{"id":267078,"date":"2026-04-14T09:17:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T09:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/267078\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T09:17:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T09:17:15","slug":"amid-rising-energy-demand-and-global-unrest-this-san-diego-renewables-company-says-its-in-a-good-spot-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/267078\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid rising energy demand and global unrest, this San Diego renewables company says it\u2019s in a good spot \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

After 18 years of carving out a national niche in the energy infrastructure sector, San Diego-based SOLV Energy<\/a> became a public company on Feb. 11, closing out its initial public offering and trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re always a little nervous because you feel like you\u2019re throwing a big party and you don\u2019t know who\u2019s going to show up,\u201d founder and CEO George Hershman<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

It turned out that there was no reason to worry, as investors gobbled up 20.5 million shares of Class A common stock at an IPO price of $25 per share for the company that\u2019s built more than 500 solar and battery energy storage projects across the country \u2014 and has constructed, operates and maintains 150 of its own utility-scale solar and battery facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the strength of our investors and the support of our business was strong,\u201d Hershman said during an interview at SOLV Energy\u2019s headquarters in Rancho Bernardo.<\/p>\n

The company boasts a market cap of about $5.85 billion and despite stock market jitters caused by the twists and turns with the war in Iran, SOLV Energy stock has more than held its own. It closed the trading day Monday at $32.67 per share.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think investors are looking at the stability of renewables as a real way to hedge against the volatility of fossil fuels\u201d in the wake of the hostilities, Hershman said.<\/p>\n

But regardless of what eventually happens near-term in the Middle East, it\u2019s widely accepted that energy demand is poised to take a dramatic leap in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Some analysts foresee domestic electricity consumption swelling 25% in the next four years<\/a> \u2014 and continuing to rise well into the next decade \u2014 due to a combination of factors, most notably the growth of data centers feeding artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

SOLV Energy executives believe their company is in the right place at the right time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never seen that kind of energy demand in the U.S. so a company like ours is well-positioned to provide that generation and service,\u201d Hershman said. \u201cWe\u2019re sitting in a good spot to continue to grow and capture a lot of that market opportunity \u2026 I think the investor community understands that energy demand is real.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Eland 2 photovoltaic solar farm in the Mojave Desert that SOLV Energy of San Diego took lead on engineering, procurement and construction. (SOLV Energy)<\/p>\n

Legislation dubbed the \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill\u201d<\/a> that passed on Capitol Hill and was signed into law last summer by President Donald Trump cracked down on the 30% federal tax credit on solar and wind power. But a safe harbor provision for utility-scale projects is in place until July 4,<\/a> and those that meet a \u201cbegin construction\u201d deadline have as late as 2030 to receive the credit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really didn\u2019t create much of an impact on our business,\u201d Hershman said. \u201cEnergy demand is what is driving our market now, not tax incentives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Microsoft is in the process of resurrecting one of the nuclear power units at Three Mile Island<\/a> to provide electricity to fuel its AI data centers. Some tech titans are casting their eyes on natural gas plants<\/a> for the same reason.<\/p>\n

But Hershman says SOLV Energy has an advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cA gas plant is going to take you seven to 10 years to build. A nuclear plant is going to take you a few decades to build, at best,\u201d he said. But a solar and storage plant \u201ccan be deployed and be sending megawatt-hours to the grid in 12 to 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what about the fact that renewable energy sources are intermittent \u2014 that is, solar does not produce electricity when the sun is not shining and batteries typically run for about four hours? And what about concerns of battery fires?<\/p>\n

Hershman said \u201clong-duration battery (systems) are coming\u201d and technological advancements are leading to more fire-resistant battery chemistries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to make sure that we do it safely, first and foremost, and technology is going to be a big part of that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the reality is, we\u2019re going to have to meet this load somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before its IPO, SOLV Energy was a private company, created as a division of commercial construction company Swinerton in 2008. Since 2022, SOLV has been owned by American Securities<\/a>, a private equities firm.<\/p>\n

SOLV\u2019s national workforce is made up of about 2,600 employees, with more than 150 based in the San Diego area.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s ticker symbol is MWH, which is appropriate for an energy company since that\u2019s an acronym for \u201cmegawatt hours.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 18 years of carving out a national niche in the energy infrastructure sector, San Diego-based SOLV Energy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[387,6774,181,74,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-267078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-energy","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-headlines","13":"tag-san-diego-news","14":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}