hoping that the sheer economic dynamism their factories inject into Republican congressional districts could overcome President Donald Trump’s desire to unravel Joe Biden’s legacies. It didn’t help that the Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act, with its many highly targeted tax credits for clean energy deployment and manufacturing, on a party-line vote.
But enough Republican representatives publicly argued against a wholesale repeal of the credits to give cleantech insiders hope. Indeed, the House Ways and Means Committee declined to eradicate the credits entirely in its budget proposal from last week. But the proposed tweaks to many of the individual programs narrow their scope and could render them wholly unworkable nonetheless.
“If they are implemented as currently drafted, which we certainly hope they are not, we will see factories shutting down,” Shiao said. “We will see these American manufacturers have to lay people off, and we will see them having to tell their local business partners that they no longer have the opportunity to work with them.”
In that light, the ACP report reads as a tabulation of what the country could miss out on if policy changes underway in Washington bring the onshoring trend to a staggering halt.
The manufacturing job count could grow to 579,000 by 2030 if the other announced factory projects get built and come online. Total job count doesn’t confirm how desirable the work is, but these jobs happen to pay quite well, especially solar manufacturing salaries, which averaged $134,000 in 2024.
A Canary Media visit to the enormous QCells solar factory in Dalton, Georgia, last year showed why this work pays more than traditional manufacturing. The brand-new factories leverage considerable automation and robotic assistance for the heavy lifting and repetitive, high-precision tasks. Workers patrolled the lines and intervened when the machinery needed help. That greater output of an in-demand, high-tech product supported considerably higher pay than the carpet factories down the road.
“This is not our parents’ generation’s manufacturing,” Shiao said. “There is automation, there is robotics, there is AI in these facilities. And that’s a good thing, because these are high-tech, high-skill opportunities that are being brought into some of these communities that are really eager to find ways to keep their best, keep their brightest in the places that they grow up in.”
Across cleantech factories, annual earnings from clean energy manufacturing averaged $118,000, the study found, well above the average U.S. worker’s pay of $76,000.
It’s not just immediate employees who benefit, though. First comes the intensive but temporary construction phase. Once complete, the factories create additional work for support services in the region, such as shipping and delivery companies, food vendors, hotels for visiting customers, and waste disposal. Domestic manufacturing also relies on other component suppliers: Utility-scale solar panels sit on American steel trackers, covered in U.S.-made solar glass. The authors calculate that each job in a clean energy factory leads to three more in supporting industries.
This reality sounds a lot like the vision that Trump campaigned on last year, of growing jobs at home by restoring U.S. manufacturing from the ravages of globalization. He also repeatedly emphasizes a desire to secure more critical minerals for the U.S.; clean energy technologies provide much of the expected demand growth for those minerals.
“This administration talks a lot about an all-of-the-above energy strategy that facilitates American energy dominance,” Shiao said. “I think there needs to continue to be that recognition that solar, wind, energy storage are key pieces and critical pieces to realizing that growth, certainly in terms of the speed at which those projects can be deployed.”
The Ways and Means budget proposal dealt a blow to the cleantech industry’s hopes for a predictable investment landscape. It was also the opening volley of a weekslong negotiating process that will soon involve the Senate as well. Amid all that uncertainty, ACP has at least provided some fresh numbers on the value clean energy factories have created in their short moment of ascendancy, as well as helped clarify what’s at stake.
“We think we’ve got a winning message, one that is bringing positivity, and of course, economic growth to the country,” said John Hensley, ACP’s senior vice president of markets and policy analysis. “We’re going to continue to tell that story, and hopefully it lands on ears that are willing to listen.”
Powering Rural Futures: Clean energy is creating new jobs in rural America, generating opportunities for people who install solar panels, build wind turbines, weatherize homes, and more. This five-part series from the Rural News Network explores how industry, state governments, and education systems are training this growing workforce.
MITCHELL, S.D. — Matthew Pearson found a successful career in the wind energy industry purely by chance.
After graduating from high school in Vermillion, Pearson knew he didn’t want to pursue a four-year degree and instead scrolled through the list of majors offered at Mitchell Tech, one of the state’s four technical colleges.
“When I came to the wind energy program, I thought, ‘Well, that sounds kind of cool,’” Pearson, 28, recalled during a recent interview at Mitchell Tech, the only South Dakota college with a designated wind energy major.
He didn’t know it at the time, but he had stumbled into one of the fastest-growing, highest-paying trade fields in the state and nation.
While workforce shortages plague many industries and employers in the Rushmore State, great opportunities abound for skilled workers to build, operate, and maintain renewable energy facilities, including at wind farms. Meanwhile, strong partnerships between technical colleges, employers, and the Build Dakota scholarship program have forged a ready pathway to quickly and effectively fill the need for energy workers.
Pearson obtained a Build Dakota scholarship that paid all tuition for a two-year wind technology degree, then spent about $15,000 to complete another two-year major in electrical construction.
After graduation, he quickly landed a job wiring wind towers at locations around the country. He was initially paid about $80,000 a year, and after six years was making $127,000 plus a daily living fee of $140.
But now, with a fiancee and two children, Pearson is completing a circle by leaving fieldwork and returning to Mitchell Tech to become its only wind energy program instructor.
Pearson said that in addition to teaching the skills needed to thrive in the renewable energy field, he’ll also share the good news about their job prospects.
“There’s been a steady uptick in the need for workforce,” he said. “When I would get to a jobsite, there would be three or four companies there, and they’d always come over and ask, ‘Hey, you want to come work for us instead?’”
South Dakota is among the top three states nationally in percentage of energy generated from renewable sources, leaving it well positioned to provide both jobs in the field and trainers like Pearson who will help meet demand for workers.
About 77% of the power used in the state comes from non-fossil-fuel sources, largely from water and wind, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The state has three solar farms but no plans filed for more.
Since the mid-1950s, South Dakota has generated significant energy from its four hydroelectric power plants on the Missouri River.
And over roughly the past 15 years, the state has seen a tenfold increase in wind energy production, according to the state Public Utilities Commission. That growth has created a healthy number of construction and maintenance jobs.
In 2009, the state had 190 turbines capable of producing about 350 megawatts of electricity. At the end of 2024, South Dakota was home to 1,417 turbines able to generate about 3,600 MW of energy. The PUC also approved a 68-turbine project with a capacity of 260 MW and a $621 million price tag near Clear Lake in March.
“We’ve had just a tremendous expansion of wind energy in South Dakota,” said Chris Nelson, a PUC commissioner. “Today, though, we’re in a little bit of a lull.”
The expected slowdown is due to a lack of transmission lines capable of carrying more power, most of which heads east out of the state, Nelson said.
Despite the infrastructure challenges, renewable energy still has a bright future, he said. Two nonprofit energy consortiums that manage the power grid in the upper Midwest plan to spend a combined $37 billion to expand transmission capacity, including in South Dakota, over roughly the next decade.
At Lake Area Technical College in Watertown, students are offered two energy-related degree tracks, said President Tiffany Sanderson.
The energy technology major provides training in development and maintenance of energy systems, and the energy operations degree is aimed at managing an energy facility.
“In our energy programs, those are students interested in working with their hands and solving engineering or process-oriented problems,” she said. “They’re very mechanically minded and can figure out how to make sure power is produced reliably so people don’t have delays in service.”
During a recent tour of the technology labs, students used 3D printers, developed and analyzed system efficiency, and worked on unique projects like a solar-powered ice fishing shanty.
The two programs have about two dozen students combined, Sanderson said. In the 2023 graduating class, 100% of all graduates were employed within six months, with average salaries of $65,000 a year in the technology major and $69,000 a year in operations.
“That is for their first jobs in the industry, so those are tremendous opportunities for a brand-new graduate with two years of college education,” she said.
In May, Nathaniel Bekaert will become one of those new graduates from Lake Area Tech.
Bekaert, 28, grew up on a farm and came to the college after six years in the U.S. Army, which paid for almost all of his tuition, fees, and equipment costs.
After touring the Gavins Point Dam hydroelectric plant in Yankton on the Nebraska border and interning at the Big Stone Power Plant near the Minnesota border, Bekaert was sold on the idea of working as a mechanic in the energy field.
“The more you learn, the more you want to dive into it,” he said.
With his anticipated degree and work experience, Bekaert said he was recruited extensively by energy companies.
“The amount of energy companies coming in looking for workers is crazy, and you can’t really grasp how many companies are looking for energy students,” he said. “There are a dozen or more companies within 45 minutes from here that are actively looking for technicians and operators or people with some type of energy degree.”
As a native of the Watertown area, Bekaert has accepted a job close to home as a wind technician at the Crowned Ridge wind farm northeast of the city, where he will make $29 an hour plus a $5,000 signing bonus and a $200 annual stipend for work boots.
Crowned Ridge is operated by NextEra Energy, a Florida-based company that runs wind farms across the country. A recent check of NextEra’s website revealed 396 job openings, with 185 related specifically to wind energy.
“No matter what happens with fossil fuels, we can keep going [with renewable energy] and live off that, and it will benefit everybody in the world. And we won’t have to rely on another country,” Bekaert said of his career choice.
The South Dakota technical school system, which also includes campuses in Sioux Falls and Rapid City, has developed a close working relationship with the energy industry to ensure students learn the right skills and employers can tap into a pipeline of well-trained workers.
Lake Area Tech officials go into local public schools to promote energy and other trade jobs starting in elementary grades, Sanderson said.
At Mitchell Tech, Clayton Deuter, the vice president for enrollment services, said the college now offers a one-year wind energy degree instead of a two-year program, a change made after energy companies said some skills taught in the longer program could be obtained on the job instead.
Deuter said the energy programs at Mitchell Tech are an easy sell to students and their parents due to the low cost compared to a four-year college and the availability of Build Dakota scholarships in which students get tuition paid if they work in South Dakota for three years after graduation.
Mitchell Tech also offers a dual-enrollment program to high school students so they can have a wind energy degree from the college in hand by the time they graduate.
“You think about return on investment, and here you can take one year in the wind turbine program and you can graduate and make $80,000 to $100,000 a year,” Deuter said. “With student loan debt being so crazy, you don’t have to bankrupt yourself financially and be tethered to a student loan payment when you’re trying to buy a house and start a family.”
One of the state’s biggest renewable energy employers is Marmen Energy in Brandon. The Canadian-owned company has 285 employees who build wind towers up to 300 feet tall that are shipped to wind farms nationwide.
Aimee Miritello, human resources manager, said the company’s relationships with high schools and technical colleges form a pillar of its worker recruitment strategy to overcome a nagging lack of workers in the trade fields.
“Historically for us that has been one of our best ways of getting qualified employees,” she said.
Marmen has expanded its South Dakota plant to accommodate what Miritello said has been a steady increase in demand for wind towers across the country.
Marmen workers, who include welders, painters, and other construction tradespeople, make a good wage, are offered one of the best benefit packages in the region, and have strong opportunities for internal advancement, she said.
“Plus, they’re a part of making huge wind towers, so their pride in that is pretty big,” she said.
This reporting is part of a collaboration between the Institute for Nonprofit News’ Rural News Network and Canary Media, South Dakota News Watch, Cardinal News, The Mendocino Voice, and The Maine Monitor. Support from Ascendium Education Group made the project possible.
.svg)
