Solar and storage persists through change – pv magazine USA

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The flagship annual solar and storage conference drew over 500 exhibitors and nearly 10,000 attendees to San Diego, California, February 25-27 to advance solar and energy storage across the continent.

February 28, 2025 Ryan Kennedy

From Feb. 25 to 27, 2025 the Intersolar and Energy Storage North America conference took place in San Diego, California, bringing together experts and decision-makers to discuss the latest in products, innovation, policy, markets and more.

Over 500 exhibitors and nearly 10,000 people attended the event, filling the San Diego Convention Center with excitement and focus for driving advancement of solar and energy storage.

The pv magazine USA team exhibits at Intersolar North America. Image: pv magazine The event kicked off with a keynote with participation from Jesse Jenkins, professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and host of the Shift Key podcast. The panel was recorded as a live session of the podcast. Jenkins was joined by representatives from Heatmap News, EDP Renewables, and the International Renewable Energy Council. The panel discussed the navigation away from fossil fuels and toward an emissions-free energy system and touched on the challenges associated with the new U.S. Administration, which has shifted its focus back toward a fossil fuel-based era of “American Energy Dominance.”

“The big shock is disregard of the current administration for contractually obligated funds that were about 85% or so of the overall discretionary funding available under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA),” said Jenkins. “So – that’s putting aside the tax credits which are executed through the tax code – these are grants, loans, loan guarantees, rebates, et cetera that are up to the executive branch to execute.”

Through an executive order, the Trump Administration order a pause to IRA funds. While much of the funding has been contractually obligated, it remains unclear how much, and how much money could be clawed back. The Environmental Protection Agency announced it seeks to “instantly terminate” over $20 billion in disbursed funds from the IRA, leaving many to wonder about the fate of programs like the $7 billion Solar For All program, among others.

To add to this uncertainty, it is expected that Congress will review and evaluate cutting core IRA elements such as the investment tax credit (ITC) and production tax credit (PTC), programs, which have a legacy of success in launching renewable energy since before the IRA was passed. This uncertainty slows the industry down, and even if the tax credits are retained, the pain of this regulatory murkiness is expected to be felt until late 2025 when Congress evaluates its budget reconciliation bill.

And yet, the Intersolar conference persisted this year drawing crowd sizes similar to years defined by optimism when the Biden Administration passed the landmark IRA. Many attendees spoke with pv magazine USA about the promise of solar and energy storage to meet rising electricity demand. After a decade of nearly flat electricity demand, electrification of transportation, building appliances and the rise of datacenters is expected to keep the industry size large.

While the U.S. is considered a growth market for solar and storage, its role may be shifting from an energy transition standpoint. Analysts from Rystad Energy told pv magazine USA that with tariffs, grant funding and tax credits shifting, and oil and gas permitting loosened, the cost structure is changing. This may lead renewable energy to shift from a “replacement” strategy, pushing out oil and gas resources, to an “additional” resource, serving increased demand while emitting sources of power also grow.

Rising to meet this moment, project developers, product innovators and policy experts continued to ring the bell at Intersolar, highlighting the unique ability of solar plus energy storage to be installed in many formats, from large utility-scale load-serving projects, to small, distributed and flexible resources, generating and storing power locally and responding to increased grid blackouts, extreme weather and other resiliency threats.

Attendees generally expressed optimism for solar and energy storage despite recent political challenges. The cost structure trend continues to improve in the long-term, making the rise of solar and storage inevitable. BloombergNEF reported global investment in clean energy technologies hit a record of $2.1 trillion in 2024. This represents 11% growth from 2023 totals and is more than double the total investment made in 2020.

“New solar plants, even without subsidies, are within touching distance of new U.S. gas plants,” the report said.

pv magazine USA looks forward to highlighting many of the innovations we found on the floor at Intersolar and Energy Storage North America 2025. Stay tuned for more coverage, and thank you to all who attended the flagship annual event.

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