Trump administration bans new foreign-made inverters, throwing a wrench into solar, wind

KEY DEVELOPMENTS

• FCC Bans New Foreign-Made Inverter Imports: The Trump administration barred imports and domestic use of new foreign-manufactured power inverters, a move that touches virtually every solar, wind, and battery storage project in development. Developers reliant on Chinese and European inverter suppliers face immediate procurement uncertainty —. Read More: Canary Media, Solar Power World.
• Tesla Locks In 1-TWh Arizona Solar-Storage PPA: ContourGlobal signed one of the largest single-plant corporate PPAs in U.S. history with Tesla for Project Sterling — a 450–509 MW solar and 1.4 GWh battery hybrid in , delivering roughly 1 TWh annually with a 2028 commercial operation date —. Read More: Arizona, PV Magazine USA.
• Panamint Breaks Ground on 1.2-GW Texas Solar Farm: The $1.7 billion Big Rooter Power project in Bremond will convert former coal mining land into one of the largest solar-plus-storage facilities in —. Read More: Texas, Canary Media.
• Massive Ohio Battery Will Power AI Data Complex: A utility-scale battery storage system near Columbus will rank as the largest east of the Mississippi, built specifically to serve an AI computing facility in PJM territory —. Read More: Ohio, Canary Media.
• Michigan Panel Unanimously Rejects 1,500-Acre Solar Rezone: Wexford Joint Planning Commission in voted unanimously to deny the zoning amendment that would have opened agricultural and forest land to a large-scale solar array, handing local opponents a clear win —. Read More: Michigan, Michigan Advance.

Solar & Storage

The day's biggest deal landed in the desert. Tesla and ContourGlobal formalized a long-term power purchase agreement for Project Sterling, a hybrid facility combining roughly 450–509 MW of solar generation with 360 MW / 1.4 GWh of battery storage in Arizona. The contract covers approximately 1 TWh of electricity per year — enough to make it one of the largest renewable energy PPAs from a single plant ever signed in the United States, according to and. Construction is expected to begin this year, with commercial operation targeted for 2028. For corporate renewable procurement teams watching the market, the deal signals that large single-buyer offtake structures for solar-plus-storage hybrids are now bankable at terawatt-hour scale. Read More: CleanTechnica, PV Magazine.

In Texas, Panamint Capital broke ground on a project that turns the coal-to-solar pipeline from metaphor into earthmoving. The Big Rooter Power solar farm in Bremond will occupy former coal mining land and deliver 1.2 GW of solar generation paired with battery storage, backed by $1.7 billion in investment. It joins a growing roster of mine reclamation-to-solar conversions, and its sheer size — more than double many utility-scale projects announced this year — will test ERCOT's ability to absorb another slug of intermittent generation. Developers eyeing similar brownfield sites should note the permitting advantage: research from The Nature Conservancy and ECOnorthwest, published this week and , found that utility-scale solar projects in California on previously disturbed lands move through permitting faster than those proposed on undisturbed natural land. The finding has obvious relevance well beyond California's borders. Read More: covered by CleanTechnica.

Not every solar project is moving forward smoothly. In Michigan, the Wexford Joint Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend against a zoning amendment that would have allowed a proposed 1,500-acre solar array on agricultural and forest-zoned land. Local opposition drove the outcome, and the decision illustrates a pattern that rural communities increasingly wield zoning authority to block utility-scale solar siting — a trend that adds risk for developers who haven't invested in early community engagement. Meanwhile in Georgia, Cherry Street Energy quietly for Arglass, a glass container manufacturer in Valdosta, demonstrating that behind-the-meter industrial solar can sidestep the local opposition battles that dog utility-scale projects. Read More: completed a 6-MW on-site solar installation.

Data centers continue to reshape the storage market. Near Columbus, Ohio, a battery system billed as the largest east of the Mississippi is being developed to serve an AI computing complex, according to. The project sits within PJM, where data center load growth is already straining generation planning. This comes just days after Ohio's JobsOhio fund drew criticism for excluding renewables from its $100 million energy opportunity initiative — yet the state is now attracting exactly the kind of large-scale storage investment that its own incentive program bypassed. In Virginia, Loudoun County is on new data center applications and has already replaced by-right permitting with conditional use permits requiring greater public input, including scrutiny of onsite power generation and storage plans. For storage developers counting on data center co-location, the Loudoun moratorium discussion is a warning that local governments may start rationing the very demand that has been justifying their projects. Read More: Canary Media, considering a pause.

Policy & Markets

The inverter ban is the story that will keep clean energy lawyers busy into August. The Trump administration, through the FCC, has prohibited the import and domestic use of new foreign-manufactured power inverters, citing national security concerns. The scope is sweeping: inverters are the electronic backbone of every solar array, battery storage system, and many wind installations. Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei and Sungrow have been dominant suppliers globally, while European firms including SMA and Fronius hold significant U.S. market share. The ban on "new" units leaves open questions — whether equipment already ordered, in transit, or warehoused counts as exempt remains unclear. Read More: Canary Media reports.

For developers, the immediate calculus is brutal. Domestic inverter manufacturing capacity, led by companies like Enphase (which makes microinverters in the U.S.) and SolarEdge (which has some U.S. assembly), is nowhere near sufficient to replace the volume of foreign-sourced units currently flowing into utility-scale and distributed generation projects. Lead times for large string and central inverters were already stretching to 20–30 weeks before this policy dropped. Projects in late-stage development that haven't locked in inverter supply may now face months of delay or significant cost increases — potentially stranding interconnection queue positions and tax credit timelines.

The ban also complicates the very deals announced today. Both Project Sterling in Arizona and Big Rooter Power in Texas will require massive quantities of inverters over the next two to three years. Whether their procurement plans accounted for a policy shift this aggressive will determine whether those 2028 commercial operation dates hold.

LOOKING AHEAD

• Inverter Supply Chain Scramble: Watch for emergency guidance from the FCC and Commerce Department clarifying the ban's scope — whether equipment in transit or already contracted is grandfathered will determine how many gigawatts of projects face immediate disruption.
• Loudoun County Data Center Vote: Virginia's Loudoun County could formalize a moratorium on new data center applications, a decision that would ripple through co-located energy storage project pipelines across Northern Virginia.
• Project Sterling Permitting: ContourGlobal's 509-MW Arizona solar-storage hybrid must clear remaining state and county permits before construction begins in earnest — any local opposition or environmental review delays would test the 2028 operational target.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The foreign inverter ban just inserted a hardware bottleneck into every solar, storage, and wind project timeline in America — and it landed on the same day the industry announced some of its most ambitious new builds, exposing a widening gap between deployment ambition and supply chain reality.