Community solar pulls in $370 million in a single day
KEY DEVELOPMENTS
- Generate Capital Closes $117M for 114 MW of Community Solar: MUFG provided a $117 million term debt facility backing 18 community solar projects totaling 114 MWdc across New York and Illinois, funding Generate's Community Solar Fund 11. PV Magazine USA. Read More: PV Magazine USA.
- 38 Degrees North Lands $260M for 85 MW Solar Portfolio: Apterra Infrastructure Capital provided the oversubscribed facility for community solar projects in New York and Illinois, signaling strong investor appetite for the asset class. PV Magazine USA. Read More: PV Magazine USA.
- Georgia Power Energizes 512 MWh Battery at Air Force Base: A 128 MW / 512 MWh system at Robins Air Force Base now pairs with an adjacent solar facility, marking one of the largest military-site storage deployments in the Southeast. Solar Power World. Read More: Solar Power World.
- FCC Inverter Ban May Threaten Renewables More Than FEOC Rules: Industry experts warn that the federal ban on certain power equipment imports poses a larger obstacle to solar and storage deployment than foreign entity of concern compliance requirements. Energy Storage News. Read More: Energy Storage News.
- RMI and GridLab Push PJM Toward Energy-Only Market Model: A new paper argues PJM's capacity market structure is failing to incentivize new solar and storage construction and calls for a shift toward an energy-centric design modeled on ERCOT. PV Magazine USA. Read More: PV Magazine USA.
Solar & Storage
Two community solar financings landed within hours of each other on Monday, and together they tell a story about where private capital sees durable value. Generate Capital's $117 million facility from MUFG backs 18 projects totaling 114 MWdc in New York and Illinois. Separately, 38 Degrees North closed a $260 million facility from Apterra Infrastructure Capital for roughly 85 MW in the same two states — a deal that was oversubscribed, meaning lender demand exceeded the developer's ask. That combined $377 million across roughly 200 MW of capacity amounts to about $1.9 million per megawatt in project-level debt — a figure that suggests banks view contracted community solar revenue as bankable even amid federal policy uncertainty. Read More: oversubscribed.
The geographic concentration matters. New York and Illinois remain two of the few states with mature, legislatively backed community solar programs, and this week's deals reinforce a pattern flagged in Monday's briefing: community solar growth is clustering in a handful of states with strong regulatory frameworks while contracting elsewhere. For developers scouting new markets, the message from capital providers is clear — program design and state-level policy stability are doing more to unlock financing than any single federal incentive.
In New Jersey, community solar is growing at the rooftop scale too. High Street Logistics Properties completed two rooftop installations totaling 2 MW across 204,000 square feet at properties in Bridgewater, developed by SolarKal as part of the state's Community Solar Energy Program, according to Solar Power World. The project is modest in scale but illustrative: commercial rooftops remain one of the easiest paths for community solar in dense Northeastern markets where ground-mount siting faces pushback. Read More: Solar Power World.
Meanwhile in Georgia, utility-scale storage took a major step forward. Georgia Power completed a 128 MW / 512 MWh battery energy storage system at Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins, pairing it with the existing Robins Solar Facility. The four-hour-duration system is designed to bolster energy resilience at the military installation while operating within Georgia Power's broader grid territory, per Solar Power World. Coming just a day after Georgia Power won regulatory approval for 1.1 GW of solar power purchase agreements, the Robins BESS signals that the state's largest utility is building out paired solar-plus-storage at scale — a notable shift in a state long dominated by gas and nuclear generation. Read More: Solar Power World.
In Texas, B2U Battery + Grid Solutions announced its second battery storage project in the ERCOT market, this one built around second-life EV batteries sourced through a supply agreement with Waymo. The company told Utility Dive it plans more ERCOT projects as growing EV adoption rates increase the availability of retired vehicle batteries for stationary grid applications. For a market that just saw a six-week BESS build, as covered in Monday's briefing, Texas continues to serve as the proving ground for unconventional storage business models. Read More: told Utility Dive.
Milwaukee also celebrated the completion of a 4.6 MW solar expansion at a former landfill near Mitchell International Airport, bringing total on-site capacity to 6.85 MW. Owned by We Energies and developed by SunVest, the project built on an original 2.2 MW array completed in 2021, according to Solar Power World. Read More: Solar Power World.
Wind Energy
GE Vernova's Onshore Wind division secured an order to supply seven 4.2 MW turbines for a wind farm in Japan operated by Eurus Energy Holdings Corp, featuring 117-meter hub heights, according to Power Magazine. The 29.4 MW project is a small deal by global standards, but for GE Vernova the order reflects continued demand for its onshore platform in Asian markets at a time when the company's domestic order book faces headwinds from federal permitting slowdowns and tariff pressures on components. Read More: Power Magazine.
Policy & Markets
Two federal policy threats are now converging on the U.S. storage and solar industries, and the one getting less attention may be the more dangerous. Industry experts warned that an FCC ban on certain inverters poses a greater threat to renewable energy deployment than the foreign entity of concern (FEOC) compliance requirements that have consumed industry attention for months. The inverter ban could directly limit which equipment developers can install on solar and battery storage projects — a choke point with no easy domestic substitution. Read More: greater threat.
That concern layers onto President Trump's August 26 emergency executive order banning imports of inverters, transformers, and other power equipment on grid security grounds. As Energy Storage News reported, the ban directly impacts the U.S. BESS market and its supply chain operations. Taken together with the Commerce Department's finalized solar duties of 65–173% reported earlier this week, developers now face a triple squeeze: tariffs on panels, import restrictions on inverters and transformers, and FEOC compliance costs on batteries. Any one of these is manageable; all three simultaneously could delay projects already in interconnection queues and push costs higher across the board. Read More: Energy Storage News reported.
On grid market design, RMI and GridLab released a paper calling on PJM Interconnection — the nation's largest grid operator, serving 65 million people across 13 states — to shift toward an energy-centric market model. The paper argues that PJM's current capacity market structure is not adequately incentivizing new solar and storage construction, pointing to ERCOT's energy-only market as a model that has attracted faster buildout. The recommendation will face fierce opposition from incumbent generators who rely on capacity payments, but for solar and storage developers stuck in PJM's interconnection backlog, the paper gives them a new talking point: the market design itself, not just the queue, may be the bottleneck. Read More: paper argues.
LOOKING AHEAD
- Equipment Import Ban Fallout: Watch for developer responses and potential legal challenges to the Trump administration's August 26 executive order banning power equipment imports — the practical effects on projects under construction should become visible in the coming weeks as existing inventory depletes.
- PJM Market Design Debate: The RMI-GridLab paper calling for an energy-centric PJM market will likely draw formal responses from incumbent generators and state regulators across the 13-state footprint; any FERC signaling on market reform would accelerate the timeline.
- Community Solar State Concentration: With nearly $400 million in financing landing in just New York and Illinois this week, expect growing pressure on legislatures in states without community solar programs to act — or watch capital continue flowing to the same handful of markets.
TODAY'S QUICK ANSWERS
Q: What should storage developers watch for as the equipment import ban takes effect?
A: The immediate concern is inverter and transformer availability. President Trump's August 26 executive order and the separate FCC inverter ban create two overlapping restrictions on equipment that has no quick domestic substitute. Developers with projects under construction should audit their supply chains now — any component sourced from restricted origins may need replacement, adding cost and months of delay. Projects still in development have time to restructure procurement, but the window is narrowing.
Q: Why does the PJM market design debate matter for solar and storage investors?
A: PJM's capacity market compensates generators for being available, which historically favors gas and coal plants over solar and storage resources that earn revenue primarily by selling energy. RMI and GridLab argue that shifting toward ERCOT's energy-centric model would better incentivize new solar and storage construction. If PJM or FERC takes this seriously, it could unlock faster project development across 13 states — but any reform would take years, so near-term investment decisions shouldn't bank on it.
Q: What does this week's community solar financing wave signal about market health?
A: Nearly $377 million for roughly 200 MW across two deals — both in New York and Illinois — shows that institutional lenders remain confident in community solar where state programs provide revenue certainty. But the geographic concentration is a warning sign: capital is flowing almost exclusively to states with established programs, suggesting the national market is narrowing rather than broadening. Developers in states without legislative frameworks will find it increasingly hard to compete for capital.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Institutional capital is pouring into community solar at a pace that defies federal headwinds, but it's concentrating in just two states — and the Trump administration's layered equipment import restrictions threaten to become the binding constraint on how fast the rest of the industry can build.