The U.S. renewable energy industry is accustomed to ups and downs – they don’t call it the “solarcoaster” for nothing – but the last nine months have been particularly turbulent.

The budget reconciliation bill signed into law this summer shortened runways for lenders and developers to take advantage of tax incentives for wind and solar projects. It also injected uncertainty into procurement with ambiguous foreign entity of concern (FEOC) clauses that could threaten domestic content qualifications. Hastily applied tariffs and back-and-forth international policy further complicate supply chains and spook overseas investment as the Trump administration tries to put even fully approved and under-construction clean energy projects on ice.

But the light hasn’t left the eyes of cleantechers. No, far from it.

Instead, the industry recognizes itself as an integral part of the puzzle, regardless of what the feds seem to think. Power prices are rising everywhere amidst unprecedented growth in electricity demand, and something is going to have to fuel data centers, domestic manufacturing, air conditioners, and electrification en masse. And wouldn’t you know it, solar photovoltaics and battery energy storage are still the fastest technologies to power and the most cost-efficient.

Earlier this month, tens of thousands of people took over two convention halls in Las Vegas, Nevada, for RE+, the largest renewables event in North America. Despite the turbulent times, the mood was noticeably upbeat and optimistic. Here are the top three trends that stood out.

Federal headwinds will give way to the tailwinds of demand. Wind, solar, and storage are going to play crucial roles in keeping the lights on in the United States for years to come; look no further than the Department of Energy’s new initiative to accelerate large-scale grid infrastructure projects, which doesn’t mention generation type in what appears to be an admission by omission.

Brian Nelson, renewables segment leader at ABB: “All this industry really needs is to understand what the rules are. Once the rules are firmly in place, they’ll figure out a way to continue to deploy. We need a tremendous amount of power, and renewables are going to have a seat at the table no matter what. Doesn’t matter if there’s a Republican in the top seat of the government or a Democrat.”

Joanna Martin Ziegenfus, energy storage optimization and development at Wärtsilä: “The market fundamentals remain, regardless of the OBBB and tariffs. And by market fundamentals, I mean, there’s an increase in electrification, so there’s going to be an increase in power load. There’s going to be an increase in renewable integration into the grid, and the grid is not getting younger, so all that will essentially drive further demand for battery energy storage.”

Matthew DiNisco, chief operating officer at REC Solar: “What could have been from that bill, I don’t think was as damaging to the industry as what initially leaked. Obviously, keeping it as it was would have been a lot better for the industry, but it’s not as bad. Ultimately, we are the cheapest form of new electricity, so I think we’re set up for success going forward.”

Adam Bernardi, solar director at Burns and McDonnell: “There’s a ton of foreign money that has historically been in renewables. It wouldn’t surprise me to see some of that back away, just given the uncertainty here stateside, but I think the large players will still remain. The regulated utilities, the IOUs, are still going to be in this business. They’ve got clean energy mandates, and despite all these headwinds, solar and storage are still the fastest to the grid, and we have an unprecedented amount of load growth throughout the country.”

Kevin Smith, chief operating officer at Arevon: “Natural gas has equipment issues. Our gas pipelines are packed. Any one natural gas combined cycle project could need billions of gallons of water supply. They’ve got the same interconnection issues that we have to deal with. Natural gas projects of [large scale] are five to seven years away…. Solar and battery storage are the best positioned, with or without tax credits, and the industry feels that because projects are still continuing to move forward, and there’s still demand from utilities.”

The budget reconciliation bill, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, OBBBA, or the ol’ oh-triple bee, lingers on the tips of tongues sectorwide. The foreign entities of concern (FEOC) guidance is particularly murky, despite updates in August on how taxpayers can establish the beginning of construction for wind and solar facilities under Sections 45Y and 48E. Executives I spoke with anticipate more clarification by the end of October.

Luigi Resta, president of rPlus: “Our general view, and I think most of the lawyers in the industry, is that the FEOC provisions that are in existence today, which are limited and manageable, will be there until December 31, and on January 1, the increased restrictions come into place, which are going to be problematic.”

“You don’t want to have a foreign entity of concern that has material control of operational parameters of a power plant in our electric system, right? Like, we can all agree on that. Makes tons of sense. But when it gets more challenging is when you have removed upstream ownership of a company that’s making nuts and bolts. What does it really matter if somebody’s aunt is a member of an LLC that has a washer manufacturing facility that then triggers a 10-year claw back of the tax credits?”

Kevin Smith, chief operating officer at Arevon: “It needs to really be at the component level. When you start getting into sub-components, like nuts, bolts, and screws, panels and siding, and things like that, that’s crazy. I mean, we’re not doing a lot of that manufacturing, nor probably do we want to in the U.S., so it needs to really be at the component level. Otherwise, aside from whether we manufacture in the U.S. or not, how do you track all that?”

Pointing at the table in front of him: “Is that wood? Did it come from Canada, Minnesota, or someplace else? Can it be tracked? Does it have a serial number? Of course not. Who does that? It’s just not worth it with products like that. So are nuts and bolts going to have serial numbers on each one?”

Jon Powers, co-founder of Clean Capital: “I think there needs to be a space to, like, understand the rules. There’s no stamp of approval, right? It’s not like Energy Star. We have to do that analysis ourselves, and then we also have to turn around and talk to debt providers to show we can address it. So there’s going to be significant challenges, for sure.”

Chris Wienbeck, vice president of sales and business development at Electric Power Engineers (EPE): “The large developers are trying to get what they can get for the next two years. I think that horizon is pretty straightforward. After that will be the question: How much capacity is there for [non-North American] components to come into the U.S.? I think that’s a big question mark. If you can get your supply chain set within this period of time, you’re in a good place. After that, people are really going to start struggling and will have to be creative.”

Hoping to capitalize on what’s left of clean tax credits post-OBBA, companies are racing to safe harbor equipment, temporarily tightening the supply chain, particularly for domestic components. Since FEOC guidance is still unclear, some executives are being forced to sign significant purchasing agreements without being certain that projects will still qualify.

Andy Newbold, senior director of corporate communications at Enphase Energy: “Unfortunately, it’s a mad dash to the end of the year, to safe harbor deadlines next July, and to 2027. At least we have some certainty. It’s just unfortunate that it’s all so condensed, rushed, and hurried. A lot of the major TPO providers in the resi space are making plays [to safe harbor], big commercial developers are making plays. There’s been a lot of action there. It’s tough because, as a business, it’s a type of whiplash that could impact how we determine what our demand looks like next year.”

Nick Sangermano, president, GS Power Partners: “We look at it like rings of defense. So the first ring of defense for us is that we have a control pipeline of projects that, under the legislation that has been passed, qualify. I think this is what Congress actually very much intended. If there are projects that are breaking ground by next July, we’re focusing there, and if they’re going to PTO by the end of ’27, we’re also there. So that alone is a big chunk of our control projects, our channel partners, and our EPCs. Everyone’s on board with that. To me, that’s just common sense American infrastructure, like, let’s do what we say we’re going to do and build what we say we’re going to build.”

Adam Bernardi, solar director at Burns and McDonnell: “We’ve got a line of sight to our business for ’26 and ’27. I don’t think even without OBBB we would be hearing about ’28 projects yet, but the thing I’m most excited about is that everybody has said that there are 30 gigawatts of projects safe harbored through transformers and modules. I’m looking forward to finding out where they are.”

Kevin Smith, chief operating officer at Arevon: “We’ve purchased literally hundreds of millions of dollars in panels and batteries for our future projects, and those qualify us for the start of construction. That’s already in place, previous to the Treasury guidance that just came out. We’re also purchasing transformers and other equipment because of the long lead times. Transformers have been the difficult point. We were purchasing transformers in 2024 for projects that are going to go into construction this year and next year, and maybe even the year after.”

Jon Powers, co-founder of Clean Capital: “The biggest challenge was the timing. We had to move fast. From July 4, when the bill passed, to the executive order coming out, we took that window of time and did a really strong analysis of our pipeline and our partners’ pipelines. Then we decided how much of a bet we wanted to make, and we took two incremental bets that we think are important for our pipeline. We have safe harbored panels for projects that we not only develop ourselves, but with our part

Originally by Paul Gerke of Factor This.