25): IRA credits and energy demand continue to drive renewables investments

Utility Dive: IRA credits and energy demand continue to drive renewables investments
Diana DiGangi, 3/13/25

“The financial case for renewable energy projects is still strong, say industry leaders and analysts, even as President Trump introduces uncertainty into the market with new tariffs, policies that prioritize fossil fuel development, and his pledge to work with Congress to claw back funds from the Inflation Reduction Act,” Utility Dive reports. “The IRA’s investment tax credit, or ITC, “should survive pretty much unscathed,” Brad Molotsky, a partner at law firm Duane Morris, told Utility Dive. In addition, data center growth along with surging building and vehicle electrification will keep electricity demand high, said Paul DeCotis, a senior partner and head of East Coast energy and utilities at West Monroe. “In light of that [demand], politicians on both sides of the aisle agree that we need more power infrastructure, and 95% of the interconnection queue currently is clean energy,” Crux CEO Alfred Johnson told Utility Dive. “That is the fastest to deploy, and in many cases, the most affordable choice for new power.”

Johnson told Utility Dive he hasn’t yet seen investors or lenders pulling back from the clean energy sector in response to recent uncertainty. “The levelized cost of energy from clean sources is as competitive, or more competitive than others,” he told Utility Dive. “And so companies are making corporate business decisions to solve the needs of more energy demand and the need for domestic components — they’re making those decisions irrespective of any views that they may have, politically or otherwise.” Those decisions require capital, Johnson told Utility Dive, and “we’re seeing more of it flow than we’ve ever seen before.”