nick.nigro@atlaspolicy.com

Amogy, which was founded by three Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD graduates, aims to help decarbonize sectors like maritime shipping that are viewed as more difficult to shift away from fossil fuels. To do that, it created a chemical reactor that ​“cracks” ammonia — a compound often used in products like fertilizer — into nitrogen and hydrogen. The hydrogen then goes through a fuel cell that can power vessels, trucks, and other machinery, while the nitrogen is released into the air.

Already, the startup has worked with ready-mix suppliers to provide its cement for projects with Caltrans, the City of Santa Cruz, and the City of Berkeley, alongside various California-based contracting companies. Last year, Fortera received $85 million in series C funding to expand operations beyond its plant in Redding, California. Since then, it has begun engineering an expanded plant at an undisclosed location in the Western U.S., with the capacity to produce 400,000 tons of cement per year. (The Redding plant produces 15,000 tons per year.)

Of the $100 million, $53 million is available for business and public-sector EV fleet purchases, while nearly $38 million is designated to upgrade infrastructure for non-residential charger installations. An additional nearly $9 million is intended for residential charging stations.

The nation’s first networked geothermal system owned by a utility went live June 4 in Framingham, Massachusetts. The roughly $15 million network of ground-source heat pumps will cool and heat 36 buildings without fossil fuels, says Eversource Energy, the utility leading the project. As decision-makers nationwide eye networked geothermal as a technology with the potential to decarbonize entire neighborhoods, the two-year Framingham pilot aims to offer lessons for other communities.

Google X spinout Dandelion Energy and major U.S. homebuilder Lennar unveiled a partnership that aims to prove that proposition. The companies have pledged to build ground-source geothermal into more than 1,500 new homes in Colorado over the next two years, starting with Lennar’s Ken-Caryl Ranch development in Littleton, Colorado.

In northeastern Oregon, nearly 9,500 acres of farmland will soon be transformed into a 1,200-megawatt solar project. State regulators approved Sunstone Solar, the nation’s largest proposed solar-plus-storage facility, last fall. Once up and running, the project will include up to 7,200 megawatt-hours of storage, and its nearly four million solar panels will produce enough clean electricity to power around 800,000 homes each year. Pine Gate Renewables, the North Carolina–based developer behind the project, touted a first-of-a-kind initiative to invest up to $11 million in local wheat farms to offset economic impacts on the region’s agriculture. Construction will begin in 2026.

The vehicles emit only water vapor and warm air as exhaust, reducing air pollution in the neighborhoods where they run. But producing and transporting hydrogen for the fuel cells can be a significant source of climate emissions, which is why SARTA is partnering with energy company Enbridge and the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub, or ARCH2, on a plan to make the fuel on-site with solar power. “So it will be green,” said Kirt Conrad, SARTA’s CEO, referring to the use of renewable energy to power the production of hydrogen by splitting water.

UPROSE has been working to develop the Sunset Park Solar project since 2017, as part of its broader vision for curbing excessive air pollution and creating climate resiliency in the neighborhood. After years of forming partnerships, and repairs to the building’s rooftop, the solar array is finally expected to begin producing power by the end of this year.

PosiGen, a New Orleans–based rooftop-solar company, last month (December 2024) secured an additional $200 million in funding from Brookfield Asset Management. PosiGen caters to lower-income homeowners who are often overlooked by the big residential solar players. 

The LPO announced it closed a loan guarantee of up to $1.66 billion for Plug Power, a manufacturer of fuel cells and hydrogen electrolyzers. The guarantee is meant to help the company attract financing to build up to six facilities that will produce hydrogen with low or zero carbon emissions using its electrolyzers.