Energies Media
Welcome to the Solar Coaster! Now see how this entire construct plays out in an entertaining example.
A new governor comes into office and a new state congress enacts legislation asking the solar industry to show up and provide clean energy. Solar developers compete to win projects with utility customers as well as commercial and industrial customers.
Halfway through development, politics change. State congressional politics now want to stop solar energy development. Perhaps the local county that the solar project is working to gain permits in changes its policies. Maybe those policies kill the prospect of solar projects ever getting permitted.
But wait! New local leaders at the county fire the permitting manager, install a new one, and solar can go forward again. Permits secured; project continues to go forward.
But wait! The utility changes its mind about how much it will cost to connect to the electric grid. You budgeted $1 million in grid costs, the utility performs two studies to confirm your estimate, but a final study that is completed later triples that cost to $3 million. Now the project’s economics don’t work.
But wait! Interest rates just dropped, the price of steel just dropped, and tariffs on solar panels were just waived for the next two years. Now your economics work again and the project is a go! Now working through financing and gearing up for construction. Time to build the solar project.
But wait! A state agency updated its standards after working on them behind closed doors for years and your project now has to go through new environmental studies because there could be a long-eared endangered bat species near the project site, and God forbid anything were to happen to those bats. Six months delayed and later you find out there is no bat on your site, but there was a rare type of turtle that could have been spotted, but neither your consultants nor the agency will confirm or deny this to be true after all this study work and consultation. The financing community will now put a new premium on your project and add extra insurance. Your project economics don’t work again: another $1 million cost overrun.
But wait! The cost of solar panels just dropped in half and there is one construction company that can come through with a great price to install the project. Construction starts, the local community is excited to see [its] first solar power plant.
But wait! The utility needs six more months before it can connect the project to the grid due to a global supply-chain snag with electric transformer gear that just happened. The carrying costs of dragging construction debt out another six months hurt the project’s economics again, but what can you do? It’s built and just waiting to be connected to the grid.
Believe it or not, all of these things have happened on solar projects I have been involved in developing over the years. No, not all on one project like my exaggerated example above, but it’s common for there to be at least a few curveballs on most projects at the local level and then at least a few curveballs every few years at the federal or larger macroeconomic level.
And that’s why we call it the Solar Coaster. It takes a certain breed of stubborn, resilient, adaptive business professionals to enjoy this ride. The longer you’re in it, and the more you figure it out, and the more success you have in it, the deeper your fraternal bond gets with your team, your partnering companies, and the industry at large.
Excerpted from Solar Coaster: The Untold Story of the Solar Industry. Copyright ©2026 by Jared Schoch. Used with permission from the publisher, Regalo Press. All rights reserved.
Jared Schoch is founder and chairman of TurningPoint Energy and the author of Solar Coaster:The Untold Story of the Solar Industry and One Man’s Journey Leading with Soul (Regalo Press; November 10, 2026). He has spent more than 25 years developing utility-scale solar and energy infrastructure projects across the U.S. and has overseen more than three gigawatts of projects representing over $5 billion in investment while supporting the communities where he works through millions of dollars in combined personal and company charitable giving. Photo courtesy of Cara Leanord.
Jared Schoch is founder and chairman of TurningPoint Energy and the author of Solar Coaster: The Untold Story of the Solar Industry and One Man’s Journey Leading with Soul (Regalo Press; November 10, 2026). He has spent more than 25 years developing utility-scale solar and energy infrastructure projects across the U.S. and has overseen more than three gigawatts of projects representing over $5 billion in investment while supporting the communities where he works through millions of dollars in combined personal and company charitable giving. Photo courtesy of Cara Leanord.
Jared Schoch is founder and chairman of TurningPoint Energy and the author of Solar Coaster: The Untold Story of the Solar Industry and One Man’s Journey Leading with Soul (Regalo Press; November 10, 2026). He has spent more than 25 years developing utility-scale solar and energy infrastructure projects across the U.S. and has overseen more than three gigawatts of projects representing over $5 billion in investment while supporting the communities where he works through millions of dollars in combined personal and company charitable giving. Photo courtesy of Cara Leanord.

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