Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal published an exclusive article reporting that the Trump Administration is planning to repeal the 2009 “endangerment finding,” which concluded that six greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare — and has served as the legal basis for federal greenhouse-gas regulation ever since. It’s the most far-reaching rollback of U.S. climate policy to date. And while it won’t initially apply to power plant emissions, it could open up the door to rolling back regulations currently governing our industry. Which begs the question:
Should electrical utilities reconsider legacy fuels?
If the last few years have taught utilities anything, it’s this: Certainty is a luxury no one in the power sector can afford.
Regulatory winds shift. Capital markets tighten and loosen. Technologies once dismissed surge forward, while others stumble — not because they are fundamentally flawed, but because weaker players misread the economics or overextend themselves. Against that backdrop, utilities face a practical mandate: Keeping power affordable, reliable and deliverable, regardless of political cycles.
Mea Culpa: Solar power is not doomed.
Last December, we reported in a previous post that the January, 2026 rollbacks on the 30% federal tax-credit were already having a devastating impact on the solar industry’s future, moving forward. We overstated the case.
Yes, it’s true there were a number of high profile project cancellations — as developers exited markets, supply chains seized up and interconnection queues ballooned. It’s also true that several major industry players — including Sunnova Energy International, SunPower, Solar Mosaic and Lumio Holdings — either filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy or shut down entirely. However, what’s now clear is that the rollbacks simply exposed a number of the industry’s weaker players.
For a broader and more nuanced perspective, refer to our September, 2025 post, What’s Behind The Resurgence In Solar Farms? How To Benefit.
The future grid will not be built on a single “winner.”
Utilities that thrive will be the ones that understand all viable options for new power generation, and plan their future infrastructure expansions accordingly. That future, we believe, includes solar. It also increasingly includes liquefied natural gas (LNG). And it even includes a pragmatic reassessment of legacy fuels — not because they are likely to dominate again, but because their economics and regulatory risk now look very different than the prevailing rhetoric of the past two decades suggests. The Administration’s plan to repeal the “endangerment finding” underscores how quickly the regulatory foundation for energy policy can shift.
What really caused solar companies to fail?
The recent solar industry shakeout was less about the power source, and more about execution. In general, the companies that failed had overleveraged balance sheets and overly aggressive growth assumptions. The stronger developers — those with patient capital, realistic timelines, and a firm grasp of grid constraints — are still building.
For utilities, those distinctions matter. Solar remains one of the lowest-cost sources of new generation on a levelized basis. Its challenges today are less about panels and pricing, and more about what happens after a project is ready to produce power, including:
- Long interconnection delays
- Transformer shortages
- Substation backlogs
- Transmission constraints
In other words, solar’s future is inseparable from grid infrastructure. That doesn’t weaken the case for solar — it strengthens the case for utilities investing in substations and interconnections that make solar usable at scale.
Liquefied natural gas’s emerging popularity
If solar represents the low-cost, low-emissions end of the spectrum, liquefied natural gas is emerging as a powerful counterbalance. LNG offers several attributes that utilities value right now, including:
- Dispatchable, on-demand generation
- Significantly lower emissions than coal
- A mature technology with predictable performance
- Increasingly competitive pricing
As global LNG capacity expands, and domestic infrastructure improves, gas-fired power generation is becoming an attractive option for utilities seeking reliability without the capital intensity of legacy baseload plants.
Importantly, LNG is not an “ideological” choice — it’s a logistical one. When paired with adequate pipeline access, storage and substations, LNG-backed generation can come online faster than many alternatives — and operate flexibly, alongside renewables. That flexibility matters in a grid increasingly dominated by intermittent resources.
Coal’s comeback? Not on the balance sheet.
Let’s address the elephant in the room. If environmental regulations are relaxed, does coal suddenly become viable again? From a purely economic standpoint, the answer is still no.
New coal plants are extraordinarily expensive to build, compared to solar or gas-fired generation. Capital costs are high. Financing is difficult. And the risk of future regulatory reversal looms over every long-term investment.
Utilities know this. Even in a permissive regulatory environment, committing billions to a new facility that could become a stranded asset within years is a hard sell — to boards, investors and ratepayers alike. Coal’s role in the U.S. energy mix may stabilize or decline more slowly under relaxed rules, but a large-scale renaissance in new construction remains unlikely.
Regulatory whiplash is real — and it cuts both ways.
Again, the endangerment finding has served as the legal basis for federal greenhouse-gas regulation since 2009. Its potential rescission may well open the door to looser regulations governing power plants. At the same time, it’s more than likely that future administrations will reverse course. Long-lived assets like power plants and substations don’t get to vote. They have to operate profitably, regardless of which way the political winds are blowing — which makes regulatory risk just as important a consideration as fuel costs and construction timelines.
Rethinking “settled science” without abandoning prudence
Adding nuance to the climate conversation is the growing willingness — even among unlikely voices — to reexamine long-held “consensus” assumptions among the scientific community.
Hardcore green lobbyists were most certainly disappointed when Bill Gates (whom they’d assumed was “one of their own”) publicly acknowledged that the climate challenge may be more complex than early models suggested — particularly when it comes to timelines, trade-offs, and the feasibility of rapid global decarbonization. That’s not a rejection of environmental stewardship. It’s a recognition that policy, technology and economics must align to produce real-world results.
For utilities, this reinforces an important principle: Energy planning should be grounded in measurable outcomes, not absolutist positions. Yes, reducing emissions matters. So does affordability. And reliability. Ignoring any one of those pillars undermines the other two.
The common denominator: Grid infrastructure still wins.
Across solar, LNG, and even legacy generation, one truth remains constant: None of it works without infrastructure. Power plants, regardless of fuel, do not deliver energy on their own. Substations are the gatekeepers. They determine whether generation can interconnect, scale and actually serve customers.
This is where many well-intentioned energy strategies falter. Generation gets the headlines. Transmission and substations absorb the risk. Utilities facing interconnection backlogs and equipment shortages already understand this firsthand. The cheapest energy is still the energy you can deliver — and delivery depends on:
- Adequate substation capacity
- Available transformers and switchgear
- Streamlined engineering and procurement
- Realistic construction timelines
Why “all of the above” is back — for good reason:
The most resilient utilities are no longer betting on a single-resource pathway. Instead, they’re pairing solar with dispatchable gas generation, hardening substations to accommodate future capacity, and designing infrastructure flexible enough to support technologies that don’t yet dominate the mix.
That’s not indecision. It’s sound strategic thinking.
By understanding the full menu of affordable options, utilities can adapt — as markets and policies evolve — without starting from scratch each time the rules change.
Fast, effective solutions for boosting substation capacity
For utilities looking for more traditional solutions — IE: updating, upgrading and/or expanding older substations — we’ve implemented our own process for sourcing and quick-shipping much-in-demand components. To learn more, Click Here.
Planning for the grid you’ll need, not the one you have
Whether or not emissions regulations are rolled back, whether solar accelerates or pauses, and whether LNG continues its ascent, one investment remains unavoidable: The grid itself. Substations built today must serve multiple futures. They must handle higher loads, new interconnections, and technologies still moving from concept to commercial reality.
We see it every day at Peak: Generation plans change. At the same time, infrastructure requirements remain. Utilities that plan holistically — considering cost, reliability, regulatory risk and deliverability — will be the ones best positioned to meet customer demand without being whipsawed by politics or market cycles.
The lesson of the moment is not that solar is fragile, or that gas is a silver bullet. It’s that energy certainty comes from energy alternatives — whether it’s “alternative energy” or otherwise.
Know the options. Build the infrastructure. Deliver the power.
In the end, the grid doesn’t care about ideology — it cares about what works.
How can Peak meet your current and future power demands?
Call us any time to learn more!
Jason Harris:
205-807-0414 | jharris@peaksubstation.com