The Carbon Clock estimate of the remaining CO2 emissions budget to limit global warming, previously displayed here, is currently under review and will be replaced by a version updated with the 2025 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) data, once it becomes available.
Realtime countdown of the remaining carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions budget until global warming reaches a maximum of 1.5°C / 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), evaluates scientific data related to climate change including estimates of the remaining amount of CO2 that can be released into the atmosphere to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5°C / 2°C. This data was last updated in summer 2021, and is the basis of the MCC Carbon Clock.
IPCC bases the concept of a carbon budget on a nearly linear relationship between the cumulative emissions and the temperature rise. There is, however, a lag between the concentration of emissions in the atmosphere and their impact on temperature to be taken into account. With the starting point of annual emissions of CO2 from burning fossil fuels, industrial processes and land-use change estimated to be 42.2 gigatonnes per year [or 1,337 tonnes per second], the 1.5°C / 2°C budgets would be expected to be exhausted in approximately 5 and 23 years from August 2024, respectively.
Am I also contributing?
Are we thinking about the emission of greenhouse gasses such as methane and carbon when we do day to day activities like: driving a car, using energy to cook or heating our houses? Probably not. But by doing this we are making our small but constant contribution to the problem of Global Warming. We see from worsening weather disasters around the world that this returns as a boomerang back to our houses and families.
>80%
of all natural disasters were related to climate change
24.29%
USA share of global world cumulative CO₂ emission
100 million
people can be pushed into poverty by 2030 because of climate change impact
The overall trend in global average temperature indicates that warming is occurring in an increasing number of regions. Future Earth warming depends on our greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades.
At present, approximately 11 billion metric tons of carbon are released into the atmosphere each year. As a result, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is on the rise every year, as it surpasses the natural capacity for removal.
10
warmest years on historical record have occurred since 2010
>2°F
is the total increase in the Earth's temperature since 1880
>2x
warming rate since 1981
Understanding the ultimate consequences of current trends
Observations from both satellites and the Earth’s surface are indisputable — the planet has warmed rapidly over the past 44 years. As far back as 1850, data from weather stations all over the globe make clear the Earth’s average temperature has been rising.
In recent days, as the Earth has reached its highest average temperatures in recorded history, warmer than any time in the last 125,000 years. Paleoclimatologists, who study the Earth’s climate history, are confident that the current decade is warmer than any period since before the last ice age, about 125,000 years ago.
Clean hydrogen has 3 main uses: energy storage, load balancing, and as feedstock/fuel. Used in all sectors, including steel, chemical, oil refining & heavy transport. Actions to accelerate decarbonization & increase clean hydrogen use include:
Invest in clean hydrogen supply;
Increase hydrogen demand as fuel/feedstock;
Use hydrogen for clean high-temperature heat;
Use hydrogen as low-carbon feedstock for ammonia/fertilizer;
Use hydrogen as clean fuel for heavy transport;
Create policies incentivizing electric power decarbonization;
Utilize hydrogen as a means for storing energy over extended periods;
Improve electrolyser technology & readiness in heavy industry/liquid transport fuels;
Increase use of Methane Pyrolysis & Water Electrolysis for clean hydrogen production;
Increase use of wind and solar in electricity production systems.
Increase the usage of Electricity
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving carbon neutrality requires widespread renewable energy and a huge increase in vehicles, products, and processes powered by electricity.
Electricity generated from increasingly renewable energy sources is the right way to create a clean energy system. Switching from direct use of fossil fuels to electricity improves air quality by reducing emissions of local pollutants.In order to increase the use of electricity, we can do the following:
Use more electric cars. Compared to traditional combustion engine vehicles, electric cars show a 3-5 times increase in energy efficiency;
Increase your electricity consumption within your household;
Upgrade your home with smart technology. Electrical appliances can be digitized with smart technology;
Use electric heat pump heating. Heat pumps use 4 times less energy than oil or gas boilers;
Electrify industrial processes in order to reduce energy intensity.
As the foremost element in the periodic table, hydrogen holds a unique position in the universe, given its status as the lightest and one of the most ancient and abundant chemical elements.
Never alone
Hydrogen, in its pure form, needs to be extracted since it is usually present in more intricate molecules, such as water or hydrocarbons, on Earth.
Fuel of stars
Hydrogen powers stars through nuclear fusion. This creates energy and all the other chemicals elements which are found on Earth.
Hydrogen is an essential part for manufacturing Ammoniam Nitrate fertilizers. Half of the world's food is grown using hydrogen-based ammonia fertilizer.
Hydrogen fuel cells make electricity from combining hydrogen and oxygen. Power plants are showing increased interest in using hydrogen, and gas turbines can convert from natural gas to hydrogen combustion.
Steelmaking is an industry that is beginning to successfully use hydrogen in two ways to eliminate almost all greenhouse emissions from the steelmaking process. First for Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) replacing coke (from coal) with hydrogen to remove oxygen from iron ore. Second for heat to melt the iron ore into DRI and then into low carbon steel.
Hydrogen is used in production of explosives, fertilizers, and other chemicals; to convert heavier hydrocarbons to lightweight hydrocarbons to produce many value-added chemicals; to hydrogenate organic compounds; and to remove impurities like sulfur, halides, oxygen, metals, and/or nitrogen. It's also in household cleaners like ammonium hydroxide.
Using clean hydrogen makes it possible to reduce emissions while "cracking" heavier petroleum into lightweight hydrocarbons to produce many value-added chemicals.
The World needs MORE hydrogen, to move toward Turquoise and Green hydrogen, and away from Grey hydrogen
Where We are Now
The temperature trend shows the increase can reach 5.9°F (3.28°C) by 2050
High CO2 emissions (7-8 kg CO2 /kg H2)
Only 2% produced with carbon capture (2Mt)
Worldwide 98% Hydrogen production (94 Mt) without carbon capture emits CO2(900 Mt)
62% from methane without carbon capture
Fossil Fuel electricity generation pollutes the environment
Fossil Fuel provides 33-35% efficiency
What We Want to Achieve
By 2030
25% Produced(24Mt) with carbon capture
Stop more climate change limiting warming to 2.4°F (1.3°C) by 2050
Hydrogen for low-carbon industrial heat
100% Hydrogen as a sustainable industrial feedstock
Statistics Source: IEA Global Hydrogen Review 2022
Most Common Hydrogen Sources
These methods now produce 85% of the world's Greenhouse Gas carbon emissions
SMR (Steam Methane Reforming) + WGS (Water Gas Shift)
SMR is a way of producing syngas (Hydrogen and Carbon monoxide) by mixing hydrocarbons (like natural gas) with water. This mixture goes into a special container called a reformer vessel where a high-pressure mixture of steam and methane comes into contact with a nickel catalyst. As a result of the reaction, hydrogen and carbon monoxide are produced.
To make more hydrogen, carbon monoxide from the first reaction is mixed with water through the WGS reaction. As a result, we receive more hydrogen and a gas called carbon dioxide. For each unit of hydrogen produced there are 6 units of carbon dioxide produced and in almost all cases released into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a harmful gas causing climate change.
$863 ($0.86 per kilogram of Hydrogen)
(Electricity = $474 + Methane $383 + Water $6 US EIA May 2024*)
SMR + WGS with Carbon Capture
The SMR method involves combining natural gas with high-temperature steam and a catalyst to generate a blend of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Then, more water is added to the mixture to make more hydrogen and a gas called carbon dioxide.
For each unit of hydrogen produced there are 6 units of carbon dioxide produced. In a few experimental trials, to help the environment, the carbon dioxide is captured and stored underground using a special technology called CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage). This leaves almost pure hydrogen.
One of the main problems with carbon capture and storage is that without careful management of storage, the CO2 can flow from these underground reservoirs into the surrounding air and contribute to climate change, or spoil the nearby water supply. Another is the risk of creating earthquake tremors caused by the storage increasing underground pressure, known as human caused seismicity.
$1,253 ($1.25 per kilogram of Hydrogen)
(Electricity $474 + Methane $505 + Water $4 US + CCS $270 EIA May 2024*)
Newer, Clean Hydrogen Sources
Methane Pyrolysis
This technology based on natural gas emits no greenhouse gases as it does not produce CO2. Methane Pyrolysis refers to a method of generating hydrogen by breaking down methane into its basic components, namely hydrogen and solid carbon.
Oxygen is not involved at all within this process (no CO or CO2 is produced). Thus, for the production of hydrogen gas there is no need for an additional of CO or for CO2 separation.
The concept of Green Hydrogen involves generating hydrogen from renewable energy sources by means of electrolysis, a process that splits water into its fundamental constituents, hydrogen and oxygen, using an electric current. This process can be powered by a range of renewable energy sources, such as solar energy, wind power, and hydropower.
The electricity used in the electrolysis process is derived exclusively from renewable sources, ensuring a sustainable and environmentally-friendly production of hydrogen. It generates zero carbon dioxide emissions and, as a result, prevents global warming.
Natural geologic hydrogen refers to hydrogen gas that is naturally present within the Earth's subsurface.
Known as "White" hydrogen, it can be generated through various geological processes. The study of geologic hydrogen and its potential as an energy resource is an active area of research, as it holds promise for renewable energy applications, particularly in the context of hydrogen fuel cells and clean energy production.
It's important to note that the creation of geologic hydrogen is generally a slow and long-term process, occurring over geological timescales. This is because the other methods are human production technology methods and this is creation by a natural phenomena. The availability and abundance of geologic hydrogen can vary significantly depending on the specific geological setting and the interplay of various factors such as rock composition, temperature, pressure, and the presence of suitable reactants.
Here are some of the main sources and mechanisms of geologic hydrogen generation:
01
Serpentinization
Serpentinization is a chemical reaction that occurs when water interacts with certain types of rocks, particularly ultramafic rocks rich in minerals such as olivine and pyroxene. This process results in the formation of serpentine minerals and produces hydrogen gas as a byproduct. Serpentinization typically takes place in environments such as hydrothermal systems, oceanic crust, and certain tectonic settings.
02
Radiolysis
In regions with high concentrations of radioactive elements, such as uranium and thorium, the decay of these elements releases radiation. This radiation can interact with surrounding water or other fluids, splitting the water molecules and generating hydrogen gas through a process called radiolysis. This mechanism is believed to contribute to the production of hydrogen in certain deep geological settings, such as deep groundwater systems and radioactive mineral deposits.
03
Geothermal activity
Geothermal systems, which involve the circulation of hot water or steam through fractured rocks, can generate hydrogen gas as a result of various processes. High-temperature hydrothermal systems can cause the thermal decomposition of hydrocarbons, releasing hydrogen gas. Additionally, the interaction between water and hot rocks in geothermal reservoirs can lead to the production of hydrogen through serpentinization or other geochemical reactions.
04
Abiotic methane cracking
Abiotic methane refers to methane gas that is not directly derived from biological sources, such as microbial activity. In certain geological environments, abiotic methane can be generated through processes like thermal decomposition of organic matter or reactions between carbon dioxide and hydrogen. This methane can subsequently undergo thermal or catalytic cracking, producing hydrogen gas.
Success Stories
Steps Taken by Different Countries to Move Forward to Net Zero Emissions
96
£4 billion
100 MW+
1st place
green hydrogen plants are owned by Australia. It possesses the highest count of establishments globally. Australia is expected to have the lowest costs of green hydrogen production by 2050 due to an abundance of solar and wind resources.
was committed by the UK to hydrogen technology and production facilities by 2030 to cultivate a hydrogen economy and create 9,000 jobs.
green hydrogen production sites are being developed by Canadian company First Hydrogen in Quebec and Manitoba. These plans are being developed in conjunction with Canadian and North American automotive strategies.
in the list of largest hydropower producers in the world belongs to China. It is followed by Brazil, USA and Canada.
By 2047
In 2017
200,000
110 countries
green hydrogen will help India make a quantum leap toward energy independence. The country’s National Hydrogen Mission was launched in 2021.
Japan became the first country to formulate a national hydrogen strategy as part of its ambition to become the world's first "hydrogen society" by deploying this fuel in all sectors.
fuel-cell electric vehicles production by 2025 is the goal stated by South Korea. In 2021, South Korea also approved the Hydrogen Power Economic Development and Safety Control Law, the first in the world to promote hydrogen vehicles, charging stations, and fuel cells.
have legally committed to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Conclusion
The World needs MORE hydrogen
SMR + WGS
Keep current hydrogen production methods BUT
+
Clean Hydrogen Production Methods
make additional steps to broaden them with cleaner production methods
=
More Hydrogen
And as a result the world will get more vital hydrogen and become one step closer to net zero emission
Сurrent Situation
The market is dominated by grey hydrogen produced from natural gas through a fossil fuel-powered SMR process. Every year, the production of grey hydrogen amounts to approximately 70 to 80 million tons, and it is primarily used in industrial chemistry. More than 80% is used for the synthesis of ammonia and its derivatives (fertilizer for agriculture, 50 perecent of food worldwide) or for oil refining operations. Unfortunately, for every 1 kg of grey hydrogen, almost 6-8 kg of carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere.
More than 95% of the world's hydrogen production is based on fossil fuels with greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, to achieve a more stable future and promote the transition of pure energy, the global goal is to reduce the use of other “colors” of hydrogen and focus on the production of a clean product, such as green or turquoise hydrogen. Reaching the zero carbon footprint will require a gradual transition from grey to green/turquoise hydrogen in the coming years.
It is possible to produce decarbonized hydrogen. An option is to use another feedstock, namely water, and convert it in large electrolyzers into H2 and oxygen (O2), which are returned to the atmosphere. If the electricity used to power the electrolyzers is 100% renewable energy (photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, etc.), then hydrogen becomes green. Currently, it is about 0.1% of the total production of hydrogen, but it is expected that it will increase since the cost of renewable energy continues to fall.
U.S. additions to electric generation capacity from 2000 to 2025. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that the United States is building power plants at a record pace. As indicated on the chart, nearly all new electric generating capacity either already installed or planned for 2025 is from clean energy sources, while new power plants coming on line 25 years ago, in 2000, were predominantly fueled by natural gas. New wind power plants began to come on line in 2001 and new solar plants, 10 years, later in 2011. Since 2023, the U.S. power industry has built more solar than any other type of power plant. The EIA predicts that clean energy (wind, solar, and battery storage) will deliver 93% of new power-plant capacity in 2025.
Global surface air temperature departures between 1940 and 2024 from the average temperature for the period 1991-2020 (averages below the 11-year average are blue and those above are red). The average in October 2024 was +0.80 degrees Celsius above the reference period average, down from +0.85 degrees Celsius above the reference period average in 2023, which was the warmest October on record.
Gas cars are sputtering, stuck in the slow lane — and battery-powered vehicles are gaining on them fast.
A massive shift has occurred in less than a decade. At their all-time high, in 2017, global sales of pure internal combustion vehicles hit 79.9 million units, per data from the International Energy Agency. Last year, 54.8 million internal combustion cars were sold, a 31% reduction.
Meanwhile, electric vehicles are ascendant. Nearly 11 million new EVs were sold worldwide in 2024, the vast majority in China, while consumers also bought 6.5 million plug-in hybrids — the ones with both gas engines and rechargeable batteries. Those figures represent enormous growth from just a few years ago. Back in 2017 when gas cars were at their peak, a measly 800,000 EVs and 400,000 plug-in hybrids were sold worldwide.
EVs are already more popular than fossil-fuel-guzzling vehicles in several places. And I’m not just talking about Norway. In China, the world’s largest EV manufacturer and auto sales market, around 60% of new cars sold this year will be electric. By 2030, the IEA expects that number to hit 80%.
Still, for the foreseeable future, the number of EVs on the road will pale in comparison to the number of gas-powered cars. (Older gas cars will likely be puttering around for a while even as EVs beat them out in sales.)
And the way forward is not necessarily smooth. In some countries, including the United States, the upfront costs of many EV models remain too high for consumers. Drivers are also still wary about charging infrastructure and range, even as chargers become more common. Plus, the Trump administration has eliminated U.S. policies encouraging EV adoption, causing analysts to revise down estimates of sales for what is one of the world’s largest auto markets.
But despite these speed bumps, the trend lines are tough to ignore. We’re well past peak internal combustion vehicles, and battery-powered cars are experiencing exponential growth. Eventually, that adds up to a world dominated by EVs, rather than by gas engines.
Want to claim thousands of dollars in federal tax credits for electrification upgrades that slash emissions, reduce air pollution, and enhance the comfort of your home? You have just over a month left to get them installed.
Ditching our fossil-fuel equipment for electric options is an opportunity to land a punch in the climate fight. More than 40% of U.S. energy-related emissions stem from how we heat, cool, and power our homes and fuel our cars, according to the nonprofit Rewiring America. Not to mention, clean alternatives are often cheaper to run than dirty-energy versions.
Still, electrifying our lives can be hard. All-electric home upgrades are often big, complex infrastructure projects. Upfront costs can be steep.
But appliances, like cars, come in a wide range of models with different features and a diversity of price points.
It’s worth spending some time to think through the options — after all, doing so could save you tens of thousands of dollars by avoiding an unnecessary electrical-service upgrade or an overpowered heat pump. But to lock in the federal discounts, you’ll need to get up to speed quickly.
That’s where Canary Media can help. I’ve pulled the most relevant stories from the archives to get you prepped on your home retrofit. Dive in anywhere you like.
Here’s a last piece of advice to help you fast-track electrification projects so that you can get those federal tax credits. Journalist Justin Gerdes, who writes the wonderfully researched newsletter Quitting Carbon, says this is his No. 1 pointer for anyone planning an all-electric home retrofit:
“Search for a specialist electrification contractor you can trust.”
To make that process easier, Rewiring America and the BetterHVAC Alliance launched the National Quality Contractor Network in September. The associated directory is full of certified installers who know and love heat pumps, heat-pump water heaters, insulation, EV chargers, and more.
Gerdes’ advice is golden in a world with or without federal tax breaks. The U.S. government continues to fund state-run home energy rebates for lower-income households. And you can still find a bonanza of state, local, and utility incentives to break up with fossil fuels.
It’s also still early in the adoption curve for many of these electrified technologies. As they become more commonplace, we could see prices drop.
So while now is a great time to invest in electric appliances and reap the benefits of a clean-energy dream home, 2026 — and the years to come — will be too.
The Trump administration is bankrolling the restart of two shuttered nuclear plants in hopes of reviving the industry. Those endeavors are moving along — but without federal funding, plans to build new large nuclear reactors haven’t made much progress yet.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office announced that it had both offered — and finalized — a $1 billion loan to help Constellation Energy restart Unit 1 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.
While Three Mile Island may make you think of nuclear disaster due to the partial meltdown of the plant’s Unit 2 back in 1979, that part of the facility has been dormant ever since. Unit 1, meanwhile, operated for decades without any major incident before it was shut down in 2019 for economic reasons. Constellation said in July 2024 that the unit remained in “pretty good shape” and was “technically feasible” to restart.
Just a few months later, Constellation got its chance to do so. Microsoft announced an agreement with Constellation to buy power from Unit 1, with hopes of getting the newly renamed Crane Clean Energy Center operating again by 2028. At the time, Constellation said it would likely spend $1.6 billion on the restart. This new federal loan will put a big dent in that cost.
The Loan Programs Office is also supporting the restart of Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Plant, which shuttered in 2022. The $1.5 billion loan was initiated under the Biden administration, and President Donald Trump’s DOE has continued paying it out this year. The plant received its first delivery of fuel in October and aims to start generating power before the year ends.
While large nuclear restarts are rolling along, new construction doesn’t have much progress to show. Construction of the last major nuclear project in the U.S. — Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle — went billions of dollars over budget and took years longer than expected. It’s become a cautionary tale for risk-averse utilities, who have yet to answer Trump’s call for a nuclear buildout, E&E News reports.
Still, the Trump administration is trying to will that nuclear renaissance into existence: This week it reaffirmed its commitment to an $80 billion plan to finance the construction of up to 10 new large nuclear reactors, first announced in late October.
It’s an ambitious goal that could create the nuclear expansion the Trump administration says it wants. But it still faces a big barrier: the administration itself. Trump officials have spent the last year undermining trust in federal financing by reneging on billions of dollars in grants, loans, and even permits for clean-energy projects. Those moves could make it difficult to convince companies to commit to expensive, years-long construction projects that will surely span administrations.
More big energy stories
Ohio county takes on renewables ban
Ohio is a hot spot for local renewable-energy bans, but one county may pave the way for change.
A state law allows Ohio counties to bar significant solar and wind development in all or some of their townships. More than three dozen counties have done so, and Richland County is among them, with commissioners moving this summer to ban projects in 11 of its 18 townships.
Richland County residents started pushing back almost immediately, Canary Media’s Kathiann M. Kowalski reports. Gathering more than 3,300 valid signatures, they’ve ensured a referendum on the ban will be on the ballot this May, allowing every voter to weigh in on the future of clean energy in their backyard.
As COP30 closes, final deal remains unsettled
The United Nations’ COP30 conference comes to a close today, but participating nations still haven’t reached a final agreement to scale up their climate commitments. On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said the eventual deal must be “concrete on funding and adaptation, credible on emission cuts, and bankable on finance.”
As they do at every COP, nations disagreed over how far to take the conference-ending agreement. Climate-adaptation funding became a top issue, as countries on the front lines of climate change pushed to triple an annual adaptation fund $120 billion. More than 80 countries also called for the COP30 deal to include a road map for transitioning off coal, oil, and natural gas, scaling up 2023’s nonbinding agreement that nations begin moving away from fossil fuels.
Clean energy news to know this week
Electrification crunch: Canary Media’s Alison F. Takemura rounded up last-minute ways to tap federal tax credits for clean and efficient home improvements before the incentives expire at the end of the year. (Canary Media)
Speeding toward global warming: Trump’s fossil-fuel-expansion agenda will throttle emissions cuts and drive more than 1 million additional temperature-related deaths around the globe from 2035 through 2115, a new analysis finds. (ProPublica/The Guardian)
The EV cliff is here: U.S. EV sales fell 49% from September to October after federal tax credits expired on Sept. 30. (Cox Automotive)
Drilling down: The Trump administration proposes opening more than 1 billion acres off the Gulf and Pacific coasts for oil drilling, drawing rebukes from Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Republicans. (Associated Press, E&E News)
Gridly exaggerated: Utilities are using the data-center boom to justify investments in gas plants, but a new Grid Strategies report finds those demand-growth projections are likely overblown. (Canary Media)
Curbing climate action: Pennsylvania’s withdrawal from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative raises fears that Democratic officials may continue to sideline climate action, even after winning statewide races on the promise of reining in energy prices. (E&E News)
Solar defies the odds: First Solar announces plans to invest $330 million building a South Carolina factory to manufacture solar modules, with commercial operations set to begin in late 2026. (Electrek)
Chattanooga charges up: Chattanooga, Tennessee’s municipal utility has built a small network of battery projects that are helping curb rising prices and avoid power outages, with plans for more energy storage ahead. (Canary Media)
Teeing up clean heat: A former St. Paul, Minnesota, golf course will host one of the country’s first large-scale thermal energy storage systems to use an underground aquifer, which will be combined with electric heat pumps and solar panels to heat and cool buildings. (Inside Climate News)
New England winters can get wicked cold. This week, five of the region’s states launched a $450 million effort to warm more of the homes in the often-frigid region with energy-efficient, low-emission heat pumps instead by burning fossil fuels.
“It’s a big deal,” said Katie Dykes, commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. “It’s unprecedented to see five states aligning together on a transformational approach to deploying more-affordable clean-heat options.”
The New England Heat Pump Accelerator is a collaboration between Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The initiative is funded by the federal Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program, which was created by President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The accelerator’s launch marks a rare milestone for a Biden-era climate initiative amid the Trump administration’s relentless attempts to scrap federal clean energy and environmental programs.
The goal: Get more heat pumps into more homes through a combination of financial incentives, educational outreach, and workforce development.
New England is a rich target for such an effort because of its current dependence on fossil-fuel heating. Natural gas and propane are in wide use, and heating oil is still widespread throughout the region; more than half of Maine’s homes are heated by oil, and the other coalition states all use oil at rates much higher than the national average. The prevalence of oil in particular means there’s plenty of opportunity to grow heat-pump adoption, cut emissions, and lower residents’ energy bills.
At the same time, heat pumps have faced barriers in the region, including the upfront cost of equipment, New England’s high price of electricity, and misconceptions about heat pumps’ ability to work in cold weather.
“There’s not a full awareness that these cold-temperature heat pumps can handle our winters, and do it at a cost that is lower than many of our delivered fuels,” said Joseph DeNicola, deputy commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
To some degree, the momentum is shifting. Maine has had notable success, hitting its aim of 100,000 new heat pump installations in 2023, two years ahead of its initial deadline. Massachusetts is on track to reach its 2025 target, but needs adoption rates to rise in order to make its 2030 goal.
The accelerator aims to speed up adoption by supporting the installation of some 580,000 residential heat pumps, which would reduce carbon emissions by 2.5 million metric tons by 2030 — the equivalent of taking more than 540,000 gas-powered passenger vehicles off the road.
The initiative is organized into three program areas, or “hubs,” as planners called them during a webinar kicking off the accelerator this week.
The largest portion of money, some $270 million, will go to the “market hub.” Distributors will receive incentives for selling heat pumps. They will keep a small percentage of the money for themselves and pass most of the savings on to the contractors buying the equipment. The contractors, in turn, will pass the lower price on to the customers. In addition to reducing upfront costs for consumers, this approach is designed to shift the market by encouraging distributors to keep the equipment in stock, therefore making it an easier choice for contractors and their customers.
These midstream incentives are expected to reduce the cost of cold-climate air-source heat pumps by $500 to $700 per unit and heat-pump water heaters by $200 to $300 per unit. When contractors buy the appliances, the incentive will be applied automatically — no extra paperwork or claims process required.
“It should be very simple for contractors to access this funding,” said Ellen Pfeiffer, a senior manager with Energy Solutions, a clean energy consultancy that is helping implement the programming. “It should be almost seamless.”
Consumers will also remain eligible for any incentives available through state efficiency programs, such as rebates from Mass Save or Efficiency Maine, but will likely not be able to stack the accelerator benefits with federal incentives like the Home Efficiency Rebates and Home Electrification and Appliances Rebate programs.
Program planners expect to be finalizing the incentive levels through the end of the year, enrolling and training distributors in the early months of 2026, and making the first participating products available in February 2026, said New England Heat Pump Accelerator program manager Jennifer Gottlieb Elazhari.
The second program area is the innovation hub. Each state will receive $14.5 million to fund one or two pilot programs testing out new ways to overcome barriers to heat pump adoption by low- and moderate-income households and in disadvantaged communities. One state might, for example, create a lending library of window-mounted air-source heat pumps, allowing someone whose oil heating breaks down the time to research replacement options rather than just installing new oil equipment.
The innovation hub will also include workforce development and training. Organizers are talking with contractors and other partners to figure out where the gaps are in heat pump training. In the first few months of 2026, they will develop a program with a target start date in April.
The goal will be not only to ensure that there are tradespeople with the needed skills to install the systems, but also to lay the groundwork for faster adoption by spreading knowledge about the capabilities of the technology and the available incentives.
The third major area of the accelerator is a resource hub to aggregate information for contractors, distributors, program implementers, and other stakeholders. Overall, organizers hope to have all three hubs operational in spring 2026.
Accelerator planners expect programs to boost adoption even as a federal tax credit of up to $2,000 on heat pumps and heat-pump water heaters is phased out at the end of the year, leaving states leading the way on clean energy action.
“At the state level, this is one example of a way we are helping to make progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but with a solution that can help people take control of their energy costs,” Dykes said. “That’s really what we’re focused on.”
The startup Sortera Technologies has raised fresh funding to expand its tech-driven recycling operations — with an eye toward meeting rising U.S. demand for low-carbon aluminum.
Sortera uses advanced sensors and artificial intelligence to sort different types of aluminum found in old car parts and appliances. On Thursday, the company said it raised $45 million to fuel its next phase of growth, including from global investment firm T. Rowe Price Associates, venture capital fund VXI Capital, and Yamaha Motor Ventures, an arm of the Japanese manufacturer.
Sortera’s flagship facility in Markle, Indiana, currently processes about 100 million pounds of shredded metal per year to recover specific alloys — blends of aluminum that contain other elements to make them stronger and more durable. With the new investment, the startup plans to build a second plant next year, in Lebanon, Tennessee, to double its capacity to pick through gleaming scrap heaps.
The expansion comes as the United States is racing to shore up supplies of aluminum.
Part of that is driven by the Trump administration’s increased tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel, which have put pressure on U.S. manufacturers to produce more metal. Automakers are also using more lightweight aluminum instead of steel, including in battery-powered cars and hulking Ford F-150 pickup trucks. Data-center developers need more of the metal for their buildings and the technology inside, while some buyers are looking specifically for lower-carbon aluminum to meet decarbonization goals.
The U.S. is now playing catch-up. America’s production of new, primary aluminum has declined significantly in recent decades, and while plans are underway to build two new smelters, neither is expected to be fully on line this decade. Both projects will also need to secure huge amounts of cheap — and ideally clean — electricity at a time when that’s hard to come by.
Recycling aluminum, on the other hand, requires only about 5% of the energy that’s needed to produce the metal in power-hungry smelters. As a result, it’s generally a faster, cheaper, and lower-carbon way of making aluminum products.
“The domestic market is hungry for sustainable, high-quality recycled aluminum,” said Michael Siemer, Sortera’s CEO.
Mounds of metal inside Sortera's facility in Markle, Indiana (Chris Allieri/Sortera)
The country’s use of scrap will climb even higher once two new rolling facilities — which shape aluminum into plates, sheets, and coils — ramp up production. Steel Dynamics rolled its first hot coils at a $1.9 billion plant in Mississippi this summer. Novelis, which is partnering with Sortera to use the startup’s rescued aluminum, is slated to bring its $2.5 billion facility on line in Alabama later next year.
“For them to be green, they each are going to need an additional billion pounds of scrap aluminum,” Siemer estimated.
Despite the growing domestic appetite for aluminum, much of what the country recycles still gets exported overseas, particularly when it’s lumped together with other metals like copper, brass, and titanium. Magnets can easily pull out pieces of steel from scrap piles, but aluminum alloys are tricky to sort. That leaves behind roughly 18 billion pounds of mixed-metal material per year, about 10 billion of which include aluminum alloys, according to Sortera.
“We generally scoop it up, put it into ships, and send it to Southeast Asia,” where the metals are sorted by hand, Siemer said of the industry’s approach. “Or it’s made into low-value products in America, where you can melt the aluminum down” with the other metals, he added, likening the process to melting a box of colorful crayons into a functional, but less desirable, brown soup.
Sortera’s founders, Nalin Kumar and Manual Garcia, launched the company in 2020 to introduce more precision and automation to this sorting process. After spinning out of an Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy program that focused on recycling metals for lightweight vehicles and aircraft, the startup raised money from firms including Chrysalix Venture Capital and the Bill Gates–affiliated Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Sortera said the funding announced this week brings its total investment to about $120 million.
Other early-stage companies are working on new ways to pluck recyclable materials out of the gobsmacking amounts of garbage we generate every day. Greyparrot, for example, has developed AI camera systems that recycling firms can install to track aluminum cans, glass bottles, and plastic packaging as they move down conveyor belts. The startup Amp uses software-driven robotic systems inside its own plants to automatically sort materials.
But Sortera handles only scrap metal, and it hunts for only specific types of high-quality aluminum alloys — ones that manufacturers like Novelis are typically willing to pay more for. The company’s Indiana facility can also process scrap at high enough volumes to justify handling it domestically, Siemer said.
“They’re getting into a really interesting niche,” said Parker Bovée, who leads waste and recycling research for the consulting firm Cleantech Group. “If you can get pure sorted alloys, then you know exactly what you’re dealing with,” which makes the metal more valuable to the companies turning it back into car frames, engine blocks, or complex metal parts.
Bovée said that from an investment standpoint, he considers Sortera’s approach to be higher risk than a software-only solution, since it involves spending more capital to build facilities and machinery. Waste management in general “is a difficult industry to break into and make substantial inroads,” he said. But Sortera’s ability to capture sought-after alloys “makes them very impressive.”
Siemer added that Sortera will eventually use its technology to sort the other metals found in shredded scrap piles. But for now, he said, “We’re building a business on the aluminum.”
Brookfield Renewable Partners has signed yet another deal to power a tech giant’s data centers with one of its existing hydroelectric plants, heralding a potential lifeline for America’s aging dams.
In its quarterly earnings call with investors this month, Brookfield said it had signed a 20-year contract with Microsoft “at one of our hydro facilities” in the nation’s largest grid system, PJM Interconnection.
The deal is part of a broader agreement, announced last year, to supply Microsoft’s data centers with 10.5 gigawatts of renewable electricity. But it’s the first contract under that framework to support a specific hydroelectric facility. Brookfield declined to disclose which of its dams is part of the deal. Near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the company operates at least two stations with a combined capacity of nearly 700 megawatts in PJM’s 13-state territory. On the earnings call, Brookfield suggested it may acquire a third plant in the grid system.
The move comes nearly four months after Brookfield signed the biggest deal for hydropower in history: a $3 billion agreement to supply Google’s data centers with up to 3 gigawatts of power for the next two decades.
It also comes at a make-or-break moment for the U.S. hydropower sector, which is one of the few forms of always-on, carbon-free energy available in a country clamoring for clean electrons. Most projects are decades old and will have to undergo relicensing processes over the coming years.
Both of Brookfield’s hydroelectric facilities in Pennsylvania — the 252-megawatt Holtwood Hydroelectric Project, first opened in 1910, and the nearly 418-megawatt Safe Harbor Hydroelectric Project, built in the early 1930s — are up for relicensing in the next five years.
As part of the Google and Microsoft deals, Brookfield said it was able to “upfinance” both facilities, a term that typically describes when private equity companies refinance an existing loan and borrow more money on top of the remaining balance. That could be an indicator that the data center deals are helping Brookfield fund the upgrades and other requirements needed to obtain new operating licenses.
“We continue to evaluate the opportunity to acquire hydro [plants] which would fit well within our portfolio,” Connor Teskey, president of Brookfield Asset Management, said on the earnings call.
Nearly 450 hydroelectric stations totaling more than 16 gigawatts of power-producing capacity are slated for relicensing across the U.S. in over the next decade. That’s roughly 40% of the nonfederal fleet (the government owns about half the country’s hydropower facilities).
The relicensing process for hydropower is uniquely onerous, involving multiple federal, state, and local regulators. Some power plant owners and advocates have accused regulators of using the process to try to squeeze the facilities for additional benefits, such as paying for roads or infrastructure unrelated to a dam itself, which owners say they can’t afford. Faced with relicensing, some stations have simply shuttered, their owners deciding it’s easier to surrender their permits than to make costly upgrades and regional investments needed to win support.
“This is major infrastructure. These facilities cost billions of dollars,” Malcolm Woolf, the National Hydropower Association’s chief executive, previously told Canary Media. “They’re like bridges and roads. They get a license for 50 years. The state agencies view [the relicensing process] as an opportunity to extract concessions from what they view as a deep pocket.”
In the 1970s, he added, “maybe the industry was a deep pocket.”
“But now,” Woolf said, “with the low cost of other fuels like wind and solar and gas, it’s driving these facilities to bankruptcy and to surrender licenses.”
Due north of Chattanooga, a power line runs through a wooded tract called Sale Creek before it dead-ends at the Tennessee River. On Oct. 8, this line lost power. But the lights stayed on for nearly 400 customers because Sale Creek has a new tool to neutralize outages.
Chattanooga’s municipal utility, EPB, had installed a Tesla Megapack battery system on this lonely stretch of the distribution grid back in June. If anything knocked out the line, residents would have 2.5 megawatts/10 megawatt-hours of storage capacity at their disposal while crews fixed the problem.
In this case, utility workers unexpectedly needed to de-energize the line to finish making repairs. EPB was able to switch the neighborhood over to battery power for about half an hour until the job was done. Without the battery, EPB would have had to tell its customers it was cutting off their power on purpose.
“This was the first time we used it in an outage situation,” said Ryan Keel, president of the energy and communications business unit at EPB. “In the future, it’ll be even more unplanned. It’ll be a response to a tree falling through the line or a car hitting a pole or something.”
EPB, which serves some 500,000 people across 600 square miles, plans to roll out more targeted, resilience-oriented batteries to other outage-prone stretches of its grid. The nonprofit public power company currently has a 45-megawatt fleet of batteries, almost all of which were built this year. Besides keeping the lights on, they save money for the whole customer base by lowering the utility’s peak electricity consumption.
The United States is racing toward yet another record year of grid battery construction, as power companies tap lithium-ion batteries to store solar power, improve grid reliability, and free up capacity for new data centers. Most of these batteries are getting installed in California and Texas, where they’ve pushed down wholesale prices and banished heat wave–induced power shortages. Utilities elsewhere, though, too often bide their time in exhaustive studies of the technology, which is new by their standards, despite its mass deployment in some regions.
But batteries are starting to catch on in Tennessee: The Tennessee Valley Authority, the federal entity that generates electricity for EPB and scores of other local power companies, just committed to build 1.5 gigawatts of grid batteries across its territory by the close of 2029, its largest battery deployment by far. The TVA board approved this in its November meeting, setting the stage for the utility to solicit competitive bids from battery developers, spokesperson Scott Fiedler told Canary Media.
And although Chattanooga’s battery buildout is far smaller than what’s happening farther west, or even the installations planned by TVA, it shows how a responsive local utility can adopt new clean-energy technology to make life a little better for its customers. It doesn’t take a massive R&D budget or piles of cash from Wall Street shareholders — just a willingness to embrace a readily available technology.
Rolling blackouts prompt battery buildout
EPB had explored batteries for years. It researched them with the Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, located 100 miles northeast of Chattanooga. But EPB moved beyond research and installed a solar-and-battery microgrid at the Chattanooga Airport, learning how to work with the technology in practice.
Building on that experience, EPB leaders took a new look at batteries after Winter Storm Elliott rocked the region just before Christmas 2022, leaving TVA short on supply as households cranked their electric heating. For the first time since its founding in 1933, the TVA had to cut power to its customers in order to avoid damaging the grid infrastructure. So it told local power companies that they had to reduce demand by a certain amount.
“That event shaped our strategy,” Keel said. “We want to deploy a large amount [of batteries], because it gives us some local insulation from what may be happening on the TVA system that could impact our customers.”
Homes in TVA’s territory use a lot of electric heating and cooling, which drives grid peaks in both winter and summer. Typical hot summer and cold winter peaks for EPB reach 1,200 megawatts of demand, Keel said, but the utility set a demand record above 1,300 megawatts this January.
That means the current battery fleet meets just a small percentage of the total peak demand — enough to help on the margins, but pretty limited in its impact. Keel said his strategy is to raise that capacity to around 150 megawatts.
“Our hope is that if TVA calls for a 10% required reduction of our load, we can achieve that completely with the battery systems that we’ve put in, and we don’t need to do any unplanned outages to customers at all, like we had to” during Winter Storm Elliott, Keel said.
That battery strategy is akin to an insurance policy, responding to the concerning frequency of polar vortices and extreme heat in recent years. But the batteries don’t just sit around waiting for record cold snaps or heat waves. When the batteries aren’t acting as local backup, EPB puts them to work to save money for all customers.
When EPB buys power from TVA, it pays a demand charge for the hour of highest consumption each month. By discharging the batteries when it looks like a peak hour is approaching, EPB can shave its monthly charge. That lowers the rates it pays to TVA, which puts downward pressure on utility bills for Chattanooga residents.
“We make our decisions based on community benefit,” said J. Ed. Marston, EPB’s vice president for strategic communication. “The more we can keep our costs down operationally, the more we can avoid having to do electric rate increases that impact our customers.”
This dynamic parallels the way Vermont utility Green Mountain Power pays for a program that helps customers install home batteries: The utility dispatches all the small-scale batteries to reduce its peak-demand charges to the New England grid operator.
EPB expects to get payback on its battery installations within five years from the reliability and peak-demand uses. The utility has elected not to run the batteries on a daily basis, because the wear and tear that frequent cycling puts on batteries offsets the benefit of short-term savings on energy charges. (TVA territory doesn’t have wholesale markets that let batteries bid in for various services to make money.)
Chattanooga’s history of early tech adoption
EPB’s battery buildout puts it ahead of many bigger peers, in both absolute and relative terms.
It’s part of a pattern of the municipal utility embracing new technology to help its residents.
Perhaps most strikingly, the nonprofit installed fiber internet in city homes in 2009, before for-profit telecom providers were widely offering it. EPB became the first company to sell gig-speed internet to an entire community network, Keel said. (Current monthly rate for 1-gig Wi-Fi: an envy-inducing $67.99.)
That fiber also improves the efficiency of the electric grid: EPB piggybacked on the fiber to upgrade its grid network to advanced metering infrastructure, which sends real-time information to the utility and allows it to respond instantly to issues. EPB won accolades for the number of “smart grid” automated devices on its high-voltage distribution system per mile or per customer, Keel said.
“EPB has been incredibly impressive and forward-thinking and on the leading edge — sometimes maybe even on the bleeding edge — of technology innovation, all in the spirit of working for the benefit of their customers,” said Matt Brown, regional vice president for the Tennessee Valley at Silicon Ranch, the major solar developer based in Nashville.
Silicon Ranch is working with EPB on a different kind of money-saving clean-energy project. A large-scale solar project in West Tennessee will produce 33 megawatts for EPB as part of TVA’s Generation Flexibility program, which lets local power companies generate up to 5% of their annual demand. The project is slated to be operating by mid-2028.
That solar development will be located outside EPB’s territory, where there’s more land available. So it won’t be able to help with local reliability in Chattanooga, the way that the community batteries do. But it will generate power at cheaper rates than those of TVA, which itself has cheaper rates than most U.S. utilities, meaning that EPB can pass those savings to its customers.
“Prices are going up on everything from food to energy to housing. This provides them comfort to be able to have some rate stability and flexibility,” Brown said.
On a dry, rocky patch of his family’s farm in Door County, Wisconsin, Dave Klevesahl grows wildflowers. But he has a vision for how to squeeze more value out of the plot: lease it to a company that wants to build a community solar array.
Unfortunately for Klevesahl, that is unlikely to happen under current state law. In Wisconsin, only utilities are allowed to develop such shared solar installations, which let households and businesses that can’t put panels on their own property access renewable energy via subscriptions.
Farmers, solar advocates, and legislators from both parties are trying to remove these restrictions through Senate Bill 559, which would allow the limited development of community solar by entities other than utilities.
Wisconsin lawmakers considered similar proposals in the 2021–2022 and 2023–2024 legislative sessions, with support from trade groups representing real estate agents, farmers, grocers, and retailers. But those bipartisan efforts failed in the face of opposition from the state’s powerful utilities and labor unions.
Community solar supporters are hoping for a different outcome this legislative session, which ends in March. But while the new bill, introduced Oct. 24, includes changes meant to placate utilities, the companies still firmly oppose it.
“I don’t really understand why anybody wouldn’t want community solar,” said Klevesahl, whose wife’s family has been farming their land for generations. In addition to leasing his land for an installation, he would like to subscribe to community solar, which typically saves participants money on their energy bills.
Dave Klevesahl, second from left, and his family on their farm in Door County, Wisconsin (Photo courtesy of Dave Klevesahl)
Some Wisconsin utilities do offer their own community solar programs. But they are too small to meet the demand for community solar, advocates say.
Utilities push back on shared solar
Around 20 states and Washington, D.C., have community solar programs that allow non-utility ownership of arrays. The majority of those states, including Wisconsin’s neighbor Illinois, have deregulated energy markets, in which the utilities that distribute electricity do not generate it.
In states with “vertically integrated” energy markets, like Wisconsin, utilities serve as regulated monopolies, both generating and distributing power. That means legislation is necessary to specify that other companies are also allowed to generate and sell power from community solar. Some vertically integrated states, including Minnesota, have passed such laws.
The Wisconsin utilities We Energies and Madison Gas and Electric, according to their spokespeople, are concerned that customers who don’t subscribe to community solar will end up subsidizing costs for those who do. The utilities argue that because community solar subscribers have lower energy bills, they contribute less money for grid maintenance and construction, meaning that other customers must pay more to make up the difference. Clean-energy advocates, for their part, say this “cost shift” argument ignores research showing that the systemwide benefits of distributed energy like community solar can outweigh the expense.
The Wisconsin bill would also require utilities to buy power from community solar arrays that don’t have enough subscribers.
“This bill is being marketed as a ‘fair’ solution to advance renewables. It’s the opposite,” said We Energies spokesperson Brendan Conway. “It would force our customers to pay higher electricity costs by having them subsidize developers who want profit from a no-risk solar project. Under this bill, the developers avoid any risk. The costs of their projects will shift to and be paid for by all of our ‘non-subscribing’ customers.”
The power generated by community solar ultimately goes onto the utility’s grid, reducing the amount of electricity the utility needs to provide. But Conway said it’s not the most efficient way to meet overall demand.
“These projects would not be something we would plan for or need, so our customers would be paying for unneeded energy that benefits a very few,” he said. “Also, these credits are guaranteed by our other customers even if solar costs drop or grid needs change.”
Advocates in Wisconsin hope they can address such concerns and convince utilities to support community solar owned by third parties.
Beata Wierzba, government affairs director of the clean-power advocacy organization Renew Wisconsin, said her group and others “had an opportunity to talk with the utilities over the course of several months, trying to negotiate some language they could live with.”
“There were some exchanges where utilities gave us a dozen things that were problematic for them, and the coalition addressed them by making changes to the draft” of the bill, Wierzba said.
The spokespeople for We Energies and Madison Gas and Electric did not respond to questions about such conversations.
A small-scale start
To assuage utilities’ concerns, the bill allows third-party companies to build community solar only for the next decade. The legislation also sets a statewide cap for community solar of 1.75 gigawatts, with limits for each of the five major investor-owned utilities’ territories proportionate to each utility’s total number of customers.
Community solar arrays would be limited to 5 megawatts, with exceptions for rooftops, brownfields, and other industrial sites, where 20 megawatts can be built.
No subscriber would be allowed to buy more than 40% of the output from a single community solar array, and 60% of the subscriptions must be for 40 kilowatts of capacity or less, the bill says. This is meant to prevent one large customer — like a big-box store or factory — from buying the majority of the power and excluding others from taking advantage of the limited community solar capacity.
Customers who subscribe to community solar would still have to pay at least $20 a month to their utility for service. The bill also contains what Wierzba called an “off-ramp”: After four years, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin would study how the program is working and submit a report to the legislature, which could pass a new law to address any problems.
“The bill is almost like a small pilot project — it’s not like you’re opening the door and letting everyone come in,” said Wierzba. “You have a limit on how it can function, how many people can sign up.”
Broad support for community solar
In Wisconsin, as in other states, developers hoping to build utility-scale solar farms on agricultural land face serious pushback. The Trump administration canceled federal incentives for solar arrays on farms this summer, with U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announcing, “USDA will no longer fund taxpayer dollars for solar panels on productive farmland.”
But Wisconsin farmers have argued that community solar can actually help keep agricultural land in production by providing an extra source of revenue. The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation has yet to weigh in on this year’s bill, but it supported previously proposed community solar legislation.
The bill calls for state regulators to come up with rules for community solar developers that would likely require dual use — meaning that crops or pollinator habitats are planted under and around the panels or that animals graze on the land. These increasingly common practices are known as agrivoltaics.
The bill would let local zoning bodies — rather than the state’s Public Service Commission — decide whether to permit a community solar installation.
Utility-scale solar farms, by contrast, are permitted at the state level, which can leave “locals feeling like they are not in control of their future,” said Matt Hargarten, vice president of government and public affairs for the Coalition for Community Solar Access. “This offers an alternative that is really welcome. If a town doesn’t want this to be there, it won’t be there.”
A 5-megawatt array typically covers 20 to 30 acres of land, whereas utility-scale solar farms are often hundreds of megawatts and span thousands of acres.
“You don’t need to upgrade the transmission systems with these small solar farms, because a 30-acre solar farm can backfeed into a substation that’s already there,” noted Klevesahl, a retired electrical engineer. “And then you’re using the power locally, and it’s clean power. Bottom line is, I just think it’s the right thing to do.”
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