The Inevitable Power Stock

Picture this scenario for me.

You’re watching the financial news, and every talking head is telling you the same thing: “Trump loves oil. Solar is dead. Buy energy stocks, but stick to the traditional ones.”

Meanwhile, your electricity bill just jumped 10% this month.

Your local utility is warning about rolling blackouts this summer because they can’t keep up with demand.

And every major corporation is announcing new AI data centers that will suck up more power than entire cities.

Most investors will see this as a death knell for renewables.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

And you’re about to see why this setup is about to hand us the biggest windfall we’ve seen since President Trump’s first term.

The Number That Should Scare Every Investor

Here’s a stat that stopped me cold when I saw it recently.

Data centers consumed 4.4% of all U.S. electricity in 2023. By 2028 – just three years from now – they’re projected to consume 12%.

Think about that for a second.

We’re talking about nearly tripling electricity demand from just one sector. That’s like adding the power consumption of Texas and California combined.

Goldman Sachs is forecasting global power demand from data centers will jump 165% by 2030.

And here’s the kicker: Our electrical grid was built in the 1960s and 70s. It literally cannot handle this kind of surge.

This is something Enrique has been talking about for months at this point.

Electricity prices have already spiked 6.5% year-over-year, and that’s just the beginning. Carnegie Mellon is warning wholesale electricity prices could rise at least 8% annually until 2030 under current policies.

But most investors are looking at this completely backwards.

Why Everyone Has Trump Wrong on Solar

Look, I get it. Trump talks a big oil game. “Drill baby drill” and all that.

But here’s what everyone’s missing: Trump cares about one thing above everything else – winning.

And when your electrical grid is about to collapse under AI demand, and China is eating our lunch in solar manufacturing, suddenly solar becomes a national security issue.

But here’s the part that’ll blow your mind.

During Trump’s first term, while everyone was buying oil stocks, one of the best-performing stocks in the entire market was Enphase Energy (ENPH) – a solar battery company.

ENPH went from $4 in 2017 to over $150 by early 2021. A $5,000 stake became more than $180,000 – under Trump’s watch.

That’s not a coincidence.

• In 2019, Trump quietly extended the solar investment tax credit through 2022 – something you’d never expect from a “drill baby drill” president.
• Despite the rhetoric, under Trump the U.S. added 40+ gigawatts of solar capacity – more than double what was added under Obama’s second term.
• ENPH’s run wasn’t isolated. SolarEdge (SEDG) climbed nearly 1,000% during Trump’s term, showing a sector-wide boom.

The Numbers Behind the Crisis

Here are the numbers that should have every utility in America panicking. Instead, they’re acting like nothing’s wrong.

The U.S. data center market needs to add 55 gigawatts of new power capacity by 2030. Let me put that into perspective: That’s like building 55 nuclear power plants or 220 coal plants in six years.

It physically cannot be done with traditional power sources.

Nuclear plants take 10-15 years to build. Coal plants are being shut down, not built. Natural gas has supply chain issues.

You know what can be built in 6-18 months? Solar farms with battery storage.

The International Energy Agency just announced that renewables will provide more than one-third of global electricity generation in 2025 – overtaking coal for the first time.

This is a BIG move from 2024, the numbers which you can see here:

The train is leaving the station, and most investors don’t even see it coming.

But Not All “Alts” Are the Same

Trump just announced it – and he’s dead-on.

Wind energy is useless for solving the AI crisis.

It’s intermittent. You can’t count on it when your data center needs power at 3 AM on a calm Tuesday.

Hydrogen? Don’t make me laugh. The infrastructure alone would take decades and cost trillions.

Geothermal? Limited to specific geographic locations.

But solar plus batteries? That’s the killer combination.

Solar works everywhere. It’s getting cheaper every year – costs have dropped 85% in the last decade. And when you pair it with battery storage, you get reliable 24/7 power that can be deployed anywhere.

This is why I’ve been watching the battery storage sector closely.

The technology is advancing rapidly. Costs are dropping. And the market opportunity is massive – utility-scale battery storage installations are expanding at record pace.

The Setup That’s Too Perfect

To me, the most exciting part here is that everyone is betting against solar because they think Trump would never support green energy.

But again, he’s into winning more than anything else.

Do you think he’d sit idly by an industry that 10Xs, only to later shrug his shoulders and say “well, it didn’t align with my ideals, did it?”

To most people, “solar” is the same as “wind” or the others we just spoke about.

That’s why… when they see this chart of one of the biggest alternative energy exchange-traded funds in the market, solar is dead in the water.

But demand is about to explode like nothing we’ve ever seen.

What I’m Watching Right Now

The battery storage sector is starting to see institutional interest. Companies with solid balance sheets and proven technology are getting attention from smart money.

The momentum is building faster than most people realize. Utility-scale battery storage installations are expanding rapidly heading into 2025, while retail investors are still focused on oil and gas.

We’re sitting on the most obvious investment opportunity I’ve seen in years:

• AI is creating massive, immediate electricity demand
• Traditional grid infrastructure can’t scale fast enough
• Solar plus battery storage is the only viable solution
• Everyone’s betting against it due to political assumptions
• Stock prices are beaten down to bargain basement levels

This is about cold, hard economics and supply and demand… it has nothing to do with “saving the planet.”

The AI revolution needs power. Lots of it. Right now.

And the companies that can deliver it fastest and cheapest are going to make their shareholders very, very wealthy.

Most investors are thinking politics instead of physics. They’re thinking ideology instead of infrastructure.

But the numbers don’t lie. And when electricity prices double and the lights start going out, nobody’s going to care about political talking points.

They’re only going to care about which companies can keep the power on.

I’ve been tracking this trend for months, years even, and the momentum is building faster than I expected.

One Name Worth Watching

There’s one company that perfectly captures this opportunity: First Solar (FSLR) – the largest manufacturer of solar panels in the U.S.

They’re the only US-headquartered company among the world’s top 10 solar module producers.

What makes them special? They’ve grown from a small 74,000 square-foot facility in Perrysburg, Ohio that created 50 jobs in 1999, to an expected $4 billion in cumulative investment across multiple U.S. manufacturing sites.

They’re rapidly expanding production capacity from 16GW currently to 25GW by 2026, with their newest $1.1 billion Alabama facility adding 3.5 GW of manufacturing capacity.

Here’s the key: They use advanced thin-film technology designed and developed at their R&D centers in California and Ohio – giving them a technological edge over generic panel manufacturers.

I’ve held shares of this stock since 2016, when I bought in around $33… And I’ve never sold a single one.

Mainly because I think shares could still double, triple even, from here.

Because, when America finally gets serious about energy independence and grid reliability, we’re going to need a domestic solar champion.

First Solar is that company.

The setup is straightforward: massive demand growth, limited domestic supply, and a company with the manufacturing scale and technology to capitalize on both trends.

The only question will be whether you were positioned – or left behind.

Disclosure: Author owns First Solar (FSLR).