How 4 Microgrid Developers Are Trying to Survive Trump Energy Policies
Source: Lisa Cohn | · ENERGY CHANGEMAKERS · | October 31, 2025
The microgrid industry took a hard knock this year with the loss of federal renewable energy incentives and funding. The Trump administration vanquished solar and wind investment tax credits, the Solar for All program and Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency project awards.
Are projects surviving these steep cuts, and if so, how? We spoke to key figures working on four microgrid projects, and here’s what they told us.
Strategies by Microgrid Developers to Overcome Federal Funding Cuts
Scaling back project size.
Taking advantage of a safe harbor provision of the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that allows developers to retain the solar investment tax credits (ITC) if they begin their projects by certain deadlines.
Focusing more on the storage portion of their projects in order to use the federal ITC that’s still available for the technology under the OBBBA.
Finding ways to deploy solar as a commercial project, which, under the OBBBA, gives developers more time to take advantage of the solar ITC.
Applying for state funding.
Searching for grants through foundations.
Churches pivot to safe-harbor-as-a-service
The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church wants to demonstrate how microgrids benefit communities of color, which are often the last to have their power restored. This is true of the Georgia churches in AME Church’s sixth district, which launched an ambitious resilience program after community members experienced numerous outages from hurricanes, including one church that was out of power for 18 days.
The AME hopes to deploy five microgrids at Georgia churches by the end of 2026 and, long term, up to 482 microgrids, said James Gaymon, director of operations for social justice at Sixth District AME Church in Georgia. The church’s plans include offering a menu of options, with the highest level of resilience including solar and storage microgrids and bidirectional electric vehicle (EV) charging.
The federal rollback of solar and EV tax credits could be “devastating” to the project, Gaymon said.