A tribal solar project in New Mexico broke ground days before a federal permit freeze could kill it

KEY DEVELOPMENTS

• Tribal 170 MW Solar Project Dodges Federal Permit Freeze: DESRI broke ground on the Foxtail Flats Solar project — 170 MW of solar plus 80 MW of battery storage — on Ute Mountain Ute tribal lands in northwest , securing federal approvals just before new permitting restrictions took effect. The site is the first phase of a planned 350 MW solar and 350 MW storage build-out that includes the 100 MW Four Mile Mesa array. Read More: New Mexico, PV Magazine USA.
• Trump Administration Offers Buyouts to Kill Offshore Wind: The administration is blocking new offshore wind permits and offering billion-dollar buyouts to developers willing to abandon projects, according to reports across multiple state outlets. East Coast states including are banking on a post-Trump revival but fear permanent capital flight from the sector. Read More: New York, Maryland Matters.
• Ohio ALEC-Backed Bill Targets Large Renewables: Senate Bill 294 in would pile new regulatory hurdles on utility-scale solar and wind farms while expanding preferences for natural gas and nuclear generation, based on an American Legislative Exchange Council model bill now circulating in multiple states. Read More: Ohio, Ohio Capital Journal.
• IPX Power Lands Gigawatt-Scale California Financing: IPX Power secured billions in financing for gigawatt-scale solar and storage projects near Fresno while separately a $3 million solar-plus-battery project won approval in rural Allakaket, Alaska. Read More: California, Solar Builder.
• CAISO 100 MW Battery Publishes First-Year Performance Data: The Caballero battery energy storage system — 100 MW/400 MWh — completed its first full year on California's CAISO grid, and real-world performance data now offers developers benchmarks that go well beyond theoretical projections for grid-scale storage. Read More: Power Magazine.

Solar & Storage

The Foxtail Flats project on Ute Mountain Ute land stands out not just for its size but for its timing. DESRI, one of the largest independent solar developers in the U.S., managed to secure the Bureau of Indian Affairs approvals needed for the 170 MW solar and 80 MW storage project before the Trump administration's permitting restrictions clamped down on new federal land authorizations. That makes the project something of a template — and a warning — for other developers eyeing tribal and federal lands, where the window for approvals has narrowed sharply. The broader build-out, if completed, would total 350 MW of solar paired with 350 MW of storage, including a second phase called Four Mile Mesa at 100 MW. For the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, whose reservation straddles Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, the project represents a revenue stream on land that has historically generated little economic return. For the industry, it raises a pointed question: how many other projects weren't fast enough?

California continues to absorb the lion's share of large-scale solar and storage capital. IPX Power's gigawatt-scale financing near Fresno — the company has not disclosed precise dollar figures publicly, but reporting describes the deal in the billions — signals that institutional investors remain willing to write very large checks for projects in CAISO territory, where wholesale price volatility and capacity shortfalls create strong revenue cases for solar-plus-storage. That confidence is backed by hard operating data: the Caballero battery system, a 100 MW/400 MWh installation that began commercial operation in early 2025, has now published its. Those numbers matter enormously for project finance teams modeling degradation curves, round-trip efficiency, and ancillary-services revenue — the gap between a vendor's spec sheet and 8,760 hours of real dispatch has historically been wide enough to blow up pro formas. Read More: first full year of performance results.

Smaller projects are finding traction on tribal lands too. The Coyote Valley Casino & Hotel in California's Redwood Valley completed a 2.23 MW solar carport installation, with SunRenu Solar handling construction. The system — a combination of rooftop and carport arrays — is expected to generate 3.5 GWh annually and save the tribe more than $450,000 in its first year, with. It's a modest project by utility-scale standards, but it illustrates how tribal sovereignty can simplify siting and permitting at a moment when those processes are getting harder nearly everywhere else. Read More: excess power flowing to nearby tribal facilities.

That difficulty is driving creative responses. Agrivoltaics — co-locating solar panels with crop production or grazing — is gaining traction as a permitting and market-access strategy. The logic is straightforward: with hundreds of rural counties restricting or banning utility-scale solar outright through local zoning, developers who can demonstrate continued agricultural use on the same parcel face fewer political headwinds. Solar accounted for 81% of new U.S. generation capacity in 2024, but that growth is colliding with land-use conflicts that agrivoltaic designs may help defuse — or at least defer. Read More: according to a PV Magazine USA analysis.

Wind Energy

The offshore wind industry is in a holding pattern that could become a death spiral. Reporting from outlets in , Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio paints a consistent picture: the Trump administration has blocked new offshore wind permits and is now actively offering buyouts to developers willing to walk away from existing lease areas. The strategy goes beyond a permitting pause. It creates a financial incentive to abandon projects, which could scatter the specialized supply chains, port infrastructure, and workforce pipelines that East Coast states have spent years assembling. Read More: Maryland.

State leaders — particularly in New York — say they want developers to stay committed and are framing the current federal stance as temporary. But "temporary" is a hard sell to companies facing carrying costs on idle leases and no federal revenue pathway. The risk for states isn't just project delay; it's that European turbine manufacturers and installation vessel operators redirect capacity to markets where governments are accelerating, not obstructing, deployment. Once that supply chain pivots, bringing it back will cost more and take longer. Developers with active offtake agreements and state-level support may hold on. Those without contracts have less reason to wait.

Policy & Markets

Ohio's Senate Bill 294 deserves close attention beyond the Buckeye State. The bill would expand preferences for natural gas and nuclear generation while layering additional regulatory requirements on solar and wind farm developers — effectively contradicting Ohio's earlier energy legislation that was framed as technology-neutral. The ALEC template is reportedly circulating in multiple state legislatures, meaning Ohio could be the test vote for a coordinated push to reshape state-level renewable energy rules across the Midwest and South. Read More: based on an ALEC model.

For developers with projects in Ohio's interconnection queue, the bill's progress is a material risk. Additional regulatory steps translate directly into longer timelines and higher soft costs, and the bill's preference for gas and nuclear could shift capacity procurement incentives at the utility level. Combined with the federal permitting tightening and offshore wind buyout offers, the policy environment for new large-scale renewables is the most constrained it has been since before the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022 — even as the IRA's tax credits remain on the books.

Meanwhile, Alaska approved a $3 million solar and battery storage project for the remote village of Allakaket, a decision that highlights how off-grid communities face entirely different economics. When the alternative is diesel at several dollars a gallon barged up a river, even small solar-plus-storage systems pencil out easily. The project won't move national capacity numbers, but it signals that clean energy deployment logic holds even in the most challenging geographies when fossil fuel costs are high enough.

LOOKING AHEAD

• Ohio SB 294 Committee Votes: Watch for scheduling of committee hearings on the ALEC-backed bill; if it advances before the legislature's summer recess, copycat bills in other states will likely accelerate on similar timelines.
• Offshore Wind Buyout Responses: Developers with active federal leases face a decision point on whether to accept administration buyout offers or hold their positions — expect at least one major company to signal its intentions in the coming weeks.
• Foxtail Flats Phase 2 Permits: DESRI's 100 MW Four Mile Mesa array still needs approvals; whether it can advance under current federal restrictions will test whether the Ute Mountain Ute project is a replicable model or a one-time escape.

THE BOTTOM LINE: From tribal lands to state capitols to offshore lease areas, today's news makes one thing clear: the ability to secure and defend permits — not panel costs or financing terms — is now the binding constraint on American clean energy growth.