After four years and two administrations, four senators finally put a permitting deal on paper. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act runs 417 pages: it narrows NEPA, gives litigants 150 days to sue, lets FERC approve interstate transmission when states sit on a project for a year, forces grid operators to let VPPs into their markets, and bars agencies from revoking permits in effect on or after September 16. One lobby...

Washington says the structure of a permitting deal is done, and the White House put 300 stalled wind and solar projects on the table to get there. Whether any of it happens depends on how lame the [lame] duck turns out to be — the House is gone until November, and a majority that may be about to lose a chamber has to decide whether to spend its last weeks on permitting reform at all. Yann and Abby work the odds, Martin Heinri...

The biggest utility transaction our sector has ever seen is now a political negotiation, and the first half of this episode is about who has leverage. NextEra's acquisition of Dominion has shareholder approval. What it doesn't have is Virginia. Governor Spanberger entered the proceeding directly — a first for a Virginia governor in a deal like this — with three conditions: no rate increases, data centers pay their own w...

Yann Brandt and Abby Hopper are in the same room for the first time — same table, same mics, real microphone flags — working through the three storylines defining the fall: a record quarter for solar, an AI industry suddenly asking to be regulated, and a nuclear renaissance with lots of headlines and few answers.

Solar posted 11.4 GW of new generation in Q2 alongside 20 GWh of storage, and everyone knows why: the ITC dea...

Yann Brandt and Abby Hopper are back with a Labor Day episode packed with big numbers and bigger questions. This week: the $4.4 billion Flex acquisition of EPC Power and what it says about the data center-fueled M&A and IPO wave sweeping solar and storage. SB Energy's IPO filing revealed a staggering $460 billion backlog, UIG was acquired by Vertiv for $1.4 billion plus earnout, and Hecate Energy is pushing forward with its SPA...

Boots on the Ground, Episode 2: Three Executive Orders, One Tailspin

Solar and storage just got hit with a one-two-three punch — an FCC inverter rule, a Section 232 tariff proclamation, and a national emergency executive order on bulk power cybersecurity, all inside five weeks. Yann Brandt and Abby Hopper break down what each order actually does, why the rollout has been a mess for procurement teams, and what it means...

DATA CENTER BACKLASH

Texas Gov. Abbott says data centers "dug their own grave" for ignoring local communities; 61% of Americans now oppose a nearby data center, up from 49% in March. https://www.axios.com/2026/08/23/greg-abbott-texas-data-centers-ai-backlash

PA Gov. Shapiro signs order requiring data centers to cover their own power/water costs, use clean energy, and win local approval before building. https://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Boots on the Ground — the news you need, straight talk you won't get anywhere else.

Solar and storage industry vets Yann Brandt and Abby Hopper are done just texting each other about it — now they're putting it on mic. Each week, Yann Brandt (former President & CEO of FTC Solar, founder of SolarWakeup) and Abby Hopper (former CEO of SEIA) cut through the noise on the headlines shaping solar, storage, and energy: poli...