Tom Burton, chair of Mintz's sustainable energy and infrastructure practice, discusses the thinning project pipeline and upcoming slowdown in US renewable energy deployments.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Burton: Data centers face power shortages rather than chip or land constraints
“There's plenty of space. There appear to be plenty of chips but there isn't enough power.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Burton: Utility cost increases stem from transmission and distribution, not generation
“And if you look at, certainly in this region, How electricity costs have increased for us and actually our gas costs as well. It has been largely on the transmission and distribution side. So not so much, you know, on the generation side.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Burton: Renewable energy developers will face consolidation and a shakeout
“So I do think that there will be a shakeout. There'll be consolidation, you know, for sure.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Burton: New developers will model clean energy projects without tax credits
“There'll be then, I think, a new crop of, you know, developers, so to speak, or companies that will be, you know, deploying renewables, and that new crop is going to figure out How to model projects that will work without tax credits or will work with less tax…”
Insight
Burton: Permitting is probably more critical than tax credits for developers
“I do think that permitting probably is as important, if not more important than, you know, tax credits and some other incentives. You know, the incentives you can model without and with, right? So you can at least figure out what the answer is. When you don't …”
Assertion Supported
Burton: Data centers drove ratepayer cost hikes and a moratorium in Ireland
“We've seen this in places like Ireland where there's a moratorium now on data centers. Energy prices have gone up so much. Rate payers have been forced to bear those extra costs.”