2025-06-16 23:25

June 16 (Reuters) - Shares of U.S. solar energy companies tumbled in extended trade on Monday after Republicans who control the U.S. Senate Finance Committee unveiled changes to President Donald Trump's sweeping tax-cut and spending bill that would phase out solar, wind and energy tax credits by 2028. Shares of Enphase Energy (ENPH.O) , opens new tab, which makes solar inverters, dropped 15% in after hours trade. Solar panel sellers Sunrun (RUN.O) , opens new tab and SolarEdge Technologies (SEDG.O) , opens new tab both tumbled more than 20%. First Solar (FSLR.O) , opens new tab lost 9%. Sign up here. The modified text of Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" also extends tax credits for hydro, nuclear and geothermal power to 2036. Those and other changes will be debated by Senate Republicans as they try to move forward on an aggressive timeline to pass the legislation ahead of the July 4 U.S. holiday. The potential blow for solar companies comes amid already weak U.S. residential demand for solar, due in part to high interest rates and metering reforms in top market California, which have reduced the credits customers receive for feeding excess electricity back into the grid. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/senate-committees-changes-tax-bill-slam-us-solar-stocks-2025-06-16/

2025-06-16 23:10

LONDON, June 17 (Reuters) - Drivers are becoming more reluctant to switch to electric vehicles from combustion engines and the trend is more pronounced in Europe than in the United States, a survey published by Shell (SHEL.L) , opens new tab on Tuesday showed. The main obstacle is cost, according to the survey of 15,000 drivers across the world, including Britain, China, Germany and the United States. Sign up here. "Europe surprised us," said David Bunch, Shell's chief for mobility and convenience. "The single biggest barrier to entry is the cost of the vehicle. Range anxiety is still there but it's diminishing." Electric vehicles are on average up to 30% more expensive than internal combustion engine cars. This year, 41% of respondents in Europe said they would consider switching to an electric car compared with 48% last year, while in the United States the number fell three percentage points to 31%, the survey showed. In terms of the pace at which the charging experience is improving, only about half of European drivers said public charging had improved in the last year, below China's 74% and 80% in the United States. Only 17% of European drivers asked said public charging offered value for money, compared with 69% in China and 71% in the United States. Shell runs 75,000 charging points and focuses its EV strategy on fast, on-the-go charging points rather than home-charging. Its core EV markets are China, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, the Netherlands and the United States. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/willingness-switch-evs-fades-faster-europe-than-us-shell-survey-shows-2025-06-16/

2025-06-16 23:04

LONDON, June 17 (Reuters) - The British government is set to finalise a 500-million-pound ($679 million) rail steel deal between Network Rail and British Steel, aiming to protect thousands of jobs at a steelmaking plant in Eastern England that was brought under state control earlier this year. The contract will see British Steel supply more than 337,000 metric tons of rail track over five years, the government said on Tuesday, two months after seizing operational control of the steelmaker from its Chinese owners, Jingye, to prevent the closure of its blast furnaces in Scunthorpe. Sign up here. "This is great news for British Steel and a vote of confidence in the UK’s expertise in steelmaking, which will support thousands of skilled jobs for years to come," business minister Jonathan Reynolds said. The contract, which starts in July, will provide publicly owned Network Rail with 80% of its rail needs and will build on the government's 2.5-billion-pound steel fund set up to boost steel production over the next five years, the statement said. To ensure security of supply, Network Rail is set to award smaller contracts to some European manufacturers for around 80,000 to 90,000 metric tons of rail, which will supply specialist rail products alongside British Steel, the statement said. The sector, which has been grappling with high costs and tough competition, last month called for clarity on when U.S. tariffs will be lifted under a landmark U.S.-UK deal agreed in May to remove President Donald Trump's steel levies. ($1 = 0.7363 pounds) https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/uk-finalises-500-million-pound-rail-contract-save-british-steel-jobs-2025-06-16/

2025-06-16 22:57

SAO PAULO, June 17 (Reuters) - Brazilian securities regulator CVM has postponed a shareholder vote on the takeover of poultry and pork processor BRF (BRFS3.SA) , opens new tab by beef processor Marfrig (MRFG3.SA) , opens new tab, the companies said in a securities filing on Tuesday. Shareholders from both firms were set to vote on Wednesday on a deal announced in May that would allow Marfrig - already the holder of a controlling stake in BRF - to complete its takeover in a share-swap deal, forming a global company called MBRF. Sign up here. According to a document on the CVM website, the regulator postponed the meeting for 21 days following a request from minority shareholders, who said they need more information to understand the criteria for each company's valuation and the deal's exchange ratio. Some funds are complaining about the proposed terms, said Igor Guedes, equity analyst at Genial Investimentos, adding that nearly half of remote votes cast related to the plan were abstentions. “Probably a significant portion of the abstention is related with the view of BRF’s minority shareholders that the merger generates financial value, but even so, the proposed exchange ratio would have been unfair.” “We understand the discomfort that exists among BRF minority shareholders," said Leonardo Alencar, an equity analyst at XP Investimentos. Although the CVM suggested this 21-day postponement, he believes that the proposed terms of the deal will not change and the transaction will be approved. BRF and Marfrig in their joint securities filing said the regulator requested additional information from both companies on the terms of their proposed tie-up. They added that they were analyzing the CVM's decision and studying their options, including a potential request for reconsideration of the postponement. The companies had previously said that the takeover was subject to approvals, including from minority shareholders. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazil-regulator-suspends-shareholder-meeting-marfrig-brf-deal-reports-local-2025-06-16/

2025-06-16 22:00

WASHINGTON, June 16 (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republicans on Monday proposed a tax bill that would extend a clean fuel tax credit through 2031, but trim 20% of the value of the credit for biofuels made from feedstocks produced outside of the United States. The tax credit, established by former President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act but not finalized during his tenure, could prove lucrative for oil and biofuel producers who can demonstrate lower carbon intensity of their fuels. Sign up here. The House tax and spending bill passed in May also extends the tax credit, known as 45Z, through 2031, but bans most foreign feedstocks from being eligible for credits. Both the House and Senate bills would exclude emissions generated from the expansion of agricultural land due to the growth of feedstocks like corn and soy, called indirect land use change, from the calculation of a biofuel's credit value. That change would make it easier for corn-based ethanol to qualify for the credits. But the requirement to calculate those indirect emissions was a key environmental guard rail of the original tax credit, said Sarah Lutz, senior climate campaigner at environmental group Friends of the Earth. "This reckless proposal means dirtier fuel and higher food prices," Lutz said. Both bills also make transportation fuels derived from farm animal manure eligible for the tax credit, a boost to biogas producers who argue that capturing methane from manure and other waste can help cut transportation emissions. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/us-senate-bill-would-shrink-tax-credit-biofuels-made-foreign-feedstocks-2025-06-16/

2025-06-16 21:59

Senate bill extends tax credits for hydropower, nuclear, geothermal until 2036 Solar shares fall after Senate proposes phase-out of tax credits by 2028 Senate bill allows selling tax credits, easing House restrictions WASHINGTON, June 16 (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate panel proposed a full phase-out of solar and wind energy tax credits by 2028 but extended the incentive to 2036 for hydropower, nuclear and geothermal energy, which are favored by President Donald Trump's administration, according to a draft bill circulated on Monday. The draft bill, part of a sprawling Republican budget package, made several changes that clean energy advocates pressed for to a bill passed in the House last month. But industry representatives said the text did not go far enough to preserve their sector's key incentives. Sign up here. The language released by the committee chair, Republican Senator Mike Crapo, envisages phasing out subsidies enshrined by the Biden-era 2022 Inflation Reduction Act for solar and wind in 2026 by reducing the incentive to 60% of its value and ending it by 2028. Under current law, the tax credits would not start phasing out until 2032. In a change from the House bill, the Senate would grant 100% of the credit to hydropower, nuclear and geothermal facilities until 2033, then phase it out to zero by 2036, according to the draft. Malcolm Woolf, CEO of the National Hydropower Association, praised the extended timeline for new hydro facilities but said the Senate had failed to extend the tax credit to upgrades of existing facilities, many of which are in need of relicensing. "We hope that this measure will be adopted later this Congress to ensure that these multi-purpose facilities continue to provide clean, reliable energy for generations to come," Woolf said in a statement. A summary of the bill text released by Crapo said it would eliminate hundreds of billions of dollars of clean energy subsidies, which it described as unnecessary, and would support consistent energy sources over intermittent renewable energy. Shares of U.S. solar energy companies tumbled in extended trade on Monday after the changes were unveiled. "Despite modest improvements on several provisions, this legislation does not go far enough to remove the threat to one of the greatest economic success stories in American history," Abigail Ross Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said in a statement. The Senate language gives more time for clean energy projects to use the tax credits than the House version, which required that a project must start construction within 60 days of the bill's enactment and be placed in service by Dec. 31, 2028 to qualify for the tax credits. The Senate language changes it so that facilities need to begin construction in a certain year to claim the credit rather than be placed in service. Since the House narrowly passed its version of Trump's budget known as the "One Big, Beautiful Bill Act" last month, some electric utility executives, lawmakers and clean energy industry groups have pressed Senate Republicans to make the provisions related to IRA clean energy tax credits less drastic. Senate Republican moderates, including Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and Utah's John Curtis, have been urging the Senate tax panel to give clean energy projects more time to use the credits. The Senate bill retains some of the restrictions called for in the House bill against the use of tax credits for projects that rely on equipment or critical minerals from foreign adversary nations like China. But under the Senate bill, some publicly traded companies using materials from China would face fewer restrictions. The bill text also introduced a formula for calculating whether a project received "material assistance" from a foreign entity that would preclude it from being eligible for the incentives. Clean energy industry groups had opposed those restrictions because they would severely affect projects that rely on Chinese components in their supply chains. The Senate's version of the bill preserves project developers' ability to sell, or transfer, their tax credits to third parties to reduce financing costs. The House bill had phased out that provision. Like the House bill, the Senate bill eliminates consumer-facing credits for installing rooftop panels and making other energy-related home improvements. "Eliminating the tax credits that save families money is a profound mistake," Ari Matusiak, CEO of the electrification nonprofit Rewiring America, said in a statement. The electric utility industry, which had flagged concerns that nearly 75 gigawatts of planned new generation capacity of renewable energy would be canceled between 2025 and 2032 at a time of rapidly growing energy demand if the House version passed, said the Senate version made progress on key provisions including project timelines and transferability. "These modifications are a step in the right direction," said Edison Electric Institute (EEI) interim President Pat Vincent-Collawn. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/us-senate-floats-full-phase-out-solar-wind-energy-tax-credits-by-2028-2025-06-16/