After a tax credit shakeup, clean energy marketing strategies are pivoting

When it comes to successful marketing, nothing closes a sale like a good discount. And over the last few years, the clean energy industry boomed thanks to discounts—or rather, tax credits—that the government offered to those who invested in and produced green power.

But the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s passage last summer sunsetted some subsidies and altered which industries can continue to reap the benefits of the tax credits. The geothermal industry, which produces energy from underground heat, seemed poised to benefit from an expansion to the way its tax credits could be applied, while the solar and wind power industries were dealt a losing hand: Their tax credits are set to be phased out by the end of next year.

The resulting changes to product pricing can mean huge shifts in marketing strategies, and industry higher-ups told Morning Brew that in the wake of the shifts, they’re looking to target different types of customers, find new ways to reach future buyers, and in some cases, home in on customer values rather than the savings their products can bring.

New financing models

In addition to retaining the geothermal industry’s investment and production tax credits, the federal budget bill allowed home builders to buy residential geothermal heating systems that they then lease to homeowners. This new financing structure is an opportunity to expand customer bases, Dan Yates, CEO of residential geothermal heating company Dandelion, told Morning Brew—and that’s exactly what Dandelion has done.

“Marketing geothermal is going to increasingly come with financing mechanisms,” Yates said. “The lease is the newest definitively launched one.”

Dandelion sells to home builders, and last year, the company began partnering with leasing companies. Those partnerships opened the company up to the national market for the first time; previously, Dandelion relied on state-level incentives to lure customers.

To take advantage of the wider market, Yates said Dandelion has broadened its geographic scope and is focused on marketing to the top 200 home builders in the country. To do that, Dandelion expanded its sales team to include reps who focus entirely on the top builders in new states the company is targeting, as well as specific home-building industries in those states.

The sales reps are supported by Dandelion’s PR reps, who aim to increase the company’s presence in articles in trade publications and at industry events. Yates said that strategy can help increase the likelihood of getting in the door with the right people.

“Let’s imagine we are trying to get into state X and a builder there. First thing, we reach out to them on LinkedIn; maybe we don’t get a response. What if later this month, they see a LinkedIn post or a news article about us…and then we meet them at a local home builder association conference. And now they’re primed: ‘I’ve heard of you guys; didn’t you try to reach out? OK, I’ll take a meeting,’” Yates said. “That’s the art [of marketing].”

Digital upgrades

Renua Energy, a solar energy and battery storage engineering, procurement, and construction company that services the Northeast, is also working on getting its name out there. At a time when some companies might be leaving the solar industry in favor of other, tax credit-backed clean tech ventures, Renua’s director of business development, Brett Miller, told Morning Brew that the company plans to ramp up its residential solar business now that “there’s less competition in the space.”

To do so, Miller said, Renua upped its ad spend, which prompted it to update its website and SEO strategy and invest in AI ranking technology.

“As a result of putting all that ad spend in and all those marketing dollars, it forced us to do a new website revamp so that the funnel was effective,” Miller said.

Luckily, the digital updates Renua is making tie into each other: To increase SEO rankings, Renua is adding a FAQ section and other related articles to its website—which AI-powered search engines and LLMs pull from when recommending businesses to users.

Shifting customer bases

Without tax credits, the people who are looking to buy solar and battery equipment now likely already have the money to pay full price and are “better qualified to purchase,” Miller said. That group might include people wanting to bring their energy costs down, or those who prefer to live off the main electrical grid, like homesteaders.

“Persona-wise, the customer is changing,” Miller said. “There’s some folks out there that care about getting off the grid, or they want to be cleaner, they want to emit less carbon dioxide and equivalents. And those are the kind of folks that I think we’re going to be marketing to and seeing buy.”

Ryse Energy, a renewable energy manufacturer that makes residential and off-grid wind turbines, is also targeting homesteaders and other buyers who are interested in wind energy infrastructure to live off-grid or on a microgrid. To reach that “grassroots” base, Ketter Ulrich, a Ryse commercial manager, told Morning Brew the company is investing in ads on social media platforms and in homesteading magazines like Mother Earth News.

“We have to go to the customers a bit differently,” she said. “Without [tax credits] incentivizing them to come to us, we have to go back to the old-school routes.”