March 17, 2026
By Mike Schutz | When the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) passed last year, most developers responded in kind: pause, sort, prioritize. The portfolios were divided into projects that could realistically meet the new July 2026 tax credit deadlines and those that could not. That phase is long gone.
As the projected cliff for July approaches, the conversation has shifted from, “Which projects are moving forward?” to “How fast can they move?” And in the utility-scale solar market, one limitation consistently emerges: technical bandwidth.
As a result, speed to market has shifted from a competitive advantage to a gateway factor, with engineering now driving the timelines.
Engineering is now the driving force behind planning
Under normal circumstances, engineering unfolds in a predictable sequence: feasibility, preliminary design, environmental coordination, interconnection studies, detailed design, construction documentation. There is flexibility built into that process that allows for iterations and adjustments. But right now that flexibility is disappearing.
Instead of a linear transfer from one phase to the next, workflows overlap. Developers are promoting civil design while environmental coordination is underway. The procurement strategy is discussed before the interconnection assumptions are fully established. The input for constructability takes place earlier, because subsequent redesign is simply not feasible.
This shift is happening because engineering creates certainty, and certainty is what maintains appropriateness in a deadline-driven policy environment. A solar development is only truly ‘real’ once the assumptions about layout, layout, civil engineering and interconnection have been validated. As a result, developers need that validation much sooner than they are used to.
Concurrency is the cause of the capacity crisis
The pressure on engineering capacity arises as projects proceed in parallel instead of consecutively. Developers who may have spread their project starts over several quarters are now advancing multiple projects simultaneously, creating concurrent demand across all engineering disciplines, including civil, electrical, structural and environmental engineering disciplines.
As developers move forward with multiple projects simultaneously, demand in those same engineering disciplines is concentrated, with many of them being asked to accelerate at the same time, across portfolios and regions. Engineering availability in that environment becomes a function of workload synchronization.
Those developers who secured technical support early are largely able to maintain momentum because capacity was allocated before timelines were tightened. Those who assumed they could deploy resources once the project was complete are finding that engineering is either unavailable or companies have limited resources available to support projects.
Fast execution is now a competitive advantage
At this point, the timing of technical decisions carries more weight than normal. The longer design and technical validation wait, the more likely it is that limitations will emerge with limited room to adjust; procurement decisions move forward without full design clarity; and assumptions about interconnection remain untested until changes become more expensive and disruptive.
With a flexible timeline, these adjustments are difficult. These have consequences within a fixed eligibility window.
Involving engineering earlier in the process does not eliminate uncertainty, but it does expose it while there is still time to respond. That earlier visibility allows developers to prioritize projects based on confirmed feasibility rather than optimistic assumptions, ultimately protecting momentum under a policy-driven clock.
Speed without shortcuts
There is a natural assumption that speeding up engineering requires a reduction in diligence. But in reality, limiting due diligence often leads to risk transfer rather than time savings.
In practice, the opposite appears to be true. Eliminating the geotechnical scope, compressing the environmental analysis, or delaying a constructability analysis rarely shortens a project’s schedule in a meaningful way. More often, these decisions shift risk downstream, where adjustments are more expensive and disruptive.
Projects that maintain momentum ahead of the July deadline typically have one thing in common: engineering involvement started earlier and remained closely aligned with permitting, procurement, and interconnection planning. Uncertainties are addressed while layout options are still flexible and constructability considerations are incorporated into design decisions before they become field changes.
What the market looks like in July
As July approaches, demand for engineering is unlikely to decline. In any case, we expect continued pressure as developers push projects past internal decision thresholds.
Last summer, the sector was recalibrating policy changes. Today it operates there. The projects that now meet the OBBB eligibility deadline will not necessarily be the largest or most capitalized, but those that secured technical alignment early enough to protect planning certainty.
In a compressed policy environment, momentum is among the projects that have secured early technical certainty.
Engineering capacity may not make headlines, but it quietly determines which developments will meet the July deadline.
Mike Schutz is Bowman‘s national sector leader in sustainable energy and energy supply, with a proven track record of driving growth in the energy sector. He focuses on identifying and securing new opportunities in the evolving clean energy landscape, particularly in the areas of solar energy, battery storage, power supply and the integration of renewable energy sources.
Tags: commercial and industrial, Community Solar, engineering, Investment Tax Credit, ITC, OBBBA, utility scale
