The swirling volatile headwinds of data center growth, combined with tailwinds on tariffs and the future of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), were on full display before a crowd of 200 developers, investors, lawyers and advisors on April 29at NPM’s 5th Annual US Development and Financing Forum in Convene in New York.

The keynote speakers and panelists saw a collective freeze in the clean energy market while some of these issues are anticipated to sort themselves, but at the same time actively discussed solutions on getting power to the grid to support the data center market.

On the topic of data centers, the race to secure energy capacity was top of mind with explosive growth in AI and cloud computing.

“Speed to power is the most important factor right now,” said Judith Judson, senior vice president of energy in North America at Vantage Data Centerson the kickoff panel on data centers.

Judson noted that while customers maintain strong sustainability goals, their immediate priority is simply getting power. In cases where grid connections lag behind development timelines, on-site generation through natural gas turbines or reciprocating engines is often necessary to bridge the gap. Still, most clients prefer to transition to the grid eventually to take advantage of renewable energy certificates and long-term economic viability.

Judson’s hierarchy of priorities – speed, cost, then green – was echoed across the forum’s opening panel focused on data centers. Investors, power developers, and data center operators alike acknowledged that while cleaner energy and cost control remain important, the scarcity of power has pushed timelines to the forefront.

“Right now, because it’s scarce, it’s just finding power,” Judson said.

This convergence was echoed on other panels, such as the storage panel, where speakers said a partnership between data center and storage developers would be intriguing. Jason Abiecunas, executive vice president of FlexGen explained that energy storage helps solve the four-hour capacity problem, enables utilities to approve data center projects faster, and provides solutions for the power demand that data centers create.

Tariffs were a larger focus off the storage panel given that US battery energy storage developers continue to import a high percentage of the supply chain from China.

One panelist, Spearmint Energy Chief Development Officer Peter Rood, said if a US battery manufacturing facility isn’t under construction right now, it won’t happen under the current administration. GridStor CEO Chris Taylor noted that battery shipments have stopped due to uncertainty, and Rood suggested that every day of port delays could mean a week of recovery time. The panel noted that while the tariff situation is challenging in the short term, they expect supply chains to adapt.

Speakers on the Project Lifecycle Obstacles and Solutions panel said more broadly that new tariffs on products and parts needed for clean energy development will cause project delays and uncertainty in the industry. Onshoring of manufacturing could help mitigate these concerns, but it’s not a switch that can simply be flipped overnight.

“All the value chain of transmission and generation is impacted by the tariffs. If we don’t have a solution for it, the final consequence is very simple. It’s a cost increase that the rate payers will have to pay, the customers,” said energyRe CEO Executive Officer Miguel Prado during the panel discussion. “I think that the most important thing, and that we need to preserve, is business certainty. That is something that has characterized the US forever, as a place that you can invest and that you can trust that what is agreed will continue to work.”

With plenty of drama left to play out, there was chatter on the future of the IRA. On the sidelines, attendees had heard Congress might seek to repeal the tax equity transfer provisions of the IRA, while preserving the basic ITC and PTC clean energy tax credits as a compromise to getting the bill to pass.

However, others thought everything might be on the table.

Angelo Acconcia, partner at Arclight Capital Partners, kicked off the conference stating that a potential repeal of the IRA may benefit the infrastructure sector over the long term.

“A repeal of the IRA, I would argue, is good for long-term development,” Acconcia said in a keynote address. “It removes the crutches that the industry has benefited from and brings to bear market fundamentals needed to sustain development and profit pools.”

He added, “There is significant risk of repeal. I think that’s a foregone conclusion. The question is when and to what magnitude.”

Other panelists acknowledged certain aspects of the IRA could be repealed, including provisions allowing for transferability of tax credits.