This week’s Cleantech podcast reveals automakers are increasingly using EVs as home backup power amidst slowing sales. Cora Stryker’s Bright Saver offers affordable balcony solar kits.
However, challenges persist: the data center industry faces financial distress from rising energy costs, and many U.S. states have reduced payments for homeowner-generated solar power.
On a positive note, China has rapidly expanded its grid-scale battery storage to 155 GW, dominating the global market and boosting its clean energy transition. Encouragingly, restrictive legislative attempts against solar and wind project siting largely failed across US states this year.
This Week in Cleantech is a weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in clean energy and climate featuring Paul Gerke of Factor This and Tigercomm’s Mike Casey.
This week’s episode features special guest Alexa St. John from The Associated Press, who discusses how automakers are increasingly turning their EVs and hybrids into home backup power sources as EV sales growth slows.
This week’s “Cleantecher of the Week” is Cora Stryker, co-founder of Bright Saver. The nonprofit just started selling zero-markup, plug-in balcony solar kits, starting at about $300, with shipping to 47 states kicking off in August. Cora said that nonprofits are often willing to stomach financial losses in the near term, because its mission is to get solar into the hands of more people, so they can lower their energy bills and carbon pollution. Congratulations, Cora!
A new survey from consulting for AlixPartners finds the data center industry bracing for a wave of financial distress. In a poll of more than 400 respondents, 68% said they expect distressed situations in the industry to increase over the next 12 to 18 months, up from 66% in 2025. AlixPartners says it’s not one bad input causing the pessimism. It’s rising energy costs, thin cash flow, and falling compute prices all hitting the balance sheet at the same time. Labor shortages and equipment logjams are compounding the problem, with skilled trades like electricians and plumbers especially hard to find.
More than a third of U.S. states have changed the rules over the last decade to let utilities pay homeowners less for the solar energy they send back to the grid. Under old-school net metering, homeowners get credited at the same retail rate they pay for power, often 10 to 30-plus cents per kilowatt-hour. Under the newer “net billing” model, utilities buy that extra power back at just 2 to 10 cents.
Arkansas made that switch in 2024, and it cut roughly $500 a year off the savings for a typical solar household, even though homeowners who already had panels were grandfathered in. Utilities argue the shift is fair since solar households still rely on the same poles and wires as everyone else, but pay less for grid upkeep.
Five years ago, China’s grid-scale battery storage was under 4 gigawatts. Today it’s around 155 gigawatts, and Beijing is targeting 300 by 2030. That buildout is what lets China lean so hard into solar and wind, which now make up 22% of the country’s power mix. Storage banks the extra sun and wind for when the grid actually needs it.
Chinese companies aren’t just building at home. The world’s top 10 storage battery-cell makers are all Chinese, and together they hold 90% of the global market. And even Tesla’s Megapack business runs through this supply chain. Its Shanghai plant sources cells from CATL for markets outside the U.S.
A new tally from the Siting Solutions Project looked at more than 200 state bills across 40-plus states this year, and the picture is a lot better than 2025’s wave of restrictive siting laws. Out of 86 bills that would’ve made it harder to permit solar, wind, and battery projects, only one became law: a scaled-back Utah measure limiting tax credits for solar on certain farmland. Last year, 10 restrictive bills passed across six states.
AI-driven demand growth plus an affordability crunch means legislators — even in red states — are looking for the fastest, cheapest way to add power to the grid, and that’s solar, wind, and batteries. Broad coalitions of developers, industry groups, and even agriculture and labor interests have been showing up to kill restrictive bills.
Automakers like Ford, Kia/Wallbox, Tesla, and GM are increasingly turning their EVs and hybrids into home backup power sources, letting drivers plug vehicles into their houses to keep the lights on during outages. Ford’s newest option lets F-150 PowerBoost hybrid and Lightning owners connect via an adapter and cable straight to their electric meter, powering select circuits for two to five days depending on the model and usage, at an installation cost starting around $1,100 versus thousands for a standby generator.
This push comes as EV sales growth has slowed (down 23.8% year-over-year in the first half of 2026) and grid demand keeps rising, giving automakers a new business angle for their EV investments beyond car sales. Challenges remain, including required safety certification, utility approval for interconnection (which can take years), and the fact that owners need to actively manage a new power source in their home, but industry experts expect vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid capability to keep growing in popularity.
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