Minnesota clean energy and economic development officials say a Canadian solar manufacturer’s planned expansion in the state shows the impact of federal climate incentives for domestic production. 

Pete Wyckoff, assistant commissioner of federal and state initiatives for the Minnesota Department of Commerce, said Heliene’s announcement that it plans to onshore solar cell manufacturing in partnership with an Indian supplier shows the Inflation Reduction Act “is doing what it is designed to do, which is to provide incentives to encourage every step in the solar manufacturing process to occur domestically.” 

In late July, Heliene said it had reached a joint venture agreement with Premier Energies, India’s second-largest solar cell manufacturing company, to build a solar cell manufacturing facility somewhere in the Twin Cities. Heliene also has a plant in northern Minnesota, where it assembles solar panel modules using imported cells from Premier Energies.

Several U.S. factories assemble solar panel modules — think of the rectangular boxes you’d see installed on a rooftop. Almost all of these domestic manufacturers, though, depend on imported solar cells — the half-foot square slices of silicon that actually do the work of converting sunlight to electricity.  

The Inflation Reduction Act prompted a flurry of announcements related to domestic solar cell production, but its viability here remains unclear, Renewable Energy World recently reported. Multiple companies have already retracted plans for U.S. solar cell factories, citing market challenges.

Meeting installer demands

Heliene CEO Martin Pochtaruk said its planned solar cell plant is meant to meet clients’ demand for modules with higher levels of domestic content, which allow project developers to claim more lucrative incentives. After solar owners receive a standard 30% tax credit for projects, they can add another 10% by using modules with equipment made in the United States.

“Strong solar cell manufacturing offers solar developers a higher percentage of U.S.-made domestic content components for their projects, reduces reliance on imports, and releases stress on our supply chain,” Pochtaruk said.

He said working with Premier on establishing an American beachhead that could employ more than 200 workers makes sense because the Inflation Reduction Act rewards solar panels made primarily with parts made in the U.S. solar cells.

Solar developers must use panels with a domestic content of 40% or more for the bonus, and the threshold will increase to 55% in 2026. 

In August, Heliene agreed to a multi-year contract with NorSun to supply low-carbon wafers — one of the building blocks of solar cells — for all the company’s solar panels starting in 2026. 

Heliene has also announced a partnership with UGE, a community and commercial solar and battery storage developer, to provide panels that meet the requirements of the Domestic Content Investment Tax Credit (ITC) Bonus. 

Heliene said in a press release that it would manage construction, finances, supply chain logistics, regulatory oversight, and human resources. Premier will provide cell technology engineering, manufacturing expertise, supply-side agreements, and raw material vendor relationships.  

Pochtaruk said Heliene’s commitment to buy material from Premier Energies and NorSun was instrumental in their ability to finance the new factories. He asked both to try to open in 2026 when the content bonus requires more American-made content.

Jeremy Kalin, a Minneapolis attorney who works with several solar developers, said his clients are seeking panel suppliers with enough content to take the additional 10% tax credit. Manufacturers must provide a guarantee that the panels reach the threshold of having at least 55% of the panels’ components American-made. 

“Once they meet that requirement, they will see a flood of business,” Kalin said.  

Could Minnesota be a solar manufacturing center?

Minnesota Solar Energy Industries Association business development and communications director Abbi Morgan said the company’s presence “is huge and something we’re excited about because Minnesota is often overlooked when it comes to clean energy.”

So far, though, Heliene’s Minnesota operations have yet to attract other solar manufacturers. Morgan said one of the association’s members, a German firm, opened a factory in Arizona. At least among the association’s more than 170 members, plenty have expressed interest in buying panels from Heliene.

“There are a lot of members who ask about Heliene, but we’ve heard they have a long waiting list even though they expanded their factory in Mountain Iron,” Morgan said.

After securing a $3.5 million state loan package in 2018, Heliene began manufacturing and assembling panels in a once-shuttered solar module plant in Mountain Iron. The former plant, Silicon Energy, failed despite state investments of millions of dollars.

The plant is in a business park created to attract green energy companies across the street from a taconite mine. Two years ago, the company spent $21 million to triple the production space through an addition to the plant. Heliene spent $9.5 million to pay for the expansion and received most of the rest through state loans and a county grant.

Now, the company has shifted attention to adding capacity in central Minnesota, where it will begin developing two solar module manufacturing lines in an existing 227,000-square-foot warehouse in Rogers, a burgeoning exurb northwest of Minneapolis.

Before preparing the warehouse for solar production, Heliene is waiting to hear whether the project will receive money from the Minnesota Investment Fund (MIF) and Job Creation Fund (JCF). State officials were expected to make an announcement in September.

Rogers Community Development Director Brett Angell said Heliene will fit into the city’s growing reputation as a hub for sustainable enterprises. The company plans to employ at least 180 people and spend $16 million on building improvements and equipment.

“Additionally, (Heliene) would continue to add to the growing segment of sustainable manufacturers within the community as the city currently is home to multiple plastic recycling companies,” Angell said.

Heliene has not selected a site for the solar cell manufacturing plant or provided details on how much investment and employment it will create. Pochtaruk said the building will be significantly larger than the solar module plant.

Federal incentives spur solar panel company to try onshoring its supply chain in Minnesota is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

As low-income households face the dual burden of weather extremes and high energy costs, energy efficiency is an increasingly important strategy for both climate mitigation and lower utility bills.

Passive House standards — which create a building envelope so tight that central heating and cooling systems may not be needed at all — promise to dramatically slash energy costs, and are starting to appear in “stretch codes” for buildings, including in Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington and New York.

And while some builders are balking at the initial up-front cost, other developers are embracing passive house metrics as a solution for affordable multifamily housing.

“We’re trying to make zero energy, high performing buildings that are healthy and low energy mainstream everywhere,” said Katrin Klingenberg, co-founder and executive director of Passive House Institute-U.S., or Phius. 

Klingenberg says the additional work needed to meet an aggressive efficiency standard, is, in the long run, not that expensive. Constructing a building to passive standards is initially only about 3%-5% more expensive than building a conventional single family home, or 0%-3% more for multifamily construction, according to Phius.

“This is not rocket science… We’re just beefing up the envelope. We’re doing all the good building science, we’re doing all the healthy stuff. We’re downsizing the [heating and cooling] system, and now we need someone to optimize that process,” Klingenberg said. 

Phius in practice and action

A Phius-certified building does not employ a conventional central heating and cooling system. Instead, it depends on an air-tight building envelope, highly efficient ventilation and strategically positioned, high-performance windows to exploit solar gain during both winter and summer and maximize indoor comfort. 

The tight envelope for Phius buildings regulates indoor air temperature, which can be a literal lifesaver when power outages occur during extreme heat waves or cold snaps, said Doug Farr, founder and principal of architecture firm Farr Associates.

Farr pointed to the example of the Academy for Global Citizenship in Chicago, which was built to Phius standards. 

“There was a really cold snap in January. Somehow the power went out [and the building] was without electricity for two or three days. And the internal temperature in the building dropped two degrees over three days.”

Farr said that example shows a clear benefit to high efficiency that justifies the cost.

“You talk about the ultimate resilience where you’re not going to die in a power outage either in the summer or the winter. You know, that’s pretty valuable.” 

There is also a business case to be made for implementing Phius and other sustainability metrics into residential construction, such as lowered bills that can appeal to market-rate buyers and renters, and reduced long-term maintenance costs for building owners. 

AJ Patton, founder and CEO of 548 Enterprise in Chicago, says in response to questions about how to convince developers to consider factors beyond the bottom line, simply, “they shouldn’t.”

Instead, he touts lower operating costs for energy-efficiency metrics rather than climate mitigation when he pitches his projects to his colleagues. 

“I can’t sell people on climate change anymore,” he said. “If you don’t believe by now, the good Lord will catch you when He catch you.

“But if I can sell you on lowering your operating expenses, if I can sell you on the marketability, on the fact that your tenants will have 30%, 40% lower individual expenses, that’s a marketing angle from a developer owner, that’s what I push on my contemporaries,” Patton said. “And then that’s when they say, ‘if you’re telling the truth, and if your construction costs are not more significant than mine, then I’m sold.’”

Phius principles can require specialized materials and building practices, Klingenberg said. But practitioners are working toward finding ways to manage costs by sourcing domestically available materials rather than relying on imports.

“The more experienced an architect [or developer] gets, they understand that they can replace these specialized components with more generic materials and you can get the same effect,” Klingenberg said.

Patton is presently incorporating Phius principles as the lead developer for 3831 W Chicago Avenue, a mixed use development located on Chicago’s West Side. The project, billed as the largest passive house design project in the city to date, will cover an entire city block, incorporating approximately 60 mixed-income residential units and 9,000 sq ft of commercial and community space.

Another project, Sendero Verde, located in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City, is the largest certified passive-house building in the United States with 709 units. Completed in April, Sendero Verde is designed to provide cool conditions in the summer and warmth during the winter — a vast improvement for the low-income and formerly unhoused individuals and families who live there.

Barriers and potential solutions

Even without large upfront building cost premiums and with the increased impact of economies of scale, improved technology and materials, many developers still feel constrained to cut costs, Farr said.

“There’s entire segments of the development spectrum in housing, even in multifamily housing in Chicago, where if you’re a developer of rental housing time and again …  they feel like they have no choice but to keep things as the construction as cheap as possible because their competitors all do. And then, some architecture firms only work with those ‘powerless’ developers and they get code-compliant buildings.”

But subsidies, such as federal low income housing credits, IRS tax breaks and resources from the Department of Energy also provide a means for developers to square the circle, especially for projects aimed toward very low-income residents. 

Nonetheless, making the numbers work often requires taking a long-term view of development, according to Brian Nowak, principal at Sweetgrass Design Studio in Minnesota. Nowak was the designer for Hillcrest Village, an affordable housing development in Northfield that does not utilize Phius building metrics, but does incorporate net-zero energy usage standards.

“It’s an investment over time, to build resilient, energy-efficient housing,” he told the Energy News Network in June 2023.

“That should be everyone’s goal. And if we don’t, for example, it affects our school system. It affects the employers at Northfield having people that are readily available to come in and fill the jobs that are needed.

“That’s a significant long-term benefit of a project like this. And that is not just your monthly rents on the building; it’s the cost of the utilities as well. When those utilities include your electricity and your heating and cooling that’s a really big deal.”

Developers like Patton are determined to incorporate sustainability metrics into affordable housing and commercial developments both because it’s good business and because it’s the right thing to do.

“I’m not going to solve every issue. I’m going to focus on clean air, clean water, and lowering people’s utility bills. That’s my focus. I’m not going to design the greatest architectural building. I’m not even interested in hiring those type of architects. 

“I had a lived experience of having my heat cut off in the middle of winter. I don’t want that to ever happen to anybody I know ever again,” Patton said. “So if I can lower somebody’s cost of living, that’s my sole focus. And there’s been a boatload of buy-in from that, because those are historically [not] things [present] in the communities I invest in.”

No longer a niche, Passive House standards becoming a solution for highly efficient affordable housing is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A year and a half since Massachusetts introduced an optional new building code aimed at lowering fossil fuel use, climate activists are heartened by how quickly cities and towns are adopting the new guidelines. 

The new code, known as the specialized stretch code, became law in 2023. Since then, 45 municipalities representing about 30% of the state’s population have voted to adopt its guidelines. The code is already active in 33 of these communities and scheduled to take effect over the next year in another 12.

“That is just an astounding statistic to me,” said climate advocate Lisa Cunningham, one of the founders of decarbonization nonprofit ZeroCarbonMA. “The rollout has been, quite frankly, amazing.”

Massachusetts has long been a leader in using opt-in building codes to push for decarbonization of the built environment. In 2009, the state introduced the country’s first stretch code, an alternative version of the building code that includes more stringent energy efficiency requirements. Municipalities must vote to adopt the stretch code, and the vast majority have done so: As of June, just 8.5% of residents lived in the 50 towns and cities without a stretch code. 

The specialized stretch code takes this approach a step farther. The goal is to create a code that will help achieve target emissions reductions from 2025 to 2050, when the state aims to be carbon-neutral. In 2021, the legislature called on the state to create an additional opt-in code that would get close to requiring net-zero carbon emissions from new construction. 

“We want to work towards decarbonizing those buildings, right from the start, as we look to a future in 2050 while we are net-zero in greenhouse gas emissions,” said Elizabeth Mahony, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources.

At the same time, electrified, energy-efficient homes will mean lower energy costs for residents over time, more comfortable and healthier indoor air, and more stable indoor temperatures when power outages occur, she said. 

The construction industry, meanwhile, has concerns about the measure’s impact on upfront costs. 

Getting to net-zero buildings

The resulting code doesn’t require buildings to achieve net-zero emissions right away, but attempts to ensure any new construction will be ready to go carbon-neutral before 2050.

There are a few pathways for compliance. A newly built home can use fossil fuels for space heating, water heating, cooking, or drying or be built fully electrified. If the new home uses any fossil fuels, however, it must be built to a higher energy efficiency standard, be wired to ready the house for future electrification, and include solar panels onsite where feasible. In all cases, homes must be wired for at least one electric vehicle charging station.

Larger, multifamily buildings must be built to Passive House standards, a certification that requires the dramatic reduction of energy use as compared to similar buildings of the same size and type. Single-family homes can also choose to pursue Passive House certification. 

Decarbonization advocates are pleased with the rollout so far. The state’s major cities, including Boston, Worcester, and Cambridge, were all quick to adopt the code. In most municipalities the vote to adopt the specialized code has been near-unanimous, said Cunningham.

And more communities are considering the specialized code.

“We’re talking to a lot of communities that are contemplating it for their town meetings this fall,” Mahony said. “We know there is a growing sense out there of wanting to do this.” 

 The key to convincing cities and towns that the code is a good idea is for municipal governments to understand and frame the code as a consumer protection measure, rather than an added burden, Cunningham said. The requirements of the specialized code along with state and federal incentives can save on construction costs upfront, and will ensure buildings cost less to operate during their lifetime, offering significant benefits to residents, she said. 

“At the point of construction this is an incremental expense – it’s barely even a blip,” she said. “Then it directly reduces your future electricity bills.”

A troublesome transition?

Many in the construction industry, however, disagree with Cunningham’s take. Emerson Clauss III, a director with the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Massachusetts, has found the equipment needed to reach the high standards in the code is more expensive than its authors counted on, and supply chain issues are causing even higher prices.  

“It’s had quite a rough start to it,” Clauss said. “It’s adding considerable cost to new housing.” 

He also worries that the high cost of electricity now — Massachusetts electricity prices are the third highest in the country — spells near-term financial trouble for homeowners that feel forced to go all-electric. 

“The idea that it’s going to cost less 20 years from now — what does that do for people who need to get into a house now?” he asked.

Furthermore, the creation of a new optional code, he said, adds another variable for builders already jumping between the basic code and the previous stretch code, as well as learning the new rules in ten communities banning fossil fuels as part of a state pilot program. Even municipal building directors aren’t able to keep up, Clauss said, recalling a confused call with a suburban building inspector who needed 20 minutes to confirm it was OK to install a natural gas line in a new home. 

In Cambridge, one of the first cities to adopt the specialized code, Assistant Commissioner of Inspectional Services Jacob Lazzara noted there was some confusion at the outset, but time and proactive communication from the city helped ease the transition. The city has held trainings, created materials to hand out to builders and design professionals, and fine-tuned internal communications to make sure the staff is all well informed. 

“There was a little bit of shock for everyone at first, but I think we’re in a good place right now,” Lazzara said.

Massachusetts cities are quickly embracing new emission-slashing building code option is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Illinois has $30 million in incentives available for solar installations on multi-family buildings. 

So far, though, the state program has not received any applications for such projects, according to Jan Gudell, Illinois Solar for All associate director at Elevate, the organization tasked with running the state program. 

In urban areas like Chicago, residents of environmental justice and lower-income neighborhoods are highly likely to live in multi-family residential buildings where it is extremely difficult to install rooftop solar. 

There is little incentive for a landlord to invest in solar that will provide cost savings to the tenants, and rooftops may need significant upgrades to handle solar. In condo buildings, homeowners association bureaucracy and other concerns must be navigated.

There’s also a lesser-known logistical and structural barrier — if solar is to be channeled to individual residential units behind the meter, a separate solar system is essentially needed for each unit — with separate inverters and wiring.

“That’s a lot of hardware, space and cost,” said Aliya Bagewadi, US director of strategic partnerships for Allume Energy, an Australian startup company that says it can address at least this part of the puzzle, by sending energy to individual units with only one inverter and system. 

The company has served thousands of customers in Australia, New Zealand and Europe with its SolShare technology. Now it is rolling out in the U.S., in sunny southern states as well as Illinois, because of the state’s robust solar incentives. 

“It’s inherently an energy equity issue,” said Bagewadi, who is based in Chicago. “We know [multi-family building residents] are much more likely to be lower-income, longer-term renters. We want to make sure those savings flow to people who can really benefit the most.”

Direct benefits 

Illinois isn’t alone in the lack of multi-family solar arrays. Solar developers and advocates have long noted the challenge nationwide, especially for affordable multi-family rental buildings. A 2022 study by Berkeley lab noted that in 2021, about 3% of solar installed in the U.S. was on multi-family buildings, mostly owner-occupied condos. 

“Solar may be a non-starter in a rental multi-family property because the owner may be looking at a complex, expensive and time-consuming process, where they would have to consider the design, permitting, installation, interconnection, and cost for multiple systems,” said Gudell. “For many property owners, this may be unaffordable and unmanageable.” 

A 2018 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that the majority of potential capacity for new solar serving low- and moderate-income customers is on renter-occupied multi-family rooftops. California passed a law in 2015 specifically to address the dearth of solar on multi-family buildings, promising to invest up to $1 billion by 2031.

There are typically several ways to handle rooftop solar on multi-family buildings. 

In rental properties, the building owner can own the array, and use the energy to power common areas, like hallways, a pool or gym. Owners can also allocate a portion of the energy savings to tenants, by charging an amenity fee or otherwise collecting some revenue themselves. 

Alternately, the energy can all be sent back to the grid, in areas with viable net metering policies, and the compensation can be shared with tenants or among condo owners, often referred to as virtual net metering. Community solar offers a similar situation — where the solar isn’t onsite at all, but residents can subscribe to partake in savings. 

Solar advocates, developers, lenders, and policymakers have all been working at state and federal levels to improve opportunities for virtual net metering and community solar. 

These arrangements, however, can still be unattractive or impossible depending on state and utility policy. Community solar isn’t even legal in some states, and virtual net metering depends on utility participation. 

The California law requiring solar on new multi-family construction up to three stories high exempts areas served by utilities that don’t offer virtual net metering.

SolShare avoids these challenges by sending electricity directly from the solar array to individual users, without involving utilities or the grid.

“You can do behind-the-meter with direct benefit to tenants,” said Bagewadi. “We’re physically pushing the electrons to multiple meters.”

Possibilities 

Allume partners with solar installers and developers to help deploy rooftop solar on multi-family buildings, including by working with landlords to design financial structures that benefit both the building owner and tenants. In some cases, Allume acts as the solar developer itself. 

With SolShare, a building owner or manager can allocate energy from a shared solar system, based on unit square footage, in equal amounts, or however they choose. 

Where the technology is deployed in Australia and the UK, energy can be sent to different units on demand, Bagewadi explained. In the U.S., the rollout in Florida and Mississippi is being done with preset amounts that can be changed with 24 hours notice. 

An Allume case study from a 64-unit Orlando apartment building with SolShare notes that a 392-kilowatt rooftop system resulted in savings of almost $100 per month for each unit, with electricity purchased from the grid reduced by almost 60%. While the idea is for residents to use solar behind the meter, excess solar can be sent to the grid. Adding an on-site battery to the mix lets residents use all the power on-site behind the meter, and makes solar power available when the grid is down.

Solar advocates hope the EPA’s $7 billion commitment to the federal equity-focused Solar for All program — separate from Illinois’s state program — will “further unlock multi-family solar,” in Bagewadi’s words.

Gudell said Elevate and other experts know there are many Illinoisans living in multi-family rental buildings that would qualify to have solar installed through Illinois Solar for All. They hope policy and technology evolve to match the available funding. 

“We’ll need a solution that addresses the split incentive problem for rental situations, where the building owner cannot or will not subsidize solar for tenants; and the complexity of bringing solar to multiple electrical accounts at one building,” Gudell said. 

“Adoption of a technology that allows for a single system to be split into shares, for use by multiple electrical account holders, could help in that it would simplify the design, permitting and installation process.”

Startup pitches new model to unlock solar for multi-family buildings, in Illinois and beyond is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A pending youth climate lawsuit in Maine represents the latest iteration of legal strategies aimed at holding states accountable for emissions-cutting targets. 

The case is one of a growing number responding to lagging progress on state climate laws that, in many cases, have now been on the books for years. What makes the Maine case unique is its targeted approach — focused on electric vehicle policy as a way to push the state forward on climate action. 

The case, filed earlier this year by the nonprofits Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), Sierra Club and Maine Youth Action, argues that the Maine Department and Board of Environmental Protection have fallen short on their legal duty to pass rules that will help achieve Maine’s required emissions reductions.

“There are countless solutions for tackling these various sources of climate-warming pollution,” said CLF senior attorney Emily Green, who is based in Portland, Maine. “But you need something more to make sure that it’s all enough, that it all adds up, and that’s where enforceable standards come in.” 

The Maine Attorney General’s office declined to comment, but has moved to dismiss the case. A ruling on next steps is now pending. 

Advocates focus on EV rulemaking

The case focuses on a 2019 state law that requires Maine to lower its greenhouse gas emissions 45% from 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050. 

Statutes like this are “where the rubber meets the road,” said Columbia Law School professor Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “The regulations are the teeth, the specifics on who needs to do what.” 

Such rules translate emissions goals into practical requirements for state executive agencies, processing legislative directive “into what polluters are required to do on a day-to-day basis,” said Jennifer Rushlow, an environmental law professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School.

Maine’s climate law said the state “shall adopt rules to ensure compliance” with the emissions targets, requiring those rules to prioritize reductions “by sectors that are the most significant sources.” 

Transportation contributes more than half of Maine’s emissions, and Maine’s climate plan prioritized electric vehicle adoption as a result. But the state is a long way off from its EV targets. It has about 12,300 EVs on the road now, with climate plan goals of 41,000 by next year and 219,000 by 2030. 

The CLF suit takes regulators to task for repeatedly failing to adopt California’s latest electric car and truck standards, which some states use as a more stringent alternative to federal rules. 

Maine has used California’s Advanced Clean Cars I rule for years, but voted earlier this year against adopting Advanced Clean Cars II, which would have required increasing EV sales in the state over the next several years. It’s also chosen twice not to consider adopting the Advanced Clean Trucks rule.

CLF notes that the state’s climate law requires the adoption of rules that are “consistent with the climate action plan,” first released in 2020. A roadmap for meeting the plan’s transportation goals strongly recommended adopting Clean Cars II, calling it “the most important regulatory driver in the electrification of Maine’s light-duty vehicles in the next two decades.”

State says harms are uncertain

In its motion to dismiss the CLF case, the state argues that Maine’s climate law does not require regulators to adopt all climate plan recommendations, or particular ones, as rules. 

The state has approved a handful of other rules under the climate law. Two focus on tracking emissions, and two others look at what Green called “narrow slices of the building sector,” the state’s second-largest emissions sector. These rules target hydrofluorocarbons and energy efficiency in appliances. 

In their motion, attorneys for the state quote a Maine Supreme Court decision from a separate environmental case earlier this year to argue that it is “simply ‘too uncertain’ … whether future harms will occur that will ‘directly and continuously impact’ any of Plaintiffs’ members.” 

CLF’s response lists a range of climate-linked harms that specific members of the plaintiff groups say they’ve already experienced, from increasing tick-borne illness and other health impacts to crop and flood damage.

“Climate change is here. Mainers are feeling the effects from a warming Gulf, from climate-driven storms,” Green said, adding that state lawmakers have repeatedly made similar statements in recent years. “Each day that passes with further inaction is a day wasted.” 

The state also argues that the “shifting sands” of state and federal climate policies that could affect Maine’s targets create too much uncertainty around harms from a current lack of transportation rules. 

In general, Gerrard said, such factors don’t negate the need for rulemaking. “We are way behind in reducing emissions, and so the fact that other things are happening isn’t going to solve the problem.” 

Green said that while Maine has made strides on expanding EV charging infrastructure, for example, “the actual standards are necessary to give that transition the push it needs.” 

“Binding rules can basically act as a backstop,” she said. “They can ensure the accountability that the investment and the rebates and the education and outreach, on their own, can’t do.” 

Narrower lawsuits get results 

The suit’s transportation focus is notable, experts said. “I would say the energy sector is targeted more frequently, and especially the fossil fuel sector,” Gerrard said. Other climate-adjacent transportation cases have focused on vehicle emissions standards, biofuel mandates or highway projects, he said. 

Rushlow sees the Maine case as a blend of a 2016 suit, also from CLF, which found that Massachusetts wasn’t fulfilling its 2008 emissions-cutting law, and a suit against the Hawaii Department of Transportation, where a recent settlement will require the decarbonization of Hawaii’s transportation sector by 2045. 

Rushlow worked with CLF on the Massachusetts case, but is not involved in the Maine suit and reviewed it after being asked to comment for this story. She said the Maine case lays out why having regulations on transportation emissions is “not just a wish” of the state climate council, but a legal requirement.

“The lawsuits that get really broad can get kind of lost to politics,” said Rushlow. “These lawsuits that are more narrow and focused on the language of particular state laws, I think, can stand a good chance.” 

She said there are also more “hooks” to do this at the state level than federally. Gerrard agreed that it’s easier to bring cases under specific statutes than “a constitutional provision or a common law doctrine.” 

Both the Hawaii case and the landmark Held v. Montana, which is now on appeal before that state’s Supreme Court, successfully took a state constitutional approach, using their legally given rights to a clean and healthful environment to push for climate progress. 

Victories of public opinion

Practical legal results aren’t the only positive impact these cases can have, Rushlow said: “There’s also outcomes in the zeitgeist and public opinion.” Though Juliana v. United States failed in court, she said, it “really drew a lot of attention to the future harm we’re causing our youth — and the current harm.”  

But she sees increasing potential for success among a greater share of climate lawsuits just in the past few years, as plaintiffs learn more about how courts are likely to receive different approaches. 

“It feels to me like progress is being made,” she said. “But the courts are never the first place you want to go when you’re looking for rapid, systemic change. They’re slow, they’re backward-looking, they’re conservative. And so it’s a challenging forum for the kind of change we need, and yet necessary.” 

In Maine, climate groups initially tried a regulatory petition to push for the passage of Clean Cars II. 

“When it became entirely evident that that was not going to happen, our hand was sort of forced,” Green said.

Maine faces lawsuit for failing to adopt EV mandates, the latest state-level climate court case is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.