While the federal policy and regulatory landscapes in 2025 are, to put it mildly, full of uncertainty and outright antagonism — from the cancellation of programs like Solar for All to the rapid drawdown or outright elimination of the Inflation Reduction Act’s incentives for technologies like solar, storage, wind, and electric vehicles — the choice for the industry is either to wait and hope for better political tides in Washington or to adapt and fight to meet the moment.
“It is very easy to get overwhelmed by this moment,” said Amisha Rai, senior vice president of advocacy at Advanced Energy United (United), an industry association representing many of the leading solar, wind, storage, and demand and distributed energy companies. “You could go into the zone of just being flustered and become part of that chaos. Or you can figure out a construct where you can continue leading and focus on a solutions-oriented path.”
The choice for Rai and United was simple. Founded in the aftermath of the 2010 failure of the federal Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, United was built from the start to engage deeply with state policymakers and regional regulators to educate them about the benefits that advanced energy technologies can deliver to citizens and the grid.
United has achieved a long list of legislative and regulatory achievements over its decade-plus of state and regional engagement. Most recently, United championed California’s passage of the “Pathways Initiative” bill, which grants the state’s independent system operator authority to collaborate with other Western states to create an entirely new day-ahead energy trading market for the Western region — a move that is expected to bolster clean energy deployment and save participants upwards of $1.2 billion annually.
Meeting the moment with practical, available solutions
Despite the headwinds from the nation’s capital, United continues to make progress for the industry in state capitals. Recently, the association leveraged its deep experience to develop a playbook that the entire industry can use to further this progress. “The playbook is a way to organize the solutions available to decision-makers and a guide to leaders of any political stripe and in any state about how to think about the urgent challenges they face today,” Rai said.
The challenges are significant. Electricity demand is projected to surge in coming years, driven by data centers, artificial intelligence, electrification, and industrial reshoring. At the same time, energy costs are spiking, supply chain constraints and tariffs are slowing energy infrastructure development, and extreme weather events are straining grid resilience.
State leaders find themselves caught between rising and understandable citizen concerns about energy costs and the urgent need to meet explosive load growth while maintaining grid reliability. Unlike hyperpartisan Washington, state capitals remain a venue for problem-solving. “We have had these conversations with lawmakers that are across the map — rural, urban, Republican, Democrat, Independent,” Rai explained. “The beauty of this playbook is it applies in Texas, and it applies in Pennsylvania, California, Indiana, or Virginia.”
State and local decision-makers understand that they are accountable to constituents who expect the lights to stay on and bills to remain affordable. The advanced energy technologies available today — from large-scale solar, wind, and storage to distributed resources like virtual power plants and advanced efficiency innovations such as smart thermostats and building energy management systems — offer immediate, deployable solutions. Unlike new gas plants and pipelines that take years to build and also risk becoming stranded assets, these technologies can be deployed quickly to meet urgent reliability needs while containing costs.
A three-pillar framework for action
United’s playbook organizes solutions around three core objectives that address the full spectrum of state energy challenges:
Build it: To meet projected load growth, states can accelerate deployment of least-cost energy projects by reforming generation and transmission development processes. This includes streamlining planning, siting, permitting, interconnection, and procurement procedures to build a stable pipeline of projects that will meet growing future residential, business, and industrial needs.
California’s Pathways Initiative exemplifies this approach. The landmark legislation, nearly a decade in the making, enables Western states with vastly different energy portfolios to work together on market expansion, making it easier to boost transmission capacity, get more clean energy projects connected to the grid, and create efficiencies that will benefit affordability and reliability across the region.
United has also been working on improving energy markets in other parts of the country. For instance, the organization has been leading efforts to have PJM Interconnection — the nation’s largest grid operator, serving 13 states and D.C. — make significant reforms to address the massive backlog of projects waiting to connect to its grid, a critical bottleneck preventing clean energy deployment and keeping prices sky high. These regional efforts complement the statewide developments in siting and permitting legislation that United recently helped secure in Michigan and Massachusetts.
Make it flexible: States can maximize existing grid infrastructure by scaling up distributed energy resources, energy waste reduction, virtual power plants, and advanced vehicle and building electrification solutions through state-led programs, plans, and rates. These technologies help grid operators manage costs in real time while preparing the system for increased demand.
Following Winter Storm Uri’s devastating blackouts in 2021, state leaders in Texas recognized the value of flexibility, energy waste reduction, and consumer participation. Recent legislation in Texas has expanded opportunities for those demand-side programs to help shore up the grid. “Texas has showcased that these resources can actually keep the lights on and help strengthen the grid system,” Rai said. “We don’t need to wait 20 years to solve all of our problems. These are solutions that can actually be deployed immediately.”
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