Tax Turbulence to RFP Goldmines: Where to Strike Next

Hi there,

Federal policy is sending mixed signals this past week.

A July 7 Executive Order instructs Treasury and Interior to tighten safe harbor rules and strictly enforce the ITC and PTC on solar and wind projects—raising additional uncertainty. Yet, in the same news cycle, FERC voted unanimously to create new categorical exclusions under NEPA, trimming months from interconnection queues and permitting for small renewables.

At the state level, North Carolina’s governor preserved Duke Energy’s 70% by 2030 carbon cap, keeping a multibillion dollar Southeast renewables pipeline alive, while PacifiCorp’s Washington and Oregon RFPs open GWs of technology diverse procurement slots with no utility self build benchmark. Australia’s AU $43 million commitment to a 50 MW green-hydrogen hub shows that public capital is still flowing to first-of-a-kind projects abroad. Meanwhile in the U.S., Arizona’s 1.2 GWh Papago battery system achieving COD provides fresh bankability data for large-scale storage.

🔦 Signals Worth Monitoring

🔨Headline: Trump to end federal subsidies for wind and solar energy through new executive order

What Happened: President Trump signed an executive order on July 7, 2025, directing the Treasury and Interior to strictly enforce termination of PTC and ITC for wind and solar facilities within 45 days while implementing stricter foreign entity restrictions.

Why Founders Should Care: This executive order reinforces the request Republicans made to strictly enforce the PTC and ITC provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill. Founders must monitor closely the changes to placed in service and safe harbor rules for start of construction, as it is likely traditional loopholes and flexibility in safe harbor rules may disappear.

🔨Headline: FERC streamlines NEPA reviews with new categorical exclusions

What Happened: A unanimous June 30 vote sets one year clocks for environmental assessments and exempts many small renewables, trimming months from interconnection timelines.

Why Founders Should Care: Developers can shave months off site permit timelines, accelerating time to revenue and reducing carrying costs.

🔨Headline: N.C. governor vetoes bill easing Duke Energy’s carbon cap

What Happened: Gov. Josh Stein rejected SB 266, which would have scrapped the 70% by 2030 emissions target and enabled advance rate hikes for new gas/nuclear.

Why Founders Should Care: Keeps a multibillion dollar Southeast renewables opportunity pipeline intact. Founders can bid into Duke IRPs without fearing state level policy.

🔨Headline: Australia commits AU $43M to Orica Hunter Valley green hydrogen hub

What Happened: Canberra’s Hydrogen Headstart program will underwrite a 50 MW electrolyzer producing 12 t/day of H₂ for ammonia decarbonization and export.

Why Founders Should Care: Government capital is still flowing to first of a kind H₂. Seek opportunities outside of the US government.

🔨Headline: Recurrent Energy energizes 1.2 GWh Papago BESS in Arizona

What Happened: The state’s largest standalone battery reached COD under a 20 year toll with APS, delivering flexible capacity ahead of peak summer demand.

Why Founders Should Care: Provides a fresh bankability benchmark for long duration storage—useful data for raising debt or structuring similar deals.

🔨Headline: DOE budget blueprint would trim OCED staff to barebones

What Happened: Analysis of the FY 2026 request shows the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations shrinking significantly and losing most discretionary dollars.

Why Founders Should Care: Demonstration stage climate ventures should expect slower grant cycles and tighter technical oversight; consider private project financing or state programs to stay on schedule.

📌 RFP Bulletin

PacifiCorp 2025 Washington Situs RFP

• 📅 Key Dates: Bid submissions due 10/22/2025

• 🗞️ What was released this week: The comment period for interested parties is currently open and will close on July 28, 2025.

• 🎯 Focus Areas: The RFP seeks proposals for a significant portfolio of new resources, including: 524 MW of utility-scale solar, 466 MW of utility scale wind, 1,147 MW of four hour battery storage, 238 MW of long duration battery storage (24+ hours). The utility is only considering Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) and Energy Storage Agreements (ESAs) — it will not submit any of its own self-build projects.

• 🗺️ Region: Washington

• 🔗 RFP Link: https://www.pacificorp.com/suppliers/rfps/2025-washington-situs-rfp.html

PacifiCorp 2025 Oregon Situs RFP

• 📅 Key Dates: Bid submissions due 12/02/2025

• 🗞️ What was released this week: Comment period ended yesterday. RFP issued to market on September 23, 2025.

• 🎯 Focus Areas: The procurement targets a large and diverse mix of resources to meet Oregon's needs: 1,570 MW of utility-scale solar, 1,400 MW of utility-scale wind, 320 MW of small-scale solar, 509 MW of four-hour duration lithium-ion batteries, 272 MW of 100-hour duration iron-air storage.

• 🗺️ Region: Oregon. Notably, all resources must be located on the west side of PacifiCorp's system due to transmission constraint.

• 🔗 RFP Link: https://www.pacificorp.com/suppliers/rfps/2025-oregon-situs-rfp.html

📝 Founder Briefing

Executive Order Impacts on Safe Harbor Rules

On July 7, 2025, an Executive Order (EO) titled “Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign Controlled Energy Sources” was issued, targeting wind and solar tax credits.

This EO directs federal agencies to aggressively implement BBB’s tightened enforcement of the start-of-construction rules. Specifically, it instructs the Treasury Department to “strictly enforce” the termination of the clean electricity PTC/ITC for wind and solar and to issue new guidance ensuring the begin construction policies “are not circumvented”.

In plain terms, Treasury has been told to crack down on any creative tactics that developers might use to qualify projects for credits before the cutoff.

Safe Harbor and Start-of-Construction Changes: A key focus of the EO is preventing “artificial acceleration or manipulation” of project start dates via the safe harbor provisions. It explicitly calls for “restricting the use of broad safe harbors unless a substantial portion of the facility has been built.”

In practice, this means the longstanding 5% cost safe harbor and related rules could be narrowed for wind and solar projects.

For example, under current guidance a developer might spend 5% of project costs or do minimal site work to claim a 2025 start – then show attempts to build the project, but it may still take until 2027-2028. The administration views such tactics as exploiting a loophole.

In fact, some policymakers had signaled this crackdown even as BBB was passing. Rep. Ralph Norman noted they don’t want developers just “taking a backhoe out there and dig a ditch and say that’s construction” to game the system. According to another congressman, President Trump personally affirmed that the government would “vigorously enforce” true construction-start dates, not allowing merely symbolic efforts. While official revised guidance is not yet out (the EO gave Treasury 45 days to act), we can anticipate stricter criteria going forward.

The goal is to ensure only genuinely committed projects (with substantial construction or investment made early) lock in the expiring wind/solar credits.

For example, Treasury might clarify that buying a few solar panels or excavating one turbine pad is insufficient to meet the safe harbor unless accompanied by substantial additional work or a sizable percentage of project cost incurred. It’s important to note that any forthcoming changes will apply going forward, rather than retroactively disqualifying projects that legitimately met the old rules.

Historically, when IRS/Treasury have tightened tax credit rules, they honor past qualifications under the prior guidance. The current begin construction framework has been in place since the 2009–2013 era, so any abrupt change will likely include a clear effective date. Developers who already started projects under the old safe harbor (e.g. before the new guidance) should remain eligible, but new projects will face the tougher standards.

Other EO Directives: In addition to safe harbor issues, the Executive Order mandates implementation of “enhanced Foreign Entity of Concern” (FEOC) restrictions from BBB. The BBB law itself introduced rules that deny credits if a project has significant components or ownership ties from certain foreign adversaries (e.g. entities linked to China). The EO simply reinforces that these anti-foreign subsidy provisions must be promptly enforced by Treasury. This could affect which solar/wind projects qualify for credits based on their supply chain and investors, but it doesn’t change the fundamental timeline or safe harbor rules – it’s an additional eligibility filter. (For example, BBB set thresholds using a “Material Assistance Cost Ratio” to measure foreign content in a project; projects must stay below those thresholds or lose the credit.

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