Home/Business/Project Development
The folks running the U.S. Department of Energy’s social media found a way to reiterate the current administration’s distaste for renewables while reminding us they know it’s football season, too.
Last week, the DOE posted a mock fantasy roster for the “American Energy Dominance” team, with each slot filled by a generation technology. Natural gas at quarterback, oil at running back, nuclear at wide receiver, etc.
Solar and wind are listed as “questionable,” a common injury designation in the National Football League, for those blissfully unaware. The implication, of course, is that neither can be relied upon when needed.
While going viral for misguided clean energy takes is nothing new for Energy Secretary Chris Wright, this gag at the expense of the U.S. solar industry is particularly tone deaf considering the roadblocks and pitfalls laid out by the Trump Administration, like back-and-forth tariffs, ambiguous foreign ownership clauses, disappearing tax credits, various crackdowns on foreign polysilicon, and slow-walking permitting.
But like a little daisy wriggling up through a crack in the concrete, solar in particular persists- and the DOE ought to get used to seeing it in the lineup.
In fact, the United States now has enough operating solar capacity to power more than one-third of all American homes. Solar and energy storage (the panacea to the pervasive: What do you do when the sun isn’t shining?) account for 70% of all new capacity added to the grid in the first half of 2026, according to new data from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie. The solar industry added 11.4 gigawatts (GW) of new electricity-generating capacity in the second quarter of 2026, a 45% year-over-year increase and a 43% increase from Q1.
“Solar and storage have grown to a scale most Americans have yet to fully realize, and we simply can’t meet America’s growing energy needs without these technologies,” assessed SEIA CEO and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.
SEIA predicts the U.S. solar market will nearly double over the next five years. Right now, business is booming coast to coast, particularly in states won by President Trump in 2024, which accounted for 71% of all solar capacity installed in the first half of 2026 and eight of the top 10 states for new solar installations.
That’s a lot of production from your FLEX spot! Hope it’s a keeper league.
Hello and welcome to the Factor This Brief, a weekly collection of energy industry finance and development updates, delivered straight to your inbox on Monday mornings and hosted in a not-so-brief fashion here on Factor This, featuring the people, projects, and technology driving our electric future.
Thanks for checking it out. If you like what you see here or want to recommend a story for next week, drop me a line. As always, here’s a tune for the long and winding road. I hope your next Pop-Tart has icing all the way to the edges.
Utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) typically take nine months or longer to build, but some developers are significantly truncating traditional timelines as speed-to-power looms critical. Case in point: the 160-megawatt (MW) SMT Houston IV BESS in Houston, Texas, which took just six weeks to commission and energize.
Developer, owner, and operator SMT Energy worked with electric infrastructure contractor Irby Construction and battery provider and optimizer FlexGen Power Systems to commission the project three times faster than originally planned.
This summer, Texas has repeatedly broken its electricity demand records and is staring down the barrel of staggering growth projections that threaten to triple (or more) load on the ERCOT system, underscoring the importance of battery storage. Houston IV joins more than a dozen projects built and commissioned by SMT and FlexGen that support the ERCOT grid, totaling more than 300 MW of battery storage capacity.
“Bringing a 160-MW battery storage facility online in just six weeks required disciplined planning, seamless coordination, and an unwavering focus on safety and quality,” reckoned Shaun Coleman, project manager at Irby Construction, SMT and FlexGen’s engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) partner.
“Projects like Houston IV don’t get built from behind a desk. They get built in the field by men and women showing up every day, working long hours, solving problems, and getting the job done,” added Henry Hernandez, director of construction at SMT Energy. “Houston IV turned on faster than any other battery storage plant in our history because there was quality at every stage, from procurement to commissioning.”
SMT Energy cited FlexGen’s One-Touch Commissioning deployment method as critical to providing battery reliability to its customers. FlexGen says it consistently delivers installations faster than the industry average because its systems are pre-configured in a lab, remotely assisted in real time by a remote operations center (ROC), and executed by a dedicated field commissioning team.
“What used to take 25-plus weeks took us six,” said Jason Rislov, SVP of operations at FlexGen. “That time saved translates directly into giving the grid and consumers what they need most right now: a more reliable, resilient energy system.”
Suniva, the largest and oldest American manufacturer of high-efficiency monocrystalline silicon solar cells, has attracted $835 million from investors to build a second U.S. solar cell manufacturing facility that will more than quadruple its domestic capacity.
Suniva, which boasts a fully operational facility in Norcross, Georgia, delivering 1 GW of cells annually, is building a new 4.5 GW plant in Laurens County, South Carolina, with completion expected in late 2027 and full ramp expected in 2028. The shell of the 621,468-square-foot building is already complete. The fully funded project represents an approximately $600 million investment and will spur 564 new advanced manufacturing jobs in South Carolina’s Upstate region.
Suniva says its expansion is de-risked by a domestic supply chain already in place and long-term product offtake agreements with leading U.S. solar players for most of its planned future production. The company expects the new Laurens County capacity to be “highly competitive” as it comes online.
“Suniva is scaling from a position of strength,” assessed Connor Arras, managing director of climate credit at Goldman Sachs Alternatives. “They’re already producing at commercial scale, have locked in critical domestic supply relationships, and have long-term customer commitments covering their planned output. Combined with a fully funded expansion, that gives us confidence in Suniva’s ability to become an even more important supplier to America’s solar industry as the country works toward domestic supply chain independence.”
“U.S. energy independence and meeting the needs of increasing energy usage in the United States requires domestic production of U.S. solar cells. As the only U.S.-owned solar cell manufacturer at commercial scale, we believe Suniva is uniquely well positioned in the market. We look forward to helping the United States and the Administration achieve its important goal of U.S. energy independence,” added Tony Etnyre, CEO of Suniva.
The capital raise includes both debt and equity financing from a group of top-tier financial partners, including Suniva’s largest shareholder and long-term backer, Lion Point Capital. It consists of senior secured credit facilities provided by funds managed by Goldman Sachs Alternatives and I Squared Capital, a second lien credit facility provided by JBA Asset Management, and equity investments by Electron Capital Partners, Orion Infrastructure Capital (OIC), and Rubric Capital Management, along with certain other investors. Roth Capital Partners served as lead private placement agent to Suniva. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP served as legal counsel to Roth. Rodman & Renshaw served as a financial advisor to Suniva. J.P. Morgan acted as the sole structuring agent to Suniva. Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP served as legal counsel to Suniva.
Suniva announced in June that it signed a definitive reverse merger agreement and will merge with a wholly-owned subsidiary of SUNation Energy (Nasdaq: SUNE), a leading provider of residential and commercial solar energy systems, battery storage solutions, and comprehensive energy services. The combined company is expected to operate under the Suniva name and continue SUNation’s listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market.
San Antonio-based developer OCI Energy and Israeli independent power producer (IPP) Arava Power kicked off September by breaking ground on the 347 MWdc SunRoper Solar project, marking the start of construction in Wharton County, Texas, near the Houston metropolitan area.
Expected to begin operations in December 2027, the project is being jointly developed by OCI Energy and Arava Power. It was financed by ING and will be built by EPC contractor WHC. SunRoper is lined up to provide electricity to an as-yet-unspecified Fortune 100 company under a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA).
“SunRoper demonstrates how strategic partnerships can help meet Texas’ growing demand for electricity through investments in critical energy infrastructure,” observed Sabah Bayatli, president of OCI Energy.
“SunRoper represents another important step in Arava Power’s evolution from a pioneer of Israel’s solar market into a growing international renewable energy platform. Our collaboration with OCI Energy has been instrumental in advancing this project and reflects the kind of strong local partnership that supports our long-term growth in the U.S. market,” chimed Ilan Zidkony, CEO of Arava Power. “SunRoper reflects our focus on building high-quality, long-term renewable energy assets through disciplined execution, while further strengthening Arava Power’s presence in the United States.”
Learn more about OCI Energy on the Factor This podcast: Solar, storage, and staying ahead: OCI Energy’s growth story
Nuclear startup Bluecore Energy is making a big splash, announcing an oversubscribed $50 million seed round last week to support development of its small modular, water-cooled nuclear power reactors (SMRs) designed to operate aboard floating barges. The company, founded earlier this year, emerged from stealth in July with $10M in pre-seed funding in its coffers.
Bluecore’s first application will be electricity generation, followed by a longer-term ambition of building nuclear energy systems for the maritime economy. The aim is to deliver reliable, zero-emission power directly to ports, critical infrastructure, and eventually cargo ship propulsion. Rather than waiting years for new electric infrastructure, Bluecore’s systems promise on-site power in days.
“Our mission is simple: democratize access to clean energy,” explained founder and CEO Kofi Asante. “Billions of people live near water, yet access to reliable power is still too often constrained by geography and existing infrastructure. We want to build a future where clean energy can go where it is needed.”
Bluecore Energy’s first barge and electric test reactor at its headquarters at the Port of Long Beach (left) and founder Kofi Asante (right). Courtesy: Bluecore Energy
Bluecore Energy has already delivered its first barge and electric test reactor to its headquarters at the Port of Long Beach, California, becoming the first small modular reactor company to establish an HQ inside a major U.S. port. The Port of Long Beach is one of the busiest container ports in the United States, handling more than 9 million container units and approximately $300 billion in cargo annually.
The initial 10 MWe system is being developed to power the equivalent of approximately 15,000 homes or scale to meet the power needs of a major port. Designed to be fueled just once and then operate for years, the reactors (which can be scaled) can provide a new power source for ports, utilities, data centers, offshore infrastructure, and communities facing energy constraints.
“My team and I took nuclear reactor te
chnology that’s been running power plants safely for seventy years, made it smaller, and put it on a barge. A power plant that floats,” summarized Asante.
According to TechCrunch, Bluecore wasn’t planning to raise money this year, but calls kept coming after its pre-seed launch. Many of the startup’s original investors, including Slauson & Co., Harlem Capital, and Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, doubled down on the new $50M round, with new capital coming from the likes of Collab Capital, Kevin Hart’s HartBeat Ventures, plus angel investments from Tesla, Uber, Amazon, and Google. Silverton Partners led the new seed round, which took eight weeks to close.
Green data center developer Soluna Holdings is celebrating major milestones down in Texas, energizing the last leg of a wind-powered project and learning its expansion will be considered base load by the local grid operator.
Soluna has energized the final 14 MW at Project Kati 1, completing the 83 MW site, and has been notified that ERCOT has conditionally classified the full 166 MW Kati campus, including the planned Kati 2 expansion, as Base Load in its Batch Zero interconnection process.
Batch Zero is ERCOT’s transitional process for evaluating large load interconnection requests system-wide, replacing the prior project-by-project approach. A Base Load classification means a project’s interconnection capacity is preserved on the basis of prior study work, and that the project is not subject to further reliability evaluation or megawatt allocation within the Batch Zero study. According to ERCOT, more than 438,000 MW of large load interconnection requests had entered the queue as of mid-2026, with nearly 90% coming from data centers.
“This is proof that the Soluna model works,” observed John Belizaire, CEO of Soluna. “We build where the power already is, and we bring generation with us, and ERCOT’s framework recognizes exactly that. Kati 1 is finished and energized today, and our full 166 megawatts is positioned as Base Load while much of the market is still waiting to learn what it will be allocated.”
Project Kati is a 166 MW wind-powered campus in Willacy County, Texas, powered by the Las Majadas wind energy project and built in two phases. Kati 1, the 83 MW first phase, is dedicated to Bitcoin hosting. Kati 2 will add 83 MW for AI and high-performance computing. Built behind the meter, the campus converts stranded renewable energy into productive computing capacity while bypassing the transmission upgrades and interconnection queues that constrain grid-connected development.
The classification is conditional pending completion of ERCOT’s ongoing verification process, under which ERCOT may remove a project from Batch Zero if the applicant does not respond to its information requests. Soluna is participating in the verification process and expects the full 166 MW to be confirmed as Base Load.
Soluna’s total operating capacity is up to approximately 206 MW, and the company claims it is advancing a development pipeline of approximately 6.3 GW, including more than 650 MW of AI and high-performance computing capacity in development at Kati 2 and Project Dorothy 3.
source
Read Exclusive Stories
Bookmark & Save Articles For Later
You must be logged in to post a comment.