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Tech Brew

Climate Tech

Tricia Crimmins

emergingtechbrew.com

Airloom Energy, a wind energy startup, broke ground at its pilot site in Laramie, Wyoming, last month. The next week, President Trump signed his “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” into law, thereby sunsetting the clean energy production and investment tax credits for solar and wind. Although it’s going to be a big change, CEO Neal Rickner told Tech Brew the company will adapt: Airloom was created to deliver “the lowest-cost energy, subsidy-free,” but the loss of credits could hinder Airloom’s ability to commercialize.

Airloom’s ability to generate competitively priced energy is due to the design of its turbines. Instead of tall wind turbines that adhere to a traditional, windmill-like design, Airloom’s turbines consist of a group of poles in the shape of an oval connected by a track on which wing-like panels circulate, their movement powered by the wind. They’re shorter than traditional wind turbine blades, and, according to Rickner, faster to build.

“It is a hyper-flexible system. So the difference between our small system and the big one is just making it longer, adding sections in the middle. It can be deployed with straightforward infrastructure,” Rickner said. “You don’t need big, long, extendable bed trailers. You don’t need crews who are trained to work at 300 feet in the air with the largest cranes in the world.”

That said, clean energy investment and production tax credits would help Airloom cross “the chasm of commercialization,” which is a notoriously difficult process, Rickner said, particularly in the energy industry.

“We were definitely going to be relying on the tax credits to help us through that,” Rickner said, “because the first few systems we’re going to build are going to be more expensive.”

Rickner said he and the Airloom team are also figuring out how to respond to two other sizable uncertainties that will crop up during their commercialization process as a result of Trump’s policies: future tariffs or excise taxes on equipment from “foreign entities of concern,” and “what qualifies as construction,” which determines how long Airloom will be able to access the tax credits.

The new law states that wind projects have to begin construction within a year of its signing by Trump (or be in service by the end of 2027) to be eligible for the clean energy investment and production tax credits. In a follow up 

, Trump stated that the Treasury secretary will issue “new and revised guidance…to ensure that policies concerning the ‘beginning of construction’ are not circumvented” by “artificial acceleration or manipulation” of construction timelines.

“We are starting construction on our 2027 project this year, but I don’t know how they’re going to define ‘construction’ yet,” Rickner said. “I’m not going to plan for the government to do or not do anything. It’s too unpredictable.”

Despite some big unknowns, Rickner is optimistic because Airloom already has strong market demand—so strong that the company will be selling the power generated by its pilot to a data center customer. And as more data centers come online and need additional forms of energy, Airloom hopes to provide them wind power as the company commercializes.

“Chaos equals opportunity,” Rickner said. “When things are moving around, there’s potential to find opportunity in that chaos.”

How new wind energy startup Airloom is adapting to the loss of federal tax credits

“Chaos equals opportunity,” Airloom Energy CEO Neal Rickner told Tech Brew.

How a new wind energy startup is adapting to the loss of federal tax credits

Jordyn Grzelewski

A decade ago, before all-electric vehicles were routinely spotted on roads, drivers of Volkswagen’s diesel offerings thought they were making an environmentally conscious choice. The company had touted a “best of both worlds” approach: It said its diesel vehicles produced lower emissions than competitors, but still gave customers more energy per gallon compared to gasoline.

“It was this amazing promise in vehicle technology,” Christopher Hennigan, a University of Maryland professor of environmental engineering, told Tech Brew. “But it turned out to be a lie.”

That lie involved Volkswagen putting what the Environmental Protection Agency called “defeat devices” in model year 2009–2016 cars to deceive federal emissions tests: When the cars were being tested, emissions were low. But on the road, they emitted a “major excess” of NOx, or gas particles that can lead to illness and premature death

 when then-International Council on Clean Transportation Senior Fellow John German and his team tested Volkswagen diesel vehicles on the road—not in a test facility. Using a machine in the car’s trunk and a probe down the length of the exhaust pipe, they uncovered extremely high emissions.

As a result, the EPA and Department of Justice found that Volkswagen, which included the Audi and Porsche brands, violated the Clean Air Act, a federal law passed in 1970 to regulate emissions from stationary sources, like factories, and mobile sources, like cars. Under the law, the company agreed to pay multiple settlements and pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

“The Clean Air Act worked as it was intended to—in the sense that we had a company that was violating it and when that was discovered, [there were] massive penalties in response,” Amanda Halter, a partner in Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman’s Environmental & Natural Resources practice, told us. “It’s the kind of law, frankly, that you just couldn’t get passed by today’s Congress.”

As part of the settlement, Volkswagen spent $2 billion to establish a public fast-charging network, Electrify America, which today is the second largest in the US. It now has more than 4,800 charging ports across the country, second only to 

“The contribution that Electrify America has made to the public charging infrastructure is really substantial,” Brent Gruber, executive director of JD Power’s EV practice, told Tech Brew.

However, the network has been criticized by EV drivers and electrification advocates over reliability issues, as detailed in a 

 by The Washington Post. An executive told the outlet that the network was “working hard to improve reliability.”

 on consumer satisfaction with public fast chargers in a 2024 JD Power study. It scored 559 on a 1,000-point scale, while Tesla ranked highest, with 731.

In general, there are two major problems with US public charging, Gruber said: lack of availability and 

The EV “adoption rate is outstripping the pace of charger installation by about two to one,” he said. And about one in five public charging visits fail, per JD Power and 

, because of issues like faulty chargers and long wait times.

Solving these issues is important because public-charging concerns remain the No. 1 barrier to EV adoption, Gruber said. But now, that effort must proceed without federal help, as the Trump administration 

Gruber said he expects to see a near-term slowdown in charger installation, but that states and private-sector players will push ahead, because strong public charging is key to an electric future in which manufacturers are heavily invested.

. It reported that its customers’ 16 million charging sessions represented 50% growth in 2024, and it plans a 30% expansion this year. Electrify America declined to comment on Tech Brew’s questions.

The network is working to increase the number of “Hyper-Fast” 350 kilowatt-hour chargers, per a company report, as well as opening larger stations. It says it’s implemented policies, like idle fees, aimed at reducing wait times.

“Increasing customer satisfaction and station performance is a top priority for Electrify America,” the network said in its Q1 2025 report to the California Air Resources Board. The network will report to the board annually on charger station uptime and “strive to achieve target uptime thresholds on its California network of chargers,” under the terms of its latest maintenance plan.

Meanwhile, Gruber said he was heartened to see significant progress in Q1 on customer satisfaction and charger reliability.

The public charging failure rate dropped to 16% in Q1, the largest improvement since JD Power launched the survey in 2021, according to Gruber. And the satisfaction level with public fast chargers went up by six points from Q4 2024, to 656 out of 1,000.

The results, Gruber said, “gave me a lot of hope that we’re starting to see the tides turn with public charging.”


Volkswagen Passats are offered for sale at a dealership on September 18, 2015, in Chicago, Illinois. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has accused Volkswagen of installing software on nearly 500,000 diesel cars in the U.S. to evade federal emission regulations. 

Dieselgate spawned a large US EV charging network. Why is public charging still so vexing?

Volkswagen agreed to spend $2 billion to build out a network of EV chargers as part of a settlement in the wake of an emissions scandal. A decade later, drivers frequently cite charger unavailability as a roadblock to EV adoption. 

 have bolstered widespread investment in renewable energy since the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022. But President Trump has taken aim at them in his “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which passed the 

 last month with cuts to key tax credits that apply to residential clean tech and clean energy production and investment.

While the clean energy industry scrambles to lobby for the credits to be included in the Senate’s version of the bill, BloombergNEF analyzed how the cancellation of the credits would affect clean energy production in the US.

As stipulated in the version of the bill passed by the House, projects built more than 60 days after the bill is signed into law and that don’t start operating before 2029 would be ineligible for tax credits. According to BNEF’s analysis, these stipulations would create a “three-year rush to build new wind, solar, and storage projects followed by a major hangover in 2029” that would result in a 10% decrease in clean energy projects built by 2035.

Solar, wind, and storage technologies will each be impacted differently—the tax credit changes don’t apply to nuclear projects. Without the tax credits, solar projects would decrease 5% and energy storage projects would dip 7% in the next 10 years. General demand for those technologies would still exist, though at a lower level than today. Wind capacity, however, would be cut by a whopping 35%, “with no offshore wind additions post 2028,” BNEF noted. Such a blow to wind technologies would be kicking them while they’re down: A considerable amount of 

And the potential cut of the tax credits would affect more than just clean energy capacity: BNEF’s analysis also warned of “negative effects on the US power system,” especially as energy demand grows due to 

“Rapid load growth driven by data center demand will require either new generation, which this bill makes it harder to add,” BNEF’s analysis stated, “or higher capacity factors from existing power plants, which tend to be both more expensive and higher in greenhouse gas emissions.”

US energy demand is also being stressed by clean energy stakeholders who are currently meeting with Republican senators, urging them to protect the tax credits. Jon Powers, president of clean energy investment firm CleanCapital, told Tech Brew that in a meeting he attended with a senator on Capitol Hill, “someone...wanted to bring an AI data center to the state,” but told the senator “it wouldn’t be possible because there was not enough energy in their area to fulfill the data center’s demand.”

“Congress is now one chamber away from passing a law that would dramatically increase clean energy project risk, states would lose out on millions in investment, and ultimately cause previously announced projects and manufacturing plants to be canceled—making it more difficult to bring AI-critical data centers to fruition and jeopardizing our current infrastructure,” Powers said in an email. “The stakes are high, but with growing energy demand and investor pressure, there’s still time for Congress to course-correct and support bringing more electrons to the grid.”

Correction 06/15/2025: This story has been updated to correct references to BloombergNEF throughout.

Overhead image of suburban neighborhood with lots of rooftop solar panels

Cutting green tax credits would slash US clean energy capacity 10%, BloombergNEF finds

A version of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” with cuts to green tax credits passed the House last month.

Massachusetts has the highest number of climate tech startups per capita in the world—not just in the US. It’s a fact that Governor Maura Healey is proud of, and an achievement she touts when discussing her plan to make the state “the undisputed global home of climate technology.”

“I’ve never viewed my competition with other states,” she said in a speech last month at 

. “I view Massachusetts’ competition with other countries.”

Making Massachusetts No. 1 for climate tech would add that industry to the state’s growing list of gold-medal rankings: It’s a global hub for life sciences and biotech, and is the most educated state in the nation, per 

. Healey wants to use the frameworks that attained those wins to boost the “companies that will lead the world” in climate tech by “investing state dollars” in startups and the green tech workforce.

, a quasi-governmental economic development agency, which invests public funding in climate tech startups, manages the state’s green infrastructure, and fosters the next generation of green tech workers through internships and community college and high school programming.

“Not all states have something like a Clean Energy Center that allows us to offer capital investment dollars and tax incentives to support economic development and growth in climate technology,” Healey told Tech Brew. “[Climate tech is] a huge opportunity for economic growth for our state.”

As governor, Healey has also passed legislation to accelerate Massachusetts’ clean energy transition through permitting and siting reforms. In 2023, she created the Commission on Clean Energy Infrastructure Siting and Permitting (CEISP) through an executive order, which aims to “swiftly remove barriers” to building renewable energy infrastructure. The commission recommended permitting and siting reforms for Massachusetts’ 2024 Climate Act, which Healey signed into law last year. Among other reforms, the law created deadlines for state and municipal permitting processes so clean energy projects aren’t trapped in a seemingly endless 

And just last month, Healey sought further legislation to bring more renewable energy to Massachusetts and cut electricity costs.

“We’ve got to bring energy costs down, and one way to do it is by bringing more forms of energy online, and that includes renewables,” Healey told us. “These are all things that are going to make America more energy independent and in control of our destiny, and not be subject to some of the wild swings that we see in global oil and gas markets right now.”

, a group of 24 state governors committed to decreasing their states’ greenhouse gas emissions and passing high-impact state climate policy. She told us that during President Trump’s second term, green states will continue to work together for the sake of the entire country—which includes Massachusetts, 16 other states, and DC suing the Trump administration for its 

Unsurprisingly, Healey isn’t taking cues from the federal government for Massachusetts’ climate tech action—she’s looking globally.

“Other countries are moving forward,” Healey told us. “That should send a signal to American leadership that this is where we need to go.”

So even as federal climate tech investments decline, she takes any opportunity she can get to encourage those in the industry to keep going.

“I want you to have faith. I want you to continue. I don’t want you to take your foot off the pedal,” Healey said in her speech at ClimaTech. “We are all in, and we’re going to continue to be all in—and there are a whole lot of people who stand to benefit from it.”

Massachusetts governor wants to make the state a global climate tech hub

In an interview with Tech Brew, Governor Maura Healey said she plans to lead on climate tech where the federal government won’t. 

California isn’t letting President Trump’s 

 on offshore wind stop them from becoming a “powerhouse” for the renewable energy source.

At the Pacific Offshore Wind Summit last month, state elected officials and industry leaders expressed their continued support for offshore wind production in California, despite the Trump administration pausing all future offshore wind leases in the outer continental shelf of the US, which includes parts of the Pacific Ocean. The state currently has two offshore wind energy areas under development—Humboldt, in northern California, and Morro Bay, in central California. The goal is to produce as much as 5 GW of energy via offshore wind by 2030 and up to 25 GW by 2045.

“California has the opportunity to become a powerhouse for offshore wind,” State Assemblymember Rick Zbur said at the conference, per a press release. “We need to continue focusing on our port infrastructure for offshore wind, right now.”

 of a $10 billion bond last November to support California’s continued transition to renewable energy, and $475 million of that funding will go toward offshore wind port infrastructure. At the conference, the California Energy Commission Chair David Hochschild said the state is working to deploy that lump sum.

“California is fully committed to getting to 100% clean energy and offshore wind has an important role to play in that effort,” he said.

California is one of 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, that 

 the Trump administration for its offshore wind lease executive order, arguing that “no act of Congress authorizes the president or federal agencies to categorically and indefinitely halt approvals of wind-energy projects,” and that the executive order jeopardizes “the continued development of a power source critical to the states’ economic vitality, energy mix, public health, and climate goals,” among other arguments.

“The Trump administration’s directive to halt the development of offshore wind energy is illegal,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement when the lawsuit was filed. “We will continue to hold the president accountable for breaking the law and protect our significant progress in expanding cleaner, cheaper energy for American families.”

As a result of the executive order, Executive Director for Offshore Wind California Adam Stern said at the conference that a majority of offshore wind progress is being made “at the state level.”

“Over the next four years, California has much of what it needs to continue moving forward—on ports, transmission, and more,” Stern said. “That’s a course we intend to stay.”

An aerial photo of a few dozen offshore wind turbines in the ocean.

California is aiming to be ‘powerhouse for offshore wind,’ according to industry leaders

The state is taking on the Trump administration for its moratorium on offshore wind leases.

 for climate tech and renewable energy during the second Trump administration—and that seems to be coming to fruition.

One of those climate tech powerhouse states is Massachusetts, which is working to be “

” with the help of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, or MassCEC, a quasi-governmental economic development agency that helps climate tech startups in the state get off the ground, guides consumers to getting access to clean energy rebates, and manages Massachusetts’ green tech infrastructure.

Tech Brew talked with MassCEC’s CEO, Emily Reichert, about the agency’s work and how it’s meeting a moment in which federal support for clean tech has 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How does MassCEC incentivize and encourage climate technology and renewable energy innovation in Massachusetts?

We are really the tip of the spear, the innovation arm of the Massachusetts state government when it comes to energy, clean energy in particular. And we do that in a number of different ways.

So first, our portfolio is looking at early-stage technologies and supporting those to go-to-market. That is supporting young companies coming out of universities and providing them with grants and competitive grant opportunities to move their companies forward to the point where they can demonstrate their technology, often in a real-life environment, and we have grants for that. We also have a small investment fund, and MassCEC has been doing this emerging climate tech work, supporting early-stage companies, for a number of years now. I would say that we started out focusing mainly on clean energy, and now we support all of climate tech—which is all the sectors that need to be decarbonized, whether you’re talking about transportation, buildings, the grid, manufacturing, or agriculture. We see companies starting in Massachusetts, in all of those areas. And our goal with all of this is to make Massachusetts the place where climate tech companies want to be.

The second thing we do [is what] we call accelerating decarbonization, and this is looking at products that are already on the market—so heat pumps, electric vehicles, and technologies like that, smart meters for the home—and in that case, the technology is already developed, but oftentimes the technology is not to the point of adoption that we’d like to see it. So we run programs specifically to help identify and devise strategies to overcome barriers to mass adoption…across the state of Massachusetts…We look at a lot of different options, and then try to guide the rebates and agencies that provide those rebates in the most efficient way to deploy incentives or information that helps get that technology adopted at scale.

The third thing we work on is large-scale deployment of renewable energy. So for example, offshore wind is an area that we’ve worked in quite a bit. Our role in that is to support the development of port infrastructure…We have done a lot of work to provide the workforce for offshore wind: the training that they need, for example, safety training that can often be used in other industries as well, but is really important and essential for the offshore wind industry. As well, we work in the solar energy field, mainly supporting the state [renewable energy certificates] process…MassCEC monitors the several hundred thousand generating units of solar energy, and actually now additional kinds of energy that exist in the state.

Then the final piece that really underpins all of it is workforce development. So we know that there are incredible careers in clean energy and in climate tech, but a lot of times, people don’t know what they are, or they don’t find their way to those careers…So we provide grant support for tools from the time of junior high through high school…And we also work with community colleges where there’s credentialing programs…And finally, we have a Clean Energy Internship Program, which supports college students who are interested in learning about clean energy careers.

Can you tell me a little bit more about how MassCEC works on rebates and tax incentives for clean tech? Should the 

 from the Inflation Reduction Act go away, would there be any difference in how Massachusetts would incentivize state buyers to invest in clean energy products?

Clean Energy Lives Here is a website that is for consumers in the state of Massachusetts to enable them to find their way to rebates, but also the information they need in order to step by step decarbonize their homes…We have the ability, through another program of ours—actually it’s in a pilot form right now, the Home Modernization Navigator—where we will actually walk you through that on the phone…[and] help you understand what the costs are going to be, what paperwork you’re going to need to fill out, and where to go in order to get the best and highest rebates possible for what you’re trying to do.

In terms of the federal piece of it, we have worked hard as an administration—and here I’ll speak for beyond just Massachusetts or beyond just MassCEC—we have worked hard to secure a lot of funds, specifically that could be applied through tax credits to help consumers decarbonize their homes in a cost-effective way…Unfortunately, our government partners at the federal level are not honoring those obligations…So right now, there’s a lot that still is being figured out in the federal courts, but I will say that Massachusetts already provides very generous incentives for a number of different aspects of clean energy, and we will continue to do so. What the [federal government] provides really goes above and beyond an already pretty rich set of programs that we offer here in the Commonwealth.

Has MassCEC’s work changed since the start of the second Trump administration? Are you facing new obstacles? Something that comes to mind is MassCEC Managing Director of Offshore Wind Bruce Carlisle’s 

A lot has changed since the beginning of the new federal administration. But I think whenever you think about offshore wind, the fundamentals have not changed. The world—when you think about China or Europe—is moving forward with implementing a lot of offshore wind. So this market, this industry exists. Whenever you think about the most accessible wind power—or, as I’ve heard it said by my colleagues, ‘Where is the Saudi Arabia of wind in the United States?’ It’s right off our coast. So we feel that it makes sense for us to continue to make long-term, no-regrets or low-regrets investments in the industry to be ready for when it comes back, because we do believe that it will come roaring back to the United States.

Tech Brew Q&A series featuring Emily Reichert. 

How MassCEC incentivizes clean energy production in Massachusetts

Tech Brew spoke with CEO Emily Reichert about the agency’s plans to make the state a global climate tech hub.

Massachusetts green tech advocates want offshore wind to be the little clean power source that could in the face of hostility from the Trump administration, according to their comments during a panel on the blue economy at the ClimaTech conference earlier this week.

In addition to discussions about the state’s ocean clean tech market and port infrastructure, panel attendees addressed the wind-turbine-shaped elephant in the room: the fact that President Trump 

 in January. Two of the leases affected are for projects that would have been constructed off the coast of Massachusetts, for which the state is 

“What’s been a real drag on the blue economy is the new federal administration,” Bruce Carlisle, managing director of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, said during the panel. “It’s kind of depressing, but we do have to talk about it. Certainly for offshore wind, the moratorium and other actions have severely curtailed and put a huge aerial fog on it.”

All that said, though, Carlisle encouraged Massachusetts offshore wind developers in the audience to “keep [their] eyes on the prize,” “ride out” the current administration, and “get ourselves in a position for when things get a little bit better.”

Judith Underwood, the CEO and co-founder of blue tech incubator Blue Innovation Labs, seconded Carlisle’s sentiment.

“I’m staying upbeat about wind, in part because Europe is pushing very strong [for it],” Underwood said. “We can do a lot here in Massachusetts to prepare for the next administration, whoever that will be, and rolling out the offshore wind industry—because we need it.”

Case in point: The New Bedford Ocean Cluster, which partners with the Port of New Bedford, is still marketing the port to offshore wind developers even amid offshore wind “doom and gloom,” executive director Jennifer Downing said.

“This is where Massachusetts can lead while other states are backing away,” Downing said. “We need to continue to lean in and get our supply chain ready, get our workforce ready, start to get startups that are contributing great technology to the offshore wind industry starting to move through that commercialization pipeline so that we are ahead.”