Counterspark

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08/24/2026

Solar without owning a roof? That’s starting to become a real option!

Plug-in “balcony solar” systems let people generate some of their own electricity from a balcony, patio, or yard, without a traditional rooftop installation.

They’re already common in parts of Europe, especially Germany, and more U.S. states are beginning to make room for them too.

The rules still vary by state, but this could make solar a lot more accessible for renters and anyone who can’t install panels on a roof.

08/22/2026

Your electric truck could double as backup power for your home!

When the grid goes down, some EVs can keep lights, refrigerators, outlets, and other essentials running for days.

Ford just introduced a new setup for compatible trucks, adding to a growing number of EVs that can double as backup power at home. As more vehicles gain this capability, the batteries already parked in driveways could help more households keep essential power on and make communities more resilient during outages.

08/18/2026

The grid doesn't need years of building new transmission lines to start moving more clean energy, and that's good news for your bill! Grid Enhancing Technologies or GETs like sensors in power line wires can safely push more power through the lines already standing, connecting cheap solar and wind faster and helping keep the grid reliable when demand spikes. Now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is looking at ways to get these technologies onto the grid faster!

08/16/2026

From January through May, solar out-generated natural gas in California on a whopping 82% of days! A fast-growing battery fleet is now storing more of that daytime solar to use in the evening, right when demand peaks and gas usually takes over.

08/13/2026

Good news in clean energy: states are pushing back hard against the federal effort to make it harder to build.

More than 200 siting and permitting bills have been introduced across 40-plus states this year. Of those, 86 would have explicitly restricted solar, wind, or battery development — and all but one got blocked. Meanwhile, states are advancing policies that make clean energy projects easier and more predictable to build.

08/11/2026

Nearly $1.8 billion - That's what overloaded power lines cost customers in that largest grid in North America this May and June. PJM, which runs power across a big stretch of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, passed expenses on to customers.

The cheaper cleaner electricity was available to PJM, which operates the grid across a big stretch of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, but the lines just couldn't carry it to where people needed it, so grid operators bought pricier dirtier power instead, and that cost lands on your bill.

Transmission upgrades are the difference between paying for the cheapest cleanest power available, and paying a premium because it got stuck in transmission across the outdated power lines.

08/09/2026

We all want more reliable power, and more of us are taking matters into our own hands.

Nearly 8 in 10 Americans are concerned about having dependable electricity without power outages. In 2024, the average U.S. electricity customer experienced about 11 hours without power, nearly double the annual average over the previous decade.

At the same time, Americans installed a record 1.3 GWh of home battery storage in the first three months of 2026, up 86% from the same period last year. Nearly half of new home solar systems now include a battery.

Home batteries aren’t a substitute for utilities and regulators doing the work needed to build a more reliable grid. But the growth in home storage is a pretty strong signal that people aren’t willing to just wait around for reliability to improve.

08/06/2026

8 in 10 Americans say they're worried about the grid's ability to handle extreme weather, and nearly 7 in 10 think the fix should include investing more in battery storage. It's a reasonable concern: the average U.S. household lost power for about 11 hours in 2024, nearly double the yearly average from the decade before.

While the debate over which tech to use plays out, plenty of people aren't waiting to find out if utilities step up. In the first three months of this year, homeowners installed a record 1.3 gigawatt-hours of their own battery storage, enough to cover a full day's electricity use for about 45,000 U.S. homes - up 86% from last year. Nearly half of new home solar systems now come with a battery attached.

A charged home battery can keep a fridge, medical equipment, or wifi running during an outage, before a utility crew can fix what’s wrong. It's not a replacement for a more resilient grid overall, but it's a clear sign of what we the people want in our communities, and the technologies that are ready to provide it.

08/04/2026

The U.S. has gotten a lot faster at building factories that assemble solar panels, but what's been harder to find is a U.S. factory making the cells that go inside them.

That started to change this week! A factory in Jeffersonville, Indiana, just opened as the first U.S. plant built to manufacture a higher-efficiency cell design that China has been producing since 2019. Phase one production will produce enough cells each year for solar panels that could power roughly 400,000 homes. At full build-out, the plant is targeting more than 6 gigawatts a year, enough for well over a million homes' worth of panels.

Once fully running, the plant is expected to employ more than 1,200 people.

China currently controls about 80% of the global solar supply chain, and we’ve been importing all of these solar cells from them up until now. Building projects like this across states is how we start to win back some of the benefits of homegrown power.

08/02/2026

Trump’s war on wind power goes back to turbines planned near his Scottish golf course.

In 2012, he went before the Scottish Parliament to argue that the project was unfair to him. But in making his case, he also explained the problem with his own energy agenda: investors need governments to keep their word.

Trump warned that changing policy after money had already been committed would destroy confidence and send future investment elsewhere.

“That is not fair to an investor,” he said.

Fourteen years later, his administration is pulling back clean energy incentives that American companies had already counted on when planning wind and solar projects.

Trump understood exactly what policy whiplash does to investment. He just seems to care more when the investment is his.

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