It's Monday. An inverter's security risk used to be measured by its antenna. The FCC decided the Ethernet jack counts too.
In today's edition:
🔌 Big Story: FCC's inverter ban reaches hardwired devices
⚡ Quick Hits: Australia rehearses a rooftop-solar shutdown
💰 Capital: Nvidia buys powered land
📋 Policy Watch: TVA meters data centers separately
📊 Chart of the Day: solar and storage own the build
The Big Story
FCC extends inverter ban to hardwired devices, adds 45X off-ramp
The Federal Communications Commission issued guidance on Friday widening its foreign inverter ban, in force since late July, to cover hardwired equipment. After Defense Department input, the restriction now covers any grid-interactive inverter containing, or built to accept, remote communication hardware over Ethernet, Wi-Fi, cellular, or Bluetooth. It also opens a way around it: inverters from manufacturers eligible for Section 45X credits will not be classified as foreign-made.
The FCC said today that it will not treat inverters whose manufacturers are 'eligible' for section 45X tax credits as foreign made… The FCC said the nationality of the company making the inverter is irrelevant.
The 45X pathway is an alternative to Build America, Buy America rules, which require US content above 65% through 2028 and 75% from 2029.
Norton Rose Fulbright cautioned that Foreign Entity of Concern rules still bite: 45X credits cannot be claimed by prohibited foreign entities or firms handing operational control to majority Chinese-owned companies.
The agency removed pure AC-to-DC rectifiers and off-grid inverters from the Covered List; fielded inverters stay eligible for routine software and firmware patches.
Source: pv magazine USA
Quick Hits
Technology milestones from across the grid
Six from across the stack, from a rooftop-solar rehearsal to a grant pointed at coal.
Australian network operators will switch off rooftop solar in a live rehearsal of the emergency backstop controls that stop minimum demand collapsing, a first real-world test of machinery every high-DER grid is building. RenewEconomy
Arevon brought its 300 MW Nighthawk LFP battery online in Poway, California under a long-term PG&E agreement, its largest standalone storage asset. POWER
Prometheus Hyperscale and Istmo will develop an off-grid gas-fired data center campus of up to 2.5 GW in Reeves County, Texas, first power next year, a workaround of ERCOT's queue. Data Center Dynamics
Ur-Energy made the first uranium shipment from its Shirley Basin project in Wyoming, becoming a multi-asset domestic producer as fuel reshoring picks up. World Nuclear News
The Clean Air Task Force released an open research-mapping tool for geothermal, showing where R&D is duplicated and where it is missing, a coordination layer the sector lacked. ThinkGeoEnergy
The Department of Energy rescoped a $500 million Biden-era decarbonization award so Cleveland-Cliffs can extend a coal blast furnace in Middletown, Ohio. Canary Media
The Capital Stack
Nvidia buys into powered land with a Cloverleaf stake
Nvidia took a minority stake in Cloverleaf Infrastructure, a developer of powered land, meaning sites with interconnection already secured, and the two will build around Nvidia's DSX architecture. POWER framed it as the chipmaker pushing into utility procurement, a silicon vendor moving upstream into the interconnection queue.
Source: POWER
Also in the capital stack:
Coal India is seeking a ₹7 billion term loan, roughly $74.6 million, for a 187.5 MW / 750 MWh battery in Telangana, putting the coal monopoly on the storage balance sheet. Mercom India
Ignis and Acciona formed a JV for a Segovia, Spain data center paired with a co-developed solar plant, an early European template for co-siting generation and load. Data Center Dynamics
Policy Watch
TVA's board approved a separate wholesale rate class for data centers, roughly 10% higher, so residential and manufacturing customers stop subsidizing large loads, a template other public power systems will be pressed to copy. T&D World
The Trump administration will run only an Environmental Assessment on the 9.2 GW DOE-owned gas project tied to OpenAI's Pike County, Ohio data center, targeting NEPA completion by December 23, Heatmap News reported, compressing permitting to about seven months. Heatmap News
The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities proposed the next roughly 150 MW behind-the-meter phase of its Garden State Energy Storage Program, pushing procurement into customer-sited assets. Energy-Storage.news
Chart of the Day
Solar and storage were two-thirds of new US capacity in the first half
Solar and batteries were more than two-thirds of all US capacity added from January through June, and 90% of everything built was solar, storage, or wind. Texas led construction overall, New Mexico second on the 3.65 GW SunZia wind project, Arizona third.
Source: Canary Media, on EIA Form 860M data · August 21, 2026
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