What’s the forecast for energy projects as the Big Beautiful Bill looms over the industry? Developers and suppliers are adapting to the chaos – but how?
Interchange Recharged
Wood Mackenzie
4.8 • 535 Ratings
🗓️ 29 July 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The uncertainty rippling through the energy industry in the first half of 2025 hasn’t gone away. Utilities, developers, and manufacturers are still grappling with the fallout from the "One Big Beautiful Bill," the Trump administration’s reversal of parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, and the evolving tangle of trade tariffs.
Sylvia Leyva Martinez, host and principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie, is joined by her colleague Kelsey Coffman, Vice President of Supply Chain Consulting at Wood Mackenzie, to analyse how clean energy producers and buyers are adapting to the changes.
The cost of batteries and solar panels is skyrocketing; tariffs as high as 145% are disrupting billion-dollar projects. How did we get here? And what can be done? Plus, changing definitions of “foreign entities of concern” – the new rules could kill access to tax credits if suppliers have indirect links to China. Sylvia and Kelsey debate the best path through the FEOC minefield. And how big have the risks of project delays and cancelled investments got? There’s been an emergence of stockpiling strategies, but even US-based manufacturers aren’t safe.
If you're in clean energy, finance, procurement, or just trying to make sense of US decarbonisation strategy, Sylvia and Kelsey are here to help you understand what’s changing, what’s at stake, and what you can do to stay ahead.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Back when China was out 145% for the tariff, that could add hundreds of millions of dollars to a project cost. |
| 0:08.7 | And that is hundreds of millions of dollars. |
| 0:10.7 | No one has that built into their margin to say, sure, we'll just keep going. |
| 0:14.8 | So it seems like there are a lot of challenges or a lot of things that developers, utilities, manufacturers need to think about. What are the |
| 0:22.4 | solutions? Like, what are you seeing that are the potential avenues that different players are |
| 0:26.7 | taking to navigate all these changes and all the policy insurgency? If I had a full solution, |
| 0:32.4 | maybe I would be a billionaire. Former President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act was a landmark piece of legislation. |
| 0:41.0 | Tax credits and incentives fuel the boom in renewable energy. |
| 0:44.6 | Almost three years on, and clean energy plans are being torn up by the Trump administration, |
| 0:49.5 | with new changes being made every day. |
| 0:52.6 | But is the outlook really as bad as it seems for the energy transition? |
| 0:57.1 | I'm Cibia Leva Martinez, a principal analyst at the energy research firm Wood McKenzie, |
| 1:01.9 | and I'm on a mission to bring you the data and insights that matter as we raise to address |
| 1:07.2 | climate change. Coming to you from Houston, we go all around the world to explore the technology, |
| 1:12.6 | finance, and policy that's making the most difference and what it means to you. |
| 1:18.0 | Bienvenitos. Welcome. It's great to have you here. |
| 1:22.2 | Wood McKenzie's Solar Energy and Storage Summit is back in Denver on the 29th and 30th of April, |
| 1:28.3 | 2026. |
| 1:29.3 | It's co-located with the brand new North American Power and Renewables Forum, which features |
| 1:35.3 | senior speakers from across the US power sector. |
| 1:38.3 | Come and join over 450 senior leaders from US power developers, utilities, and independent power producers to tackle |
| 1:46.6 | the industry's biggest challenges. From navigating life after tax credits to capturing the load |
... |
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