Construction of a solar canopy in the Memorial Spaulding Elementary School parking lot has been halted after Trump’s tariffs caused steel prices to soar.

The city has made a consistent effort to stay at the forefront of the Commonwealth’s sustainability efforts, with initiatives like the Climate Action Plan, a five-year timeline to introduce sustainable practices into the city, and Newton Power Choice, a city-funded program that enables citizens to easily invest in clean energy.

As of 2022, the city had 18 solar projects online, which generate 5 million kW/hr a year, equal to 25% of the city’s total electricity use. Now, it has one additional project completed, two more under construction and six planned.

Since 2022, Newton has also planned to install solar canopies at the Education Center, the Wheeler and Meadowbrook Road corner parking lot, and Memorial Spaulding Elementary School. However, the construction at Memorial Spaulding suddenly shut down when the developer was looking to do the last round of purchasing, specifically for steel.

As of June 4, Trump raised the tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50%, causing steel prices to climb from $700 to $900 per ton.

“With recent uncertainty around tariffs and the tariffs that were already in place on steel coming in,” said Sam Nighman, Newton’s co-director of sustainability. “The project was no longer financially viable for them.”

Construction had not started, but the project was in the final planning stages.

“With canopies, those end up involving a lot more steel compared to, like, your overall roof system or a ground mount system,” Nighman said.

There is still hope that the project will resume at Memorial Spaulding. There are no barriers besides tariffs preventing construction.

“I think everyone agrees it would be a good location for a solar canopy,” Nighman said. “If we can, in the future, find a way for that to work financially. We’ll pick that up and try to make that happen then.”

The remaining canopies are larger and are predicted to produce more energy, which makes them more financially viable. As of now, construction for these areas is still planned for the summer, but Newton is not certain of the exact outcome for the other canopy projects.

“Ones where we are looking at canopies, this could be impacted,” Nighman said.

The solar projects are conducted under power purchase agreements with Ameresco, a New England-based solar developer, which means the company owns and maintains the projects and the city leases the space to them, Nighman said. Ameresco pays for the panels, the installation and all the upfront costs. The city buys the electricity produced by these panels.

The solar projects allow Newton to mitigate some effects of climate change and save money on energy because solar is less expensive than other energy sources.

“So I think if we look at our overall portfolio, the amount annually that we save is somewhere around $1 million in electricity costs from all of our solar projects,” Nighman said.

The plan includes solar installation on municipal property as a big part of their plan to mitigate climate change.

The issue is seen not only in Newton but in construction projects across the country. Even the talk about tariffs before they were implemented was enough to disrupt the supply chain that was still reeling from the pandemic.

“There’s been a lot of disruptions,” said Gilbert Michaud, an assistant professor at the School of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago and the policy division chair at the American Solar Energy Society. “It’s definitely not just in Massachusetts or New England or a regional thing, like it’s all across the country.”

A report published in 2021 by the Newton Citizens Commission on Energy, a citizen-run group that creates renewable energy policy, found that residential homes and cars were responsible for 61% of the greenhouse gas emissions created in Newton. Commercial properties accounted for 37% and municipal uses 2%.

Philip Hanser, the commission’s chair, said the group will set its sights on finding ways to encourage more solar adoption in residential areas.  

“I think our next sector to tackle is residential homes and buildings, particularly less than 20,000 square feet, because they represent over a third of the emissions in the city,” Hanser said. “That’s the kind of next big frontier, and that’s where things need to be concentrated.”

The biggest hurdle is motivating more of Newton’s 31,730 households to participate.

“There are state and national mandates to help do that, but a lot of it is getting the word out and convincing people it’s a good idea,” said Michael Gevelber, a member of Newton’s Energy Commission since 2012 and an associate engineering research professor at Boston University.

“How do you get more of them to put solar panels up, buy electric cars, put in heat pumps to provide heat during the winter?” Gevelber said. “That’s the question we’re contemplating, and that’s what goes into the climate action plan.”

The same 2021 report revealed that Newton was not on track to reach any of its 2025 goals regarding EV ownership, residential heating emissions, commercial heating emissions, and heat pump installation.

“Five years later, you measure, ‘Where are we?’” Gevelber said. “We barely scratched the surface, unfortunately.”

To combat this issue, the commission urges the government to educate residents about their energy consumption.

“The commission right now is putting forward that the city needs to think about putting into place an ordinance for homes to know what their energy use intensity is, and to use that data in the long run to develop decarbonization plans for everybody’s homes,” Hanser said. “And part of the decarbonization plans could be to supplement the energy sources with solar panels.”

This story is part of a partnership between the Newton Beacon and the Boston University Department of Journalism.