Vulcan Platform Insights: Project Progress & Policy Impacts

Posted on: July 10, 2025

Project Incentives and Deadlines

With the recent passage of the "One Big, Beautiful Bill" (BBB), renewable energy projects are significantly incentivized to begin construction. To receive the full tax credit, construction must start before July 4, 2026, with the facility in service by the end of 2027. Additionally, Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) restrictions present another critical concern; projects should accelerate their timelines to begin construction before the end of this year to avoid potential investigations related to foreign influence.

Vulcan Status Updates

We've added a new status within our Vulcan platform: "Completed." This status indicates a facility that has not shown significant changes for four consecutive weeks and appears to be finished. It's important to note that "Completed" does not necessarily mean the site is energized or connected to the grid, though in most cases, it should be.

As a reminder:

  • "Confirmed" means a project was added to our weekly imaging queue and was already under construction.
  • "Identified" means a project was being monitored and land clearing was observed that week.

We expect the number of "Identified" projects to grow significantly as many of the projects we monitor push to get under construction before the end of this year, and no later than July 4th of next year, to qualify for the full tax credit.

This Week's Highlights

A recent update to the coordinates for the Padua 2 and 3 battery plants (68913 and 68914) revealed they are well under construction. These plants were recently added to the Vulcan platform after appearing in the latest EIA 860M report, already listed as under construction. When these plants were first monitored by our assessment, they were initially marked as not under construction. A recent image of approximately 1 square kilometer around the EIA-provided coordinates showed a lack of development at that original location.

However, using ERCOT reports, we successfully located a new site for the plants, approximately 1.5 km away. The latest image from July 8, 2025, (provided here) shows their current state of construction.

This correction highlights our ongoing refinement of the Vulcan dataset, demonstrating our commitment to providing the most accurate monitoring and continuous data improvement.

Data Center Developments

On the data center front, a relatively large site in Virginia just began land clearing:

  • Project: 3628496 Mineral Northeast Creek Technology Data Center Campus, Louisa County, VA
  • Owner: Amazon Web Services
  • ISO: PJM
  • Total Planned Capacity: 720 MW by 2030
  • DC01 Startup Date: February 29, 2028
  • Vulcan Earliest Online: June 19, 2026
  • Vulcan Latest Online: September 1, 2028
  • Latest Observation: July 8, 2025 – Land clearing started

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