At this year’s RE+ conference in Las Vegas, ACT | The App Association highlighted a challenge that solar technology innovators are only now beginning to grapple with: abusive licensing practices tied to standard-essential patents (SEPs). For years, small app developers and device makers in the communications sector have faced aggressive tactics from a handful of abusive SEP licensors who exploit their market position to demand excessive royalties or impose opaque licensing terms. Now, as solar developers increasingly adopt standardized solutions to achieve scale and interoperability, including for wireless connectivity, they are encountering the very same obstacles.
Technical standards play a critical role in enabling solar innovation. They ensure equipment interoperability, drive down deployment costs, and facilitate integration with smart grids. This matters more than ever as demand for clean energy skyrockets in parallel with the rapid growth of global data center energy consumption. Data centers are vital to the digital economy, but they are also massive power users; scaling solar deployment is essential to keeping their environmental footprint in check. When SEP licensors betray the fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) commitments they’ve made, it distorts the balance. Innovators who rely on baseline standards for interoperability and safety are left facing unpredictable costs and legal uncertainties, slowing the development and adoption of renewable solutions that industries like cloud computing and artificial intelligence urgently need.
At RE+, the App Association called on solar developers and deployers to recognize that these challenges are not unique to their industry, and that the time to come together to shape the rules across sectors is now. By working together with the App Association and its members both in the renewable space and in other markets, the solar industry can help establish SEP frameworks that safeguard access to standards, prevent abusive licensing practices, and preserve the momentum driving the clean energy transition.
The promise of solar technology depends not only on engineering breakthroughs but also on the regulatory environment that governs access to essential tools like standards. The App Association invites solar innovators to join us in advancing policies that ensure standards continue to serve as enablers of growth, not roadblocks. Together, we can make sure standards remain a foundation for reliable, affordable, and innovative clean energy solutions that are critical to powering the infrastructure of the digital age.