Saturday was a big anniversary and a small one. America turned 250, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) turned one. Paper is the traditional first-anniversary gift, and for developers married to OBBBA, the paper was truly a gift. Signed on America’s 249th birthday, the act left solar and wind developers two options to keep their tax credits: begin construction by last weekend, or be in service by the end of 2027.
For larger projects, clearing the under-construction bar ahead of the deadline won the prize of “safe harbor”: roughly four more years to reach commercial operation and still collect the credit. Meet that bar, and the investment and production tax credits keep paying out well beyond 2027.
For small and residential systems that build in weeks, the end-2027 deadline is well within reach, so locking in under-construction status this summer mattered little. But for utility-scale projects, first queue date to an interconnection agreement alone runs three to four years, before a shovel moves. Without the time that safe harbor buys, the tax credits are effectively worthless.
That is why the fight over what “begin construction” means got contentious. For years a developer could lock eligibility on paper, spending 5% of project cost, no dirt required. IRS Notice 2025-42 tried to remove that route, leaving physical work as the only path. But on June 6 a federal court vacated the notice and restored the 5% safe harbor, and conceded its own appeal would not resolve before the deadline it was fighting over. At the project level, OBBBA’s impact is messy and uneven. Right after enactment we pegged 30% of queued solar and 57% of onshore wind as economic without credits at all. At EVOLVE in May we mapped some solar clearing below $30/MWh in MISO and PJM and the best Midwest wind under $20/MWh. Pine Gate’s bankruptcy was a reminder of the risk weaker portfolios still carry.
Zoom out and safe harbor looks more like a bridge than a loophole. Solar and wind are what most of the country can build now, and the under-construction wedge, 133.8 GW and rising, has roughly four years to come online, supported by tax credits and climbing PPAs. That capacity carries the system until gas turbine deliveries ramp and firm resources like SMRs and geothermal arrive at scale. The date everyone raced to beat turned out to be a starting gun, not a finish line. Four years to turn safe-harbored paper into steel, and to build a bridge to the next era.
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