Turning the Tide for Renewables in Alaska
The ocean was calm when the Peregrine Falcon ship left the harbor in Homer, Alaska, last month with three moorings resting on its deck, all loaded with scientific instruments.
Eighteen hours later, these moorings were lowered into the silty waves where they collected data for two months. Two of the moorings were 12-foot submarine-shaped buoys that floated 60 feet below the inlet’s surface, and the third rested on the sea floor; all three gathered data on the velocity, turbulence, and sediments at the nation’s top-ranked tidal energy site.
A highly energetic corner of the Pacific Ocean, Cook Inlet holds one of the greatest tidal resources on Earth. All that energy has the potential to reduce Alaska residents’ dependence on declining oil and gas production and provide excess renewable energy that could stimulate the Alaskan economy. That is why researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) submerged their moorings in Cook Inlet; the data they collected will help identify important details of the opportunities and challenges that come with turning these surging waters into a reliable and renewable power source for Alaskans living on the nearby shore.
But that is no easy feat.
“Models and local knowledge tell us the currents here are extremely strong. There is silt and sea ice in the winter. We expect the turbulence to be intense,” said Levi Kilcher, an NREL senior scientist who leads ocean energy resource assessments like this one.
NREL researchers and crew prepared to deploy three moorings in Cook Inlet, Alaska, in July to collect data for a potential tidal energy site. From left to right: Chris Higgins (Peregrine Falcon), Patrick Verity (Peregrine Falcon), Brian Hunt (TerraSond Limited), Frank Spada (Integral Consulting), Levi Kilcher (NREL), Andrew Smith (TerraSond Limited), Gwen Sovitski, Olivia Cormier (TerraSond Limited), Jeff Johnson (Peregrine Falcon). Photo courtesy of Christopher Pike
Capturing Energy From the Ebb and Flow
Just as wind turbines extract energy from moving air, underwater turbines can create energy from the ebb and flow of the tides. Tidal energy has the potential to provide more than 220 terawatt-hours per year of clean, renewable energy in the United States, which is enough to power 21 million homes. Tidal technologies are promising, with new demonstration projects showing the world that they can operate reliably and efficiently. And yet, it is still an early-stage industry when compared to wind and solar. As of September 2020, only three tidal turbines were operating in the United States.
“So much of our work builds on NREL’s background in wind power,” Kilcher said. “It took time to understand the importance of accounting for turbulence in wind turbine designs. We’re learning from that and getting ahead of the turbulence questions now by making these measurements. But in the ocean, there are so many additional environmental challenges: We’ve also got to deal with sea ice, sediment, marine growth — not to mention the corrosive properties of the salt water itself. So, we’re trying to understand the details of these environmental challenges as well.”
For the Cook Inlet study, Kilcher led a multilaboratory team that included researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. The team also contracted help from TerraSond Limited, Ocean Renewable Power Company, and Integral Consulting. NREL has performed similar studies in Puget Sound, Washington, and off the coast of Maine, but the Alaskan environment poses unique challenges: currents that are stronger, sea ice in winter, and sediments that wash into the inlet from the glaciers dotting the nearby mountains. The turbulence stirs up sand and silt from the inlet floor, creating frothy, gray water at the surface and a slurry of sand and gravel at the bottom.
“The strong currents at the site create sand dunes on the sea floor that are 30 feet tall. Instruments have been lost at this site, most likely buried in sand,” Kilcher said. “We’ve used midwater moorings and inflatable chambers in the Tidal Bottom Lander to ensure we get this stuff back.”
Frank Spada (Integral Consulting, left) and Andrew Smith (TerraSond Limited) hold the buoy steady while Patrick Verity (Peregrine Falcon) unshackles it for a ballast test in the Homer harbor, Alaska. Photo courtesy of Christopher Pike
It is an environment Kilcher knows well. He grew up in Homer, a small fishing town on Cook Inlet where he played on the beach of these icy waters, practiced subsistence fishing, and later worked as a deckhand for his father’s freight business. He earned a Ph.D. in oceanography with a focus on ocean turbulence from Oregon State University. Ten years ago, he brought his expertise to NREL’s Water Power team to help design tidal power systems that could, one day, power his hometown.
“I’ve always been attracted to problems that seem unsolvable. Turbulence is one of those problems, and tidal energy has sometimes felt like one too, but the industry is starting to see real success,” Kilcher said.
Now, to help in the effort, Kilcher and his team are gathering some of the information needed to start designing projects in Cook Inlet. In addition to turbulence, researchers are measuring the water’s velocity, salinity, temperature, and the sediment composition and concentration. With that data, they will validate and refine models to paint a much more detailed picture of the site, including how much energy could be generated there and how to build tidal turbines that can withstand the elements.
The detailed understanding of the Cook Inlet tidal energy resource that stems from this project will allow the industry to design tidal turbines that perform reliably for decades in the harsh Cook Inlet environment. Ultimately, this work could also help design turbine arrays that maximize power production while minimizing impacts to marine life and the inlet’s ecosystems.
Transforming Alaska’s Economy With Clean, Affordable, Local Energy
Having access to clean, affordable energy would transform the Alaskan economy, which is currently facing a deep economic recession due to decreased oil and gas production and high energy prices. Alaskan residents depend on oil and gas not just for jobs and state revenue but also for heating and power. Because of their extreme climate, remote location, and lack of infrastructure, they spend twice as much on energy as the average American; many communities pay three times more, according to the Cold Climate Housing Research Center’s 2018 Alaska Housing Assessment.
The Cook Inlet site is estimated to hold as much as 18 gigawatts of tidal energy potential — more than 20 times the amount used by all the road-connected communities of Alaska.
“It’s a huge amount of power that we have access to at our doorstep,” said Chris Rose, executive director of the Renewable Energy Alaska Project, a nonprofit that advances clean energy solutions for Alaska. “The economic and environmental benefits would be immense.”
With affordable energy, local industries could process the raw materials harvested in Alaska, such as wood, minerals, and fish, rather than exporting them to places with cheaper energy prices. Communities could switch from diesel to electric power for transportation and heating. With surplus electricity, companies could even start making hydrogen as a fuel with which to export the state’s vast renewable energy resources.
Tidal power technologies are at a critical stage of development; U.S. and European companies have had increasing success in single-device demonstration projects and are now planning pilot-project arrays that demonstrate long-term reliability and scalability. Cook Inlet’s strong currents and harsh environment are ideal for demonstrating technology robustness. Given these successes, NREL engineers believe tidal technologies could make significant contributions to Alaska’s energy demand in the next decade. This would help transform and revitalize the Alaskan economy and would be a significant contribution to help meet the marine energy industry’s goal of 1 gigawatt of marine energy plants deployed by 2035.
“It’s kind of like saying to the people in Arizona 40 years ago that if solar power ever gets really cheap, we’ll have a bonanza here. Guess what? It happened.” In other words, Rose said, “the time to start investing in tidal energy is now.”
Out in Cook Inlet on the Peregrine Falcon, Kilcher deployed and successfully recovered three moorings to gather the data needed to engineer the next generation of tidal devices. When he returned to the harbor, the sun shone over the snow-covered mountains, and Kilcher looked for the humpback whales the team saw the day before. He thought about the precious data they had just collected and the device engineering it will facilitate. And he thought about the childhood dream that grew from these same waters.
I firmly believe we can find a cleaner future that’s carbon neutral — carbon negative even,” Kilcher said. “I’ve been working for 10 years to make marine energy a part of that solution.”
Find more information on NREL’s resource characterization work.
Article courtesy of National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
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The Kia EV4 will be “delayed until further notice” in the US, according to a Kia rep and reported by InsideEVs. Kia said the change is because “market conditions for EVs have changed.”
The EV4 was expected to be released in 2026 at a price in the ~$30k range, entering Kia’s model like alongside the existing EV3 as the smaller, more affordable electric models below the EV6 and EV9. The EV4 will have the style of a boxy sedan, while the EV3 is a small SUV.
The EV3 is already available in Korea, Europe and other territories, but has not made it to the US (and may not ever).
The EV4 is not on the roads yet, but its release is imminent. And it seemed likely to make its way to the US. We saw the concept EV4 at the LA Auto Show in 2023, and the model was officially unveiled in the US at the New York Auto Show this April.
Bringing that car to a US auto show with an official reveal suggested that the US would get access to this smart, more affordable Kia. And Kia said that the car would hit US roads in early 2026, which would have been just a few months from now.
Kia abruptly “delays” EV4’s introduction to the US
But now, a Kia rep has confirmed that the car won’t come to America after all, at least until further notice. Kia gave a statement to InsideEVs, saying:
“Kia’s full range of vehicles offers meaningful value and inspiring performance to customers. However, as market conditions for EVs have changed, the release of the upcoming EV4 electric sedan will be delayed until further notice.”
We reached out to Kia to confirm, and received the same statement back.
The reversal is a bit of a surprise, and we’re not sure why we’re hearing this today in particular. Heck, we wrote a story about the EV4 GT’s interior just a couple hours ago.
So, unfortunately it looks like Americans will have one less potential choice to get away from the land-yacht disease currently infecting our populace. For what it’s worth, the EV4 is still listed as “coming 2026” on Kia Canada’s website.
We’ve seen models get delayed suddenly before, and while Kia did not directly say that the model will never come to the US, the fate of other “delayed” EV models in the past does not give us significant hope. Usually, a “delay” like this ends up meaning that the car just won’t ever make it to US roads (see: VW ID.7, Gen 2 Kia Soul EV, Ram 1500 EV, and others).
While Kia did not state a specific reason for the reversal, it’s not hard to guess what some of the influences are.
Electrek’s Take – EV4 likely delayed due to US policy changes favoring higher costs, dirty air
Since the EV4’s April reveal, republicans have continued their all-out assault on clean air, as in July a republican Congress passed a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy US elites which also inflated the price of EVs by $7,500. Regulatory changes focusing on raising your costs and making your air dirtier are in progress, trying to force more gasoline and pollution on Americans and restricting access to cleaner, better EVs.
In addition to these actions opposing clean air, republicans are raising your costs in other ways as well. Unwise tariffs on basically every country in the world, which have been haphazardly implemented (due to the ignorance of the person unconstitutionally implementing them) and seem to change day-by-day, have increased prices for Americans and made business more difficult.
These tariffs would apply to the EV4. While Kia just started EV4 production in Europe, the US model would have come from Kia’s Korean factories. The ignoramus squatting in the US Oval Office did just ink a trade deal with Korea today, but given the lack of follow-through on previous trade deals, we wouldn’t be surprised if the terms of that change.
The difficulty of doing business in America has been in focus especially for South Korean firms, after a high-profile ICE raid at a Hyundai plant in construction in Georgia, which saw South Korean businessmen with visas detained and resulted in delayed construction on the plant and a swift popular pushback against US products in Korea. Kia and Hyundai are partner companies with a complex corporate relationship, so it stands to reason that Kia’s business decisions would be intertwined with Hyundai’s.
Many companies have recently cited a claimed but not substantiated lack of EV demand in the US as reasons for delaying their EV ambitions. To be clear, EVs have seen a long string of consistent sales growth in the US, stretching back more than a decade (with only a few interruptions to that growth, the largest being the start of COVID).
In the meantime, gas car sales peaked globally in 2017, and will never again reach that level of sales. This fact has been consistently underreported by media, alongside false headlines claiming EV sales are falling.
However, despite the record EV sales quarter the US just went through, it’s expected that the next year or so will see drops in EV demand. This is because of the pull-forward in sales experienced due to tax credit expiration, which caused a sales rush in Q3. Although, as has happened in other countries that suddenly ended purchase incentives, we’d expect perhaps a year of depressed sales before they begin to rise again.
But this likely drop in demand is hitting right around the same time the EV4 was supposed to launch in the US, so it’s not unreasonable for Kia to look at a market in a temporary downswing, especially when considering all the other factors laid out above (and the country’s current hostility to foreign investment, specifically investment from Kia’s partner company Hyundai), and wonder why they’ve gotten cold feet right now of all times.
While Kia didn’t lay out these reasons above in its statement, it sure seems likely that each of them could have had an effect on this decision.
The 30% federal solar tax credit is ending this year. If you’ve ever considered going solar, now’s the time to act. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
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New data from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) shows that the US solar supply chain has been fully reshored, with manufacturing capacity growing across every part of the solar and storage sector.
A US solar system from start to finish
With Hemlock’s new ingot and wafer facility coming online in Q3 2025, the US can now produce every major solar component domestically, from polysilicon to modules. According to SEIA, 65 new or expanded solar and storage factories have come online this year, bringing $4.5 billion in private investment to US communities.
However, SEIA warns that more than 100 factories and $31 billion in the pipeline could be at risk if the Trump administration continues its attacks on solar energy.
Solar manufacturing is booming – for now
The SEIA Solar & Storage Supply Chain Dashboard reports major capacity growth across every segment since late 2024. As of October 2025, US module production capacity has surpassed 60 gigawatts (GW), a 37% increase from December 2024. Solar cell production has more than tripled, jumping from 1 GW to 3.2 GW.
Battery cell manufacturing for stationary storage has climbed to over 21 gigawatt-hours (GWh), which SEIA says is enough to power the city of Houston from sunset to sunrise.
“This growth is a testament to the power of American innovation,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA’s president and CEO. “We’re building factories, hiring American workers, and showing that solar energy means made-in-America energy.”
Inverter manufacturing, which converts solar power into usable electricity, has jumped nearly 50% since the end of 2024, rising from 19 GW to 28 GW of capacity. Mounting system production is also up 14%, with 23 new factories added since 2024.
A pipeline under political threat
The US solar pipeline remains strong, with 23 GW of new module capacity, 34 GW of cell capacity, 25 GW of inverter capacity, and 95 GWh of battery cell capacity either under construction or announced. But SEIA says that Trump administration policies, regulations, and trade actions are creating uncertainty that could hurt progress.
“We’re seeing strong growth today, but that momentum isn’t guaranteed,” Hopper said. “If the administration continues down this path, they risk driving investment overseas, stifling job creation, raising costs on consumers, and handing America’s manufacturing advantage to our competitors.
“If the administration does not reverse its harmful actions that have undermined market certainty, energy costs will rise even further, and the next wave of factories and jobs could be at risk.”
Read more: The Trump administration just killed the US’s largest solar project
The 30% federal solar tax credit is ending this year. If you’ve ever considered going solar, now’s the time to act. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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![The Kia EV4 GT's interior looks a little too familiar [Video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/10/Kia-electric-hot-hatch-GT-Wrap-5.jpeg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Kia’s electric hot hatch will be here before you know it. After getting a sneak peek of the EV4 GT’s interior for the first time, it looks a bit familiar.
First look at the Kia EV4 GT’s interior
Kia’s bringing the hatchback back in style. The EV4 is Kia’s first all-electric hatchback, also available as a sedan or fastback.
Although it’s already pretty cool-looking with Kia’s new design elements like the Digital Tiger Face grille, Star Map Lighting, and aggressive stance, the GT version promises even more style, performance, and fun features.
Kia revealed the electric hot hatch for the first time earlier this week, showcasing its new GT Wrap. The new foil design “infuses models in development with the energy and attitude that define Kia’s GT production models.”
By reimagining the Gran Turismo for a new generation of drivers, Kia said it’s bridging the gap between its heritage and future innovation. The GT Wrap will be used for a new generation of Kia performance vehicles. It still features the signature neon color, which has become a “symbol of electricity,” Kia said.
Now, we are getting our first look at the interior. The video from HealerTV offers a closer look at the EV4 GT’s interior, free of camouflage.
Right off the bat, you can see this is clearly a Kia GT. It has about the same setup as the EV9 GT and EV6 GT, including the steering wheel, infotainment, and seat design.
The EV4 GT’s interior is essentially a blend of the regular EV4 and the EV9 GT. One slight difference is that the GT’s armrest has storage space rather than just a flat surface.
The back seats also look about the same as Kia’s other GT models. It appears to include ambient lighting on the door panel and back of the driver’s seat, like the EV9 GT.
Although it has similar features, HealerTV noted that the EV4 GT still has a unique interior and decent design, which should help differentiate it. According to Autocar, which saw it firsthand, the interior “received a significant makeover” with lower-sitting seats, neon green accent colors throughout, and an added GT Mode button on the steering wheel.
Like Kia’s other GT vehicles, the electric hot hatch will be equipped with a dual-motor, all-wheel-drive (AWD) powertrain with around 400 horsepower.
The EV4 GT will launch in 2026, joining the EV6 GT and EV9 GT in Kia’s expanding performance EV lineup. Looking ahead, the EV3 and EV5 are also in line for a GT upgrade.
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