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The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by a Republican-led Congress and signed into law by Trump last month curtailed a wide array of tax incentives for renewable energy investment and production, and the Trump White House has further obstructed greener energy since then by requiring approval from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum for wind and solar projects under federal permitting review.

Actual and threatened Trump administration tariffs have cast a pall over domestic supply of key energy industry components — and the rest of the U.S. economy.

In 2025, Trump’s imposed and scheduled tariffs will increase federal tax revenues by $165.6 billion, making the tariffs the largest tax hike since 1993, published by the nonpartisan tax policy nonprofit Tax Foundation. The imposed tariffs would slash market income by 1.5% in 2026 and amount to average tax increases per U.S. household of $1,254 in 2025 and $1,588 in 2026, per that analysis.

As the threat of growing tax burdens looms, aluminum and steel pricing domestically has increased following Trump tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, driving expectations of increases in manufacturing costs, consumer price hikes and production declines.

But Form Energy believes it’s well-positioned to sustain its momentum toward energy innovation.

Form Energy aims to commercialize a battery that can economically store electricity for 100 hours at its first commercial-scale battery-making facility in Weirton, where it began trial production last year. TIME one of America’s top sustainability-focused companies of 2025. 

Form Energy cofounder and CEO Mateo Jaramillo told the Gazette-Mail in May the company opposed energy tax credit rollbacks proposed at the time in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act package, calling the tax credits “essential to rebuilding American manufacturing, enhancing our energy reliability and security, and ensuring the United States remains competitive in the global economy."

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act significantly narrowed eligibility for an advanced energy manufacturing production tax credit viewed as key for battery storage innovation firms like Form Energy. But Form Energy spokesperson Sarah Bray called manufacturing tax credits not killed by the law “critical� as well as “key to building a strong U.S. energy supply chain and reducing reliance on China.�

An analysis released last month projects the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will trigger steep gross domestic product and job loss over the next 10 years, with outcomes including:

• More than 1.68 million jobs lost
• $197 billion in wages lost
• An 8% hike in annual emissions by 2035
• More than 260 gigawatts of utility-scale solar, land-based wind and battery storage capacity lost
• An electricity sector emissions increase of 61.7%

The analysis by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a climate policy and analytical company, and Greenline Insights, a modeling and policy design firm, curtailing solar and wind production and investment tax credits and disqualifying projects for those and other technologies from getting full credits if they don’t meet minimum thresholds for avoiding use of manufacturing components from prohibited foreign entities.

China would be a prohibited foreign entity, a designation effectively blocking the tax credit for a wide array of projects since China is the chief importer of many material components to the U.S., which nonetheless needs to grow its renewable energy production to localize its supply chain away from China.

But Bray said in an email Form Energy is “well-positioned to navigate new sourcing restrictions� because it sources no materials from foreign entities targeted by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Manufacturing tax credit support not axed by the law will be essential as Form Energy keeps scaling up manufacturing and driving down costs in its work to commercialize new battery chemistry, Bray said.

Form Energy has been backed by a state-provided $290 million incentive package that, in 2023, required the creation of 750 jobs within five years. Form Energy’s Weirton facility employs over 400 people, according to Bray.

“{T]he batteries built here will strengthen grid reliability, resilience, and national energy security, while keeping costs low,� Bray said.

More than 80% of Form Energy battery components are domestically sourced, per Bray.

Bray said that while “some ripple effects are expected� from tariffs, Form Energy expects minimal disruption and has identified opportunities for the remaining 20% of its supply chain.

Form Energy supply chain and policy teams spent the past 10 months preparing for potential trade actions, Bray said.

'Certain degree of optimism'

A week after Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law, Huntington-based solar installer Solar Holler that expressed a “certain degree of optimism� following the law, despite an acknowledgment the law will “dramatically change the landscape in solar.�

Solar Holler said that because the company has been committed to buying products manufactured in the U.S., it will be minimally impacted by the restriction on use of materials from foreign entities targeted by the law. The company also noted the law preserved a tax credit for commercial solar projects until 2030 if they begin construction by July 4, 2026, which it called “a much more generous timeline than we were planning for.�

“Is this the bill we would have chosen? No,� the company said. “But we can live with it.�

Research and consulting firm Wood McKenzie last week that found the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would hinder near-term residential solar growth but that the “long-term potential remains strong,� with growth anticipated to come back after 2028.

'Rebuild' amid tariff uncertainty 

As the One Big Beautiful Bill Act sets in as a statutory reality, South Charleston electric bus-maker GreenPower Motor Company Inc. hopes to get the red ink out of its bottom line.

The Vancouver, Canada-headquartered manufacturer of battery-electric buses and commercial vehicles laid off South Charleston plant employees in May. Ron Rogillio, BridgeValley Community & Technical College Board of Governors member and manufacturing technology professor, indicated during a May board meeting that more than a dozen GreenPower workers had their employment terminated.

GreenPower was required to create at least 200 full-time equivalent employees with an annual estimated payroll of $7.6 million at its South Charleston facility by Dec. 31, 2024, as laid out in a January 2022 memorandum of understanding with the state Department of Economic Development.

GreenPower entered into a lease/purchase agreement with the state to acquire properties located in South Charleston totaling 9½ acres and an 80,000-square-foot building, with title to the properties to be transferred to GreenPower once total lease and employment incentive payments reached $6.7 million.

But in May, West Virginia Department of Commerce General Counsel Garner Marks said in a notice to GreenPower the company had failed to make lease payments for February through April 2025 and October 2024 while also failing to employ 200 full-time equivalent employees on the lease premises.

In a report addressed to GreenPower shareholders and directors that analyzed GreenPower’s financial position as of March 31, 2025, independent public accounting firm BDO Canada LLP had “suffered recurring losses from operations and has an accumulated deficit that raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.�

The company recorded a roughly $18.5 million loss for the year ended March 31 and planned to address the “material uncertainty� casting “substantial doubt� on its ability to continue as a going concern by selling vehicles in inventory, collecting accounts receivable, accessing funds available from its operating line of credit and term loan facility with Export Development Canada, Canada’s export credit agency, and seeking potential new financing sources.

Last month, GreenPower announced the British Columbia Securities Commission had issued a cease trade order in response to the company missing a June 30 filing deadline for audited financial statements for the year ended March 31, 2025. The company said in a statement it had experienced “unforeseen delays in finalizing� the filings.

“Our focus is, well, we need to do a rebuild — using sports nomenclature — and our view was we could do this very quickly and not take three to five years to completely rebuild the company,� GreenPower CEO Fraser Atkinson said during a RedChip Companies-hosted webinar with GreenPower last week.

Atkinson contended the company is well-positioned to benefit from increasing school bus market demand.

Atkinson said Trump administration tariffs had resulted in an increased cost of building the company’s electric vehicles and “a lot of uncertainty and the inability to make a quick determination as to how one should recast your business.�

Going with the flow 

But by last month, Atkinson said, most of those issues had been “sorted out,� allowing GreenPower to recommence production of its all-electric, purpose-built school buses.

Atkinson reported GreenPower has approximately $60 million of orders, with much in different stages of production for customers in West Virginia and five other states.

GreenPower’s webinar presentation said the company has a diverse group of manufacturing partners that hedges against exposure to potential supply chain disruptions and accommodate higher production levels.

Atkinson touted the company’s August 4 announcement that it signed a $5 million-plus contract with the state of New Mexico for an all-electric school bus pilot project.

During the webinar, GreenPower president and director Brendan Riley predicted adverse impacts from Trump administration tariffs would hasten their end.

“This is Brendan Riley's humble perspective, but I think that the tariffs are going to really start doing some damage to the economy,� Riley said. “ ... I believe this administration is going to quickly and quietly shut the tariffs down to maybe 10% across the board or something of that nature, and things will settle down.�

For now, Form Energy and other sustainable energy companies are going with the flow.

“The Administration’s focus on tariffs and American-made goods underscores the importance of domestic battery production – reinforcing our long-term strategy to strengthen U.S.-based manufacturing and secure our energy future," Bray said.