The change from one year to the next is always a good time to reflect on the past, while also looking to the future. Energy Trust’s renewable energy team entered 2024 with several goals and expectations for the year. There were many wins, along with a few surprises.

Throughout 2024, our teams were kept busy as we continued to grow and diversify our renewable energy incentive portfolio to help provide the best solutions for customers. We launched many enhancements including increases to our annual customer maximums across various customer groups; an increase to our Solar Development Assistance offer; the introduction of our Battery Storage Development Assistance offer; the launch of our Battery Storage for Businesses offer, and four separate Solarize campaigns, which supported the communities of Reeds Crossing, North Portland, Hillsboro/Cornellius, and Deschutes County. And these were only a few of the highlights!

In the Spring, we paused our plans to sunset standard Solar incentives. This was perhaps the most notable strategic decision of the year. Due to limited budget and strategic priorities, Energy Trust had been preparing to phase down and sunset standard solar incentives for the residential sector (market-rate customers) by the end of 2024. There were a number of events that led to us changing course. Market indications early in the year, along with a challenging policy landscape, high cost of financing and higher costs in general, had clearly created a different landscape for solar. With the added uncertainty of an election year, Energy Trust made the strategic decision to not only pause the plan for sunsetting residential incentives, but chose to increase incentives in the spring to help provide market stability throughout the remainder of the year. This priority of market stability is one that continues now and moving forward.

Thankfully, the increased incentives in the spring helped stabilize market demand and we finished the year incredibly well. (Keep an eye out for the next issue of Insider for our preliminary 2024.)

While renewable energy staff members were very busy, exciting developments were underway all across Energy Trust as an organization in 2024, the biggest one being the development and approval of our next Strategic Plan. We encourage all trade allies to read and understand this plan, which covers the six-year period from 2025-2030. Among many things, it centers decarbonization and resilience among Energy Trust’s key focus areas.

As we move into 2025, the renewable energy team will build on our strong portfolio of existing incentives with a series of initiatives and new offers. These will support our new strategic plan as well as help set our programs on a positive track to meet aggressive goals through 2030. As we transition to a new internal multi-year planning approach, we will continue sharing details with trade allies as they emerge. Our goal in sharing this information is to help the Trade Ally Network prepare for what’s to come and grow with us.

First and foremost, we plan to continue our support for a broad portfolio of offers for solar and battery storage, including residential market-rate, income-qualified, business and other targeted commercial-scale customers. Our vision is to transition the solar industry into a solar+storage industry. The 2025 Incentive Status Report has all current incentives rates, open allocations, and will forecast new offers if and when they are developed.

Additionally, our team is working hard to prepare as new funding enters the market, specifically Federal funding for the Solar For All grant and local funding from the Portland Clean Energy Fund. Trade Allies can expect to hear much more detail over the course of 2025, but should expect that there is much more support coming for customers with low incomes.

Lastly, there are a host of new initiatives in the works to help provide additional services to the market beyond just project incentives, such as a competitive financing solution, targeted community-focused campaigns and additional upstream market support and customer education.

We’re excited to take our renewable energy programs into the future and to continue providing clean energy solutions to our customers. Thank you for all you do to support the clean energy transition—we couldn’t do it without you!