Wednesday, 1 July 2026

A federal judge scrapped IRS Notice 2025-42 and revived the 5% safe harbor rule that solar developers rely on to lock federal clean energy tax credits, in a ruling handed down by a US District Court for the District of Columbia.

The case, docketed as Civil Action No. 25-4400 (CKK) and captioned Oregon Environmental Council v. Internal Revenue Service, closed off the IRS attempt to scrap the safe harbor path. It landed with less than a month left before the July 4 federal clean energy tax-credit deadline.

Created in 2018, the safe harbor rule sets the beginning of construction date that lets solar projects with longer lead times qualify for Section 45Y and 48E tax credits. Developers who spend at least 5% of project cost by that date fix their construction start for tax purposes, preserving credit eligibility even where physical work runs across several years.

Notice 2025-42 had moved to close that route, and striking it down removes the threat to projects built around the 2018 framework and pushing to beat the July 4 cutoff.

Bill Curtis, an attorney at Spencer Fane, told Electrek the outcome is "a significant victory for the industry" that gives developers claiming the credit added certainty.

Sections 45Y and 48E carry the most weight for utility-scale solar, where permitting, interconnection, and equipment orders routinely push operation years past the construction start. The order returns developers to the pre-notice rules as they prepare safe harbor filings ahead of the July 4 deadline.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright signed a Declaration of Intent with officials from Cyprus, Greece, Israel and Rice University to establish the Eastern Mediterranean Energy Center, according to the DOE.

The signatories included the Minister of Energy, Commerce, and Industry of the Republic of Cyprus, the Minister of Environment and Energy for Greece, the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, and the President of Rice University.

The DOE said the agreement advances an initiative envisioned under Secretary Rubio's Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act of 2019.

The partnership will support collaboration on priorities including natural gas development, U.S. LNG infrastructure, energy transportation networks, grid reliability, critical infrastructure resilience, and emerging technologies, according to the DOE.

The United States is the largest producer of oil and natural gas and the world's largest LNG exporter, according to the DOE.

The California Public Utilities Commission approved a community solar program that solar developers say cannot work, according to pv magazine.

The framework prices grid exports through the existing Renewable Market Adjusting Tariff, or ReMAT, and drops the Net Value Billing Tariff model that the solar industry had backed. It leans on USD 250 million in federal Solar for All grant money awarded to California, one-time funding rather than a durable revenue source.

"Today's vote is a doubling down on failure," said Derek Chernow, Executive Director of CLASS, who told pv magazine the CPUC had again handed the keys to the utilities.

Chernow traced the dispute to AB 2316, which the California Legislature passed four years ago with instructions to build a workable community solar and storage program. He contrasted that with results elsewhere, saying more than 20 other states have deployed market-based community solar programs that save subscribers money.

Clean energy advocates are now taking the fight to the state Senate, pressing for passage of AB 1813 to sidestep the CPUC framework and set up a financeable community solar program in statute.

Farmers for Climate Action (FCA) wants Australian farms to swap imported diesel for locally generated power and sustainable biofuels, in a report titled Energy Sovereignty for Regional Australia that calls for cheaper, lower-cost energy produced on site.

The group counts nearly 9,000 active members and a wider support base of about 80,000 people, according to pv magazine.

"The fuel supply disruption has highlighted just how vulnerable the agricultural sector is," said FCA Chief Executive Officer Verity Morgan-Schmidt.

A case study in the report compares diesel and electric seeding. It estimates a 6,000-hectare seeding program over 35 days burns about 30,000 litres of diesel, roughly 320 MWh of fuel energy. An efficient electric tractor doing the same work would draw around 110 MWh, because electric drivetrains turn more of their input into useful work.

That works out to about 3.1 MWh of electricity a day across the seeding period. The report says between 600 and 900 kW of solar PV, laid across 1 to 1.5 hectares of panels and paired with 2.5 MWh of battery storage, could cover that daily load.

FCA argues that on-farm solar, batteries, electric machinery and sustainable biofuels together can reduce farms' dependence on imported diesel supply chains. The seeding figures are presented as indicative rather than a fixed design.