The board heard information for an agreement on a solar panel project at Whittier Middle School. The project would install a solar panel system on the school’s room that would generate 69.2% of the meter’s energy.
Less than a month after an $8 million federal award for electric transportation, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe has been awarded nearly $12 million to electrify homes across the reservation. The $11.8 million award for Rosebud is the largest in the second round of funding from the Interior Department through the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Tribal Electrification Program.
Affordable, portable clean energy is on the brink of becoming widespread in the U.S., thanks to Utah leading the way in making the stars — and solar panels — align. Plug-in solar panels — sometimes called “balcony solar” — allow people to generate electricity by plugging panels directly into a standard outlet and help cut down on utility bills, without the need for expensive rooftop installations. The relatively cheap technology has taken off in parts of Europe, and recent Utah law has sparked interest across the U.S. Utah lawmakers passed HB 340 in 2025 with bipartisan and unanimous support, becoming the first state to allow residents to plug solar systems directly into residential outlets.
Efforts to bring solar energy to homes on the Wind River Reservation hit a snag when the Trump administration paused a quarter of the project’s federal funding earlier this year. But that money is now back in action. Energize Wind River regained access to the roughly $2 million construction grant at the start of July. The current plan is to start by providing stand-alone, off-the-grid solar power for 10 unelectrified homes on the reservation, with the grant funding ultimately powering 35 to 40 homes total. While the project still had funding for training, employees and outreach during the funding freeze, it was unable to buy or install the actual solar equipment. Now, program specialist Ethel Goggles said the group is ready to turn the concept into a reality.
Standing inside the New Jersey Statehouse last month, Claudia Mutzus wore a T-shirt from the Service Employees International Union and held a banner emblazoned with the words, “Built by New Jersey workers for New Jersey families.” She’d gathered with other union members to mark the start of a new organized labor coalition, Climate Jobs New Jersey, with lofty ambitions: to secure energy independence through solar construction and, in the process, address the state’s electrical affordability crisis. New Jersey residents have been facing increasingly high electrical bills since they began to spike as much as 20 percent in June 2025. With large electricity demands from data centers and the state’s need to purchase off-grid power to meet energy requests, costs have surged, leaving many residents baffled with no relief. One of Climate Jobs New Jersey’s priorities is a statewide solar and battery storage program that coalition leaders say will enable the state to take back control of planning its own energy needs from PJM Interconnection, the grid operator that oversees the regional wholesale electricity market.
Like many homesteaders on the island of Molokaʻi, Kailana Place grew up off-grid, on 40 acres of family land designated for Native Hawaiians. Living in repurposed school buses surrounded by fields of red volcanic clay and kiawe trees “was a glamping lifestyle,” joked the social worker and mother of three, a way of life powered by kerosene and propane.
A Missouri S&T researcher is developing artificial intelligence and computational methods to help hydropower plant operators manage water and energy resources more efficiently and potentially pass on savings to consumers, with a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
Lincoln Electric System has received $300,000 from Google to provide energy-efficient improvements for affordable housing units. The money will help Lincoln continue the South of Downtown Rental Rehabilitation Program, a 2023 program that in part aims to improve energy efficiency for residents in portions of the city’s Near South and Everett neighborhoods. The program offers $15,000 in financial assistance per dwelling unit to owners of affordable residential rental properties that fall within the boundaries of J and A streets going north to south, and South 10th and South 17th streets going west to east. These improvements can include high-efficiency heat pumps, upgraded insulation and smart thermostats, which LES assists with. LES CEO Emeka Anyanwu said since 2023, the program has helped fund upgrades in 133 housing units using funds left over from the utility’s 2018 Sustainable Energy Program, and the new infusion of funds from Google will help pay for at least 50 more.
On a farm near Manchester, New Hampshire, I was recently treated to a gusher of dirty water, not exactly the sort of thing that most startups will show a reporter. But for Dig Energy, the mud is a feature, not a bug, of its compact drilling rig. The startup, which has been operating in stealth for the last five years, developed the water-jet drilling rig in an effort to make geothermal heating and cooling so inexpensive that it will displace fossil fuel boilers and furnaces. The rig is central to that, promising to slash drilling costs by up to 80%.
Standard Lithium has reached a milestone after nine years as a player in southwest Arkansas lithium. The company's lithium demonstration plant, part of an existing bromine production facility south of El Dorado, has processed 42 million gallons of water, achieving more than 95% lithium recovery. The work there, they say, has validated the Direct Lithium Extraction technology they will use to produce lithium commercially. They are also proud of six years of operations at the plant- 340,000 worker hours- with no safety incidents.