Renew. Rethink. Read.
Exploring the future of legacy commercial solar.
National Grid won approval to raise gas and electric rates by nearly $1 billion over three years, adding about $600 annually to household bills. A new bill proposes giving lawmakers, not just regulators, authority to review and reverse future utility hikes.
Sunrun reports that 70% of new solar customers added home batteries in Q2 2025, up from 54% a year ago. Storage is growing faster than solar alone, driven by California’s NEM 3.0 and grid events that show the power of virtual power plants.
MIT found that 81 innovations cut solar costs by 99%—and most came from outside the solar industry. From semiconductors to metallurgy to construction and finance, unexpected allies shaped the solar boom. The same mindset could unlock a second wave of value through repowering.
Con Edison is asking for double-digit rate hikes to fund $21 billion in grid upgrades, but New Yorkers already face some of the highest bills in the U.S. Regulators are pushing back, leaving a tough question: how do we prepare the grid without pricing people out?
Germany’s Elster wind farm just proved the power of repowering: 16 modern turbines replaced 50 old ones, boosting output sixfold while using less land. The same opportunity now exists across aging U.S. solar sites.
American Electric Power expects 24 GW of new demand by 2030, a 65% jump over its current 37 GW peak. Most of it comes from data centers and crypto, concentrated in Texas and PJM states. With 190 GW of interest waiting, fuel cells may help at the margins—but big questions remain about how the grid will scale.
