Every wildfire starts small. The problem is that by the time most are detected, minutes have already passed and, under increasingly common conditions driven by a warming climate, a fire can grow beyond any tanker truck’s capacity to contain. The gap between ignition and coordinated response currently averages around 40 minutes. Firefighters have long understood the math: a spoonful of water in the first second, a bucket in the first minute, a truckload in the first hour. The XPRIZE Wildfire competition is an $11 million global effort to prove that autonomous systems, including AI-enabled drones, ground-based sensor networks, and space-based detection platforms, can collapse that window to 10 minutes. Our guest is Andrea Santy, who leads the program. She came to XPRIZE after nearly two decades at the World Wildlife Fund, where she watched conservation projects fall to wildfire. That experience sharpened her understanding of the stakes: wildfires are now the leading driver of deforestation globally, having surpassed agriculture. In places like the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and parts of tropical East Asia, a single fire can eliminate species found nowhere else on Earth. In cities, it can destroy entire neighborhoods in hours. On January 7, 2025, Santa Ana winds drove flames through Pacific Palisades and Altadena, destroying more than 16,000 structures, killing 30 people, displacing 180,000 residents, and generating between $76 billion and $130 billion in total economic losses from a single event. Annual U.S. wildfire costs, when healthcare, lost productivity, ecosystem damage, and rebuilding are included, are estimated between $394 billion and $893 billion. XPRIZE announced the five autonomous wildfire response finalists just over a year after the LA fires: Anduril, deploying its Lattice AI platform with autonomous fire sentry towers and Ghost X drones; Dryad, running solar-powered mesh sensor networks that detect fires at the smoldering stage; Fire Swarm Solutions, coordinating heavy-lift drone swarms that can deliver 100 gallons of water autonomously; Data Blanket, building rapidly deployable drone swarms for real-time perimeter mapping and suppression; and Wildfire Quest, a team of high school students from Valley Christian High School in San Jose who used multi-sensor triangulation to locate fires that can’t be seen from monitoring positions, solving the literal over-the-hill problem that any fire detection system faces.

The conversation covers what the finalists demonstrated during semi-final trials at 40-mile-per-hour winds, why the decoy fire requirement — distinguishing a wildfire from a barbecue, a pile burn, or a flapping tarp — is one of the hardest AI classification problems in the competition, and how autonomous systems would integrate with existing incident command structures. Santy is direct about where progress is lagging: the testing is ahead of the regulations. Autonomous drones operating beyond visual line of sight and coordinating with manned aircraft in active fire emergencies require FAA frameworks that don’t yet exist at the necessary scale. There’s also the deeper ecological tension — the growing scientific consensus that many fire-adapted landscapes need more fire, not less, and that indigenous fire stewardship practices developed over millennia have a place alongside autonomous suppression technology. One XPRIZE finalist is already working with an indigenous community in Canada to pilot their heavy-lift drone system in a remote area where that community is exploring how the technology fits their land management approach. Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s FY 2026 budget proposes eliminating Forest Service state fire capacity grants, cutting vegetation and watershed management programs by 30%, and zeroing out $300 million in forest research funding — maintaining suppression spending while gutting the prevention and detection infrastructure that could reduce what there is to suppress. The engineering, Santy says, has arrived. Whether the institutions can move at the speed the crisis demands is the harder question.

You can learn more about XPRIZE Wildfire and follow the finalists at xprize.org/competitions/wildfire.

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Interview Transcript

Mitch Ratcliffe  0:09

Hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability In Your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating the transition to a sustainable, carbon-neutral society, and I’m your host, Mitch Ratcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation today.

Fire season is coming, and we’re going to dig into how new technology may catch and contain fires in the first few minutes after ignition. There’s a saying among firefighters: you can fight fire in the first second with a spoonful of water, in the first minute with a bucket of water, and in the first hour with a truckload of water. The problem is that by the time most wildfires are detected, minutes have already passed, and in those minutes, under increasingly common conditions, a fire can grow beyond any tanker truck’s capacity.

On January 7, 2025, hurricane-force Santa Ana winds drove flames through Pacific Palisades and Altadena in Los Angeles, and in a matter of hours, more than 16,000 structures were destroyed. Thirty people were killed, and 180,000 residents were forced to flee. The total economic losses are estimated to be between $76 billion and $130 billion from a single fire event. And that was just one week in one city. In 2025, the U.S. recorded more than 61,500 wildfires that burned nearly 5 million acres, leading to annual U.S. wildfire costs of between $394 billion and $893 billion when you factor in the cost of healthcare, lost productivity, ecosystem damage, and the expensive task of rebuilding entire cities.

So there’s an identifiable gap in the current best practices, which take roughly 40 minutes from ignition to deliver a coordinated response. What if you could cut that to 10 minutes, when only a few buckets of water could extinguish a threat? And what if autonomous systems — AI-enabled drones and ground-based sensor networks — could detect a fire, distinguish it from a prescribed burn, and suppress it before getting a human on the radio?

That’s the challenge behind the XPRIZE Wildfire program, an $11 million global competition now entering its final year, and our guest today is Andrea Santy, the program director leading it. Andrea came to XPRIZE after nearly two decades at the World Wildlife Fund, and before that she spent time at the Smithsonian Institution, leading conservation and academic programs.

On January 29 — just after the one-year anniversary of those LA fires — XPRIZE announced the five finalist teams advancing in the autonomous wildfire response track of the competition. They include:

Andruil, a defense technology company deploying a Lattice AI platform with autonomous fire sentry towers and Ghost X drones that watch for fires at the moment they break out;

Dryad, a German company running solar-powered sensor networks that detect fires at the smoldering stage;

Fire Swarm Solutions, a Canadian team coordinating heavy-lift drone swarms that can carry 100 gallons of water autonomously to the point where a fire begins;

Data Blanket, building a rapidly deployable drone swarm system for real-time perimeter mapping and suppression; and

Wildfire Quest, a team of high school students from Valley Christian High School in San Jose who partnered with two aerospace companies to use multi-sensor triangulation to locate fires that cannot be seen from monitoring locations — because, after all, a lot of fires happen just over the hill.

A separate track of the competition, the space-based wildfire detection and intelligence program, includes 10 finalists from six countries who are heading to Australia in April for their own finals. Those teams will have one minute to detect all fires across an area larger than a state, and 10 minutes to deliver precise reports to firefighting decision-makers on the ground.

We’re going to talk with Andrea about what the finalists demonstrated during live trials, why the decoy fire requirement is one of the hardest AI classification problems in the competition, and how these autonomous systems would actually integrate with existing wildfire incident command structures. We’ll also dig into the tension between suppression technology and the growing scientific consensus that many landscapes need more fire, not less, and whether indigenous fire stewardship practices have a place in this conversation.

You can learn more about XPRIZE Wildfire at xprize.org/competitions/wildfire. Can autonomous drones and AI-driven sensor networks actually detect and suppress a wildfire in less than 10 minutes? Let’s find out right after this brief commercial break.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Welcome to the show, Andrea. How are you doing today?

Andrea Santy  5:34

I’m doing great, Mitch. Thanks for having me.

Mitch Ratcliffe  5:34

Well, thanks for joining me. We’ve had XPRIZE leaders on the show a number of times, and you do such interesting work. You announced the finalists just at one year after the catastrophe in LA. How did that reshape the urgency and direction for the XPRIZE Wildfire competition?

Andrea Santy  5:34

It definitely focuses a more intense light on the competition and the need for these solutions. Climate change is driving more intense, more frequent wildfires all around the world, and so I think the urgency was already there. But when you have a disaster at the scale and scope of the LA fires, it absolutely changes the way that everybody thinks about wildfires.

Mitch Ratcliffe  6:04

What’s the realistic timeline for these technologies in the competition to potentially start changing the way that we fight fire and the outcomes of those fires?

Andrea Santy  6:14

So I’ll start by saying we were in LA when the fires started. XPRIZE has a lot of LA-based staff, and we’re originally LA-based, and we were having our staff meeting — so our entire staff was there. We knew from our prize that it was going to be very high risk, and so we were in touch with fire chiefs as the fires were starting. We were able to go out and see where the fires had gone through the Palisades and part of the city — basically 24 hours after it had happened.

It really, I will just say, definitely had a huge impact in terms of being able to see a landscape, communities, homes, schools, and businesses that had been devastated. A lot of the technology being integrated with these solutions can be deployed almost immediately. I think that as the fire agencies begin to get their hands on more of this technology, we’re going to have a hopefully relatively quick uptake. Cameras, sensors, satellite data — a lot of this is already being deployed. So we’re looking at how quickly and under what conditions it can help improve our detection. And then we have other components that I would say are going to have a longer timeline to full deployment.

Mitch Ratcliffe  7:56

It sounds like part of the problem, then, is just knitting all this together. Does that also apply to areas outside of major cities? Do we have the resources to do this on a nationwide basis?

Andrea Santy  8:10

Yeah, absolutely. We’re doing our testing for our space-based competition in Australia, so we’re looking at how you detect fires over vast areas from satellites as quickly as possible and deliver that information down within 10 minutes, with 15-minute updates. For our autonomous track, we’re testing in Alaska — so it will definitely be a real-world scenario where we can understand the capabilities of these technologies in forested areas, in really vast terrain, and under different environmental conditions. Part of why we’re working with these partners is because they’re great partners, but it also allows us to validate this technology under real-world, challenging conditions.

Mitch Ratcliffe  9:03

So how does the wildfire strategy change when this technology is in place? You’ve already mentioned that the climate crisis is accelerating the size and pace of these fires. Is the goal to suppress more fires earlier so that available resources can be deployed to those that actually break out? What’s the big-picture change in policy here?

Andrea Santy  9:26

XPRIZE really decided to double down on early detection and autonomous response, and we have two tracks. I’ll talk about the detection piece first because it’s digestible for everyone. Every wildfire starts small. They don’t start as a huge catastrophe — they start small, often in pretty remote areas. Sometimes they burn really fast, sometimes slower, depending on the conditions. But if you can address a wildfire at its very smallest phase, essentially post-ignition, that gives you the best chance to address it — either through autonomous suppression systems or through your fire service. If you have more eyes, ears, and noses on the landscape, the better your chance of getting that alert as soon as possible, which allows the fire service to decide how to prioritize their resources.

The second component we’re advancing is autonomous detection and response. Sensors and cameras handle the detection; the autonomous response system deploys, verifies there is a fire — that it’s not a barbecue but an actual wildfire that needs suppression — and places suppressant fully autonomously. That’s what we’re going to be testing in Alaska: can they execute this full end-to-end system? Is the technology integrated? Will it reach the scale and scope of the challenge and the geography? Because 1,000 square kilometers — which is our testing area — is roughly the size of San Antonio, Texas. The teams will have to find multiple fires and demonstrate persistent monitoring and persistent response. Imagine having a fire starting in a ravine: if you can get something out there in minutes, your chance of knocking it down — even just deterring the spread enough that firefighters can arrive — we hope will be a game changer.

Mitch Ratcliffe  12:13

We’re talking about autonomous drones. But one of the things that happened in the LA wildfire was that Santa Ana winds were so extreme, fixed-wing aircraft couldn’t fly. Can a drone perform in those conditions?

Andrea Santy  12:27

During our semi-final testing, our team traveled the world to observe these solutions in action. While not at scale, each of the five finalists was able to demonstrate that they could detect a fire, navigate to it, and suppress it fully autonomously over a small area. Coincidentally, relatively strong winds followed us — nothing like the Santa Ana winds, but we had 40-mile-per-hour winds pretty consistently during testing. It was odd, but it was helpful in terms of validating the technology.

Because you don’t have a human pilot, it’s not that helicopters and planes can’t fly — it’s that they can’t fly in that type of wind without putting a human at risk. This approach removes at least that human element. It’s going to continue to be a challenge, but many of the drones have a relatively high wind tolerance, and as the technology improves, the systems themselves are providing the input to stay balanced.

Mitch Ratcliffe  13:54

These systems are also being combined with sensor networks. Can you talk about how those are being deployed?

Andrea Santy  14:01

Some teams are really focused on ultra-early detection by deploying a sensor network — many, many sensors connected through a mesh network — allowing small, distributed sensors across a large area, which gives you great coverage. All of the different teams are competing under the same scenario, so we’ll get to see which technologies work under which conditions. There’s no single silver bullet that works in every condition, every geography, and every forest type. We’re also working on a pilot phase post-competition so the teams can continue to test and deploy, gaining even better understanding. Building trust with fire agencies — so they know what the technology can do under critical situations — is really important.

Mitch Ratcliffe  15:24

Do the fire agencies participate in these trials as well?

Andrea Santy  15:28

Absolutely. We have partners from different fire agencies in Australia — we’re doing our testing with the Rural Fire Service of New South Wales, which is a testing partner. Many of our judges come from different fire agencies across the United States and around the world. From the beginning, that was really an ethos we set forward — making sure this was done hand in hand with the fire agencies.

Mitch Ratcliffe  15:59

You’ve mentioned decoy fires. I’m curious how the trials will incorporate them. You mentioned barbecues — are you going to have people setting up small fires to lure the competition’s sensors?

Andrea Santy  16:11

I can’t say too much because testing hasn’t happened — I can’t give away the secret sauce. But yes — the teams do know they will have decoys and will need to ensure their technology ignores them. It can be anything from something flapping in the wind that resembles the color of fire all the way to barbecues or pile burns — anything that would confuse the technology.

Mitch Ratcliffe  16:52

And that could happen any day of the year. Really interesting. One of the most compelling things about the competition is the breadth of sources of ideas and the range of approaches — including even a high school team from Valley Christian High School in San Jose. What does that diversity tell us about where wildfire innovation will actually come from?

Andrea Santy  17:15

At XPRIZE, we believe that ideas can come from anyone, anywhere, and I think XPRIZE Wildfire really demonstrates what that looks like. We had teams from over 55 different countries enter the competition. We currently have six countries represented through our finals teams, and the range spans from Valley Christian — a high school team — through universities, startups, and all the way up to major industry. That truly spans the whole spectrum.

What I really love about our competition is that for many of the teams, this is both a company and a passion. Wildfires happen in so many places, and so many teams have been personally impacted. The high school team talked about growing up in areas where wildfires are a constant presence — they are very cognizant of the need for these solutions. Something remarkable: one in six Americans live in an area of wildfire risk, and 25% of Californians.

Mitch Ratcliffe  18:57

It’s a very tangible problem for so many of us, particularly in the West. And the smoke from fires in Canada is now familiar on the East Coast — it’s changed the very shape of life. This is a great place to take a quick commercial break. We’ll be right back.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. Let’s return to my discussion with Andrea Santy. She is Program Director of XPRIZE Wildfire — a competition headed into its final year with two groups of finalists vying to win shares of an $11 million prize to help commercialize their technologies.

Andrea, the autonomous competition requires teams to detect and suppress a high-risk wildfire in a 1,000-square-kilometer area — roughly the size of San Antonio — and do it within 10 minutes, while ignoring decoy fires. That’s four times faster than current best practices. Have any of the teams met that benchmark yet in the trials?

Andrea Santy  19:57

As I mentioned, the five teams advancing to finals all demonstrated they have end-to-end solutions to autonomously detect, navigate, and suppress a fire. Our semi-final testing was at a much smaller scale, and while some teams did it in less than 10 minutes, this finals competition is at a very large scale — and it is going to be challenging. Every XPRIZE is very audacious. We really want to push the limits, but we’re very confident we’re going to have a team that can do it. Still to be seen, but that is what finals is for.

Mitch Ratcliffe  20:42

Absolutely. It’s great that we’re testing in such diverse settings. Australia and Alaska seem very different. Is that actually the case, or are wildfire conditions globally roughly the same?

Andrea Santy  20:59

Very different. In Alaska, it will be wildfire season, and we’re testing in an area of much lower risk. The vegetation is different. The geography is different. The fuels — the plants and trees — are different. In Australia, the teams will be arriving as it comes out of summer and goes into fall, which means we don’t actually know exactly which specific days we’ll test, because the Rural Fire Service has to execute prescribed burns when it’s safe. We have a two-week testing window, with five planned days of testing, and approximately 20 fires of varying sizes that the teams will need to identify under different conditions and vegetation types.

Mitch Ratcliffe  22:11

Let’s talk a bit about the space-based prize. Lockheed Martin is adding a million dollars for the teams that can demonstrate the fastest and most accurate detection. Is detection turning out to be the harder technical problem — or is it the transition from detection to action, that coordination piece we talked about?

Andrea Santy  22:40

Lockheed Martin is supporting the autonomous wildfire response track — which we call Track B. The autonomous track requires teams to detect, navigate, and suppress, with all teams using drones. There’s a lot of different detection technology, from sensors that detect particulates up to cameras, and sensors and cameras mounted on drones.

Getting that detection into these autonomous response systems is really the step change — having something that communicates without human intervention, with drones that can fly under wind conditions and navigate to the right location, confirm there’s a fire, and then suppress it accurately. The teams will be testing on a moving fire — not a barrel of fire, but an actual fire that will be dynamic and small-scale but moving. That’s really challenging and requires quite a bit of system training. During semi-finals, accurately hitting the target was one of the harder challenges.

Mitch Ratcliffe  24:43

As you talk about it, it sounds like the transition from detection to addressing the fire appropriately — choosing the right suppression mechanism — is something you’ll continue to work on.

Andrea Santy  24:58

The teams are definitely still working on their systems. They have until June to have all of their systems working. Yeah, it requires a lot of different components.

Mitch Ratcliffe  25:20

And obviously that’s part of the bigger challenge — coordinating technological responses to a changing climate and acute situations like fire. As you observe the environment with these systems, are we also potentially identifying opportunities for prescribed burns in order to reduce fire risk?

Andrea Santy  25:45

Absolutely. While our competition is focused on detection and response to incipient-stage wildfires, I do think this technology can be utilized across many different scenarios — including prescribed burns, where you want to monitor large burn areas to ensure nothing escapes. That is definitely a use case, and anything that reduces our risk. Personally, I think it could provide peace of mind: if you have something on hand that can prevent a prescribed fire from spreading when weather conditions change unexpectedly, that’s enormously valuable.

Mitch Ratcliffe  26:43

Indigenous communities have managed fire for millennia using these kinds of burning practices. Have you engaged with tribal fire practitioners? Do they see autonomous technology as complementary to, or in tension with, their traditional fire stewardship programs?

Andrea Santy  27:02

We have engaged with some. I was just at a meeting where I was able to meet with a representative from an indigenous community in Canada, and they are actually going to pilot-test one of the team’s technologies — specifically a team with a heavy-lift drone. It was really exciting to talk with them and learn more about how they envision it being used. Their community is quite remote, and understanding how this technology could work within their context was a great conversation.

Mitch Ratcliffe  27:41

When I think about the swarm of drones approach to fire management, the regulatory landscape seems like a significant challenge. The FAA has been grappling with drone airspace management. Does the regulatory framework need to change significantly to accommodate these systems?

Andrea Santy  28:06

That’s an excellent question. Current regulations and protocol don’t allow drones in airspace with manned aircraft. As the technology gets better, there are definitely ways this can happen — there are pilots and tests already occurring with other partners looking at shared airspace for heavy-lift drones operating at higher altitudes. Beyond visual line of sight is one area where the testing is definitely ahead of where the regulations are.

Mitch Ratcliffe  28:55

What has your conservation career taught you about how technology deployment can shape our relationship with nature?

Andrea Santy  29:07

I got into this position in part because many of the projects I was working on at the World Wildlife Fund were being lost to wildfire, and I felt we hadn’t really understood the impact of wildfires on conservation. Wildfires are now the main driver of deforestation globally, having surpassed agriculture. In places like the Amazon, the Congo, and parts of tropical East Asia, there’s such critical biodiversity — and I think if we can use technology to monitor these areas, understand where fires are happening, and deploy appropriate responses, my hope is that we can save really, really important places. There are endemic species that only live in very, very small areas, and one fire could wipe out an entire species.

I also worked for a long time on projects where your goal was 20 to 50 years away. Being able to work with XPRIZE, where in three years we’ve seen an absolute transformation in both what the technology can do and how people understand what technology is for — I think we need more of these competitions, more technology applied to conservation problems. I’m really hopeful.

Mitch Ratcliffe  31:23

After three years with XPRIZE Wildfire, do you feel like we can turn back the rising incidence of wildfire and all the costs we’re seeing pile up when cities burn?

Andrea Santy  31:35

I think so. Communities and citizens around the world are understanding the problem at a deeper level. This is going to be all hands on deck. You need citizens and homeowners making sure they have zone zero — no vegetation around their homes. You need communities, city and state incentives, industry engagement. You need prescribed fire and better forest management policies that allow good fire on the landscape, and communities that encourage it. All of these factors together are what will get us to a new paradigm.

Mitch Ratcliffe  32:29

You mentioned raising awareness — this competition actually sounds like really good TV. Have you thought about how to tell this story of wildfire innovation so that people can get engaged with and behind this kind of activity?

Andrea Santy  32:49

We’ve discussed at length how we would be able to document some of the testing. For the autonomous wildfire response, it is a very big, vast area, and turning it into good TV is probably a step beyond us — but I think the teams have amazing stories to tell. We’re going to capture a lot of imagery to share that story out. We have a resource page that provides a lot of different information to homeowners and individuals about other really amazing organizations doing great work in the wildfire space.

Mitch Ratcliffe  33:47

How can our listeners follow along as you complete the project?

Andrea Santy  33:51

We’d love to have them follow along. The easiest way is xprize.org/wildfire — we have lots of information about the competition and the teams, lookbooks to learn about which teams are competing, social media updates, and a newsletter you can subscribe to. During the testing events we’ll be sharing quite a bit of good information. The events are in fairly remote, closed-system locations, so we can’t invite everyone there — but we’ll definitely be exploring how to make sure as many people as possible can get their eyes on what we’re doing.

Mitch Ratcliffe  34:42

Andrea, thank you very much for spending time with us today. It’s been a really interesting conversation.

Andrea Santy  34:48

Thank you so much. We hope all your listeners think deeply about wildfire and what they can do. Our goal is that collectively we can all work together to reduce this wildfire risk and keep good fire on the landscape.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Mitch Ratcliffe  35:11

Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. You’ve been listening to my conversation with Andrea Santy, Program Director of XPRIZE Wildfire, an $11 million global competition now in its final year. Learn more and follow the finalists at xprize.org/competitions/wildfire.

This conversation revealed, at least for me, that solutions to wildfire are arriving — but perhaps faster than the systems built to receive them can accept and use them. We’ll need more public funding to deploy these technologies, and right now we’re moving in the wrong direction. As wildfire damage grows, total federal wildfire spending is holding roughly flat at around $7 billion a year. However, the Trump administration’s FY 2026 budget proposes eliminating the Forest Service’s state fire capacity grants, cutting vegetation and watershed management programs by 30%, and zeroing out the $300 million in forest research funding that was in the budget previously. So we’re maintaining the suppression budget while cutting the prevention, detection, and research infrastructure that could reduce what we have to suppress.

Fortunately, we have XPRIZE Wildfire to take on some of the burden — but it’s not enough. Consider what Andrea said about early detection: every wildfire does start small. If autonomous systems can get suppressant on a fire quickly enough, it might not even need to be fully extinguished — just deterred enough that firefighters can arrive to finish the job. The technology to do that end-to-end and autonomously is already being demonstrated in the field. But Andrea was equally direct about what’s lagging: the testing is ahead of where the regulations are.

Consider autonomous drones operating beyond visual line of sight and coordinating with manned aircraft during active fire emergencies. For that to work, the FAA’s frameworks for widespread drone operations need to be reinvented. The recent closure of El Paso International Airport over nearby counter-drone laser testing is evidence of how unprepared we truly are for the innovations that are coming.

In short, the engineering has arrived, but institutions need support to integrate that engineering into their operations. A similar gap is evident in who’s doing the innovating: teams from over 55 countries entered this competition, and a high school team from San Jose made the finals by solving the problem of locating fires beyond ridgelines using multi-sensor triangulation — not because they had institutional backing, but because they had access to a well-defined problem and the drive to solve it, along with the incentive of XPRIZE’s $11 million award.

The XPRIZE premise that ideas can come from anyone, anywhere — it turns out — is literally true. But recognizing that changes nothing if the regulatory, procurement, and deployment systems still favor incumbents and slow-moving approval processes.

Underlying all these challenges is what Andrea brought to this work from nearly two decades at the World Wildlife Fund: wildfires are now the leading driver of deforestation globally, having surpassed agriculture. The game has changed, but policy is still anchored in now-outdated 20th-century strategies. One fire in the wrong place can drive a species to extinction, or it can burn a city to the ground.

Andrea said she’s hopeful — not because the problem is easy, but because in three years she’s watched a transformation in what technology can do and how people understand what technology is for. That hope is well earned. But it will only translate into outcomes if institutions move at the speed the crisis demands — citizens, homeowners, communities, industries, and policy, all moving together. The competition creates urgency; the systems around it need to act on and use the innovations being delivered.

So stay tuned for more conversations with people actually making sustainability happen, and I hope you’ll check out our archive of more than 540 episodes. There’s something worth sharing with anyone you know. Writing a review on your favorite podcast platform will help your neighbors find us — because, folks, you are the amplifiers that spread ideas to create less waste. Please tell your friends, your family, your co-workers, and the people you meet on the street that they can find Sustainability In Your Ear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, or wherever they get their podcast goodness.

Thank you for your support. I’m Mitch Ratcliffe. This is Sustainability In Your Ear, and we will be back with another innovator interview soon. In the meantime, folks — take care of yourself, take care of one another, and let’s all take care of this beautiful planet of ours. Have a green day.

The post Sustainability In Your Ear: The XPRIZE Wildfire Competition Heats Up appeared first on Earth911.

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More homeowners are installing solar, but 2026 brings a significantly changed financial landscape. The federal residential solar tax credit, a cornerstone of solar economics for two decades, expired on December 31, 2025. At the same time, panel technology has advanced and prices have reached near-historic lows. Here is what you need to know before making a solar investment this year.

The most consequential shift for anyone considering rooftop solar in 2026 is the expiration of Section 25D, the Residential Clean Energy Credit. That 30% credit, which was worth up to $9,000 on a $30,000 system, is no longer available for home solar installations. The One Big Beautiful Bill, signed July 4, 2025, accelerated the phase-out that the Inflation Reduction Act had originally extended through 2034. Homeowners who installed and claimed the credit before year-end keep their savings.

However, one federal credit remains available through at least 2027. The Clean Electricity Investment Credit (Section 48E), the commercial counterpart to the expired residential credit, was preserved in the One Big Beautiful Bill. It is available to businesses that own solar installations, including systems installed on residential rooftops. A solar company that owns a system on your roof can claim a 30% tax credit on its investment and pass a portion of that value to homeowners through lower pricing on leases, power purchase agreements (PPAs), or prepaid arrangements.

Under IRS rules, a solar company must retain genuine ownership of the system for at least five years. It cannot simply transfer ownership on day one and pocket the credit. This has given rise to offers referred to as prepaid PPA and “deferred ownership” products. You pay upfront and take full title to the system after the required holding period, which is typically six years. Providers including Tesla, which launched its 25-year solar lease with a year-five buyout option in October 2025, have recast their leasing offers to meet this IRS requirement. Utility Dive reporting confirms that TPO providers will continue to offer pass-through credits for leasing agreements in 2026 and 2027.

State and Local Incentives Step Into the Federal Gap

While the federal residential credit is gone, state programs offer meaningful savings in many markets. Many of these programs run on a block system, which is worth understanding before you shop. The state sets aside a fixed pool of money for each region, called a block. When that pool runs out, a new block opens, but at a lower rebate rate. This means the longer you wait, the less you’ll receive. Applying early, before your regional block fills, locks in the higher rate.

The best states for solar incentives in 2026 include:

• New York: The NY-Sun program, run by the state energy authority NYSERDA, cuts your installation bill upfront. Your installer simply charges you less, so there’s no rebate application to file and no waiting for a check. How much you save depends on where you live: homeowners in New York City and surrounding areas served by Con Edison get about $0.40 per watt off their system cost, while those upstate get around $0.20 per watt. Income-qualified households get $0.80 per watt regardless of region. On top of the rebate, New York offers a state income tax credit worth 25% of your system cost, up to $5,000, plus exemptions from both sales tax on equipment and property tax on the added home value.
• New Jersey: The Successor Solar Incentive program pays you for every unit of electricity your panels produce, for 15 years after installation. The current rate is about $85.90 per megawatt-hour — one megawatt-hour equals 1,000 kilowatt-hours, roughly what a typical home uses in a month — an you will receive payments every three months. A standard 8 kW rooftop system earns around $825 per year this way, or about $12,000 over the life of the contract. The rate is set to rise to $95.23 for the 2026–27 program year. Your installer handles the initial registration, but you’ll need to log your system’s monthly production in the state tracking system to keep the payments coming. New Jersey also offers full retail-rate net metering, meaning the utility credits your bill at the same rate you’d pay for grid electricity, and solar equipment is exempt from the state’s 6.625% sales tax.
• Massachusetts: The state’s SMART 3.0 program pays solar owners a fixed rate of $0.03 per kilowatt-hour produced over 10 years. There’s a catch. The program calculates your actual payment by subtracting your current utility rate from that base, and Massachusetts electricity rates have risen high enough that solar-only homeowners currently receive little to nothing through SMART. Where the program still delivers real money is when you pair solar with a battery; adding storage unlocks a bonus payment that can bring your total SMART rate to around $0.05 per kilowatt-hour, worth roughly $500 per year for a typical system. Low-income households receive double the base rate. Think of SMART as a strong reason to add a battery to your solar system, not as a standalone solar rebate.
• Maryland: Maryland used to offer a flat $1,000 grant to any homeowner who installed solar, but that program ended in June 2025. Its replacement, the Maryland Solar Access Program, is more generous but limited to income-qualified households. It pays $750 per kilowatt of installed capacity, up to $7,500. All Maryland homeowners, regardless of income, still benefit from three solid incentives: net metering that credits excess solar production at the full retail electricity rate with no expiration on rollover credits; an active market for Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SRECs) currently paying $60–$80 per megawatt-hour of production; and exemptions from both state sales tax on equipment and property tax on the added home value from the installation.
• Oregon: The Energy Trust of Oregon provides two levels of rebate depending on your income. Most PGE and Pacific Power customers receive a flat $2,500 off their system cost at the point of sale; your installer applies it directly, so you never pay the full price upfront. If your household income falls below the program’s threshold (a family of four earning up to roughly $120,000 often qualifies), you can move into the Solar Within Reach program, which pays $0.90 per watt up to $5,500, meaning a typical 7 kW system could receive the full $5,500, covering a substantial share of the total cost. Oregon is one of the better states for solar economics in two additional ways. First, the state has no sales tax, so you pay nothing extra on panels, inverters, or installation labor, a savings of several hundred to over a thousand dollars compared to most states. Second, the added value your solar system brings to your home is excluded from your property tax assessment, so your tax bill won’t rise after installation. Only customers of Portland General Electric (PGE) and Pacific Power qualify for Energy Trust rebates. If you’re served by a different utility, these programs don’t apply, and Oregon’s incentive picture looks considerably thinner.
• Illinois: Illinois has one of the most distinctive solar incentive structures in the country through the Illinois Shines program. Most state SREC programs pay you a small amount each year for the electricity your panels produce. Illinois flips that model. Instead of annual payments, the program calculates how many energy credits your system is expected to generate over its first 15 years, then pays the estimated value of all of those credits upfront, in a single payment. For most homeowners, this works out to between $7,000 and $11,000, applied as a discount on your system cost. The payment goes first to your installer, who is required to pass the full amount on to you — either as an upfront reduction in what you pay, or as a separate check. Because of administrative processing, the payment typically arrives within one to two years of installation rather than at the moment you sign your contract. Make sure your installer spells out exactly how and when you’ll receive the money before you commit.
• South Carolina: Offering one of the most generous state-level solar tax credits in the country, 25% of your total system cost, with a maximum credit of $35,000. Unlike a rebate, which reduces what you pay upfront, a tax credit reduces what you owe the state at tax time, dollar for dollar. On a $25,000 system, that’s $6,250 back against your state income tax bill. The state caps the annual payout at $3,500 per year. If your credit exceeds that amount, you carry it forward and to subsequent years until the full credit is used. South Carolina also offers full retail-rate net metering, meaning the utility credits your bill at the same rate you’d pay for grid electricity when your panels send excess power back to the grid.

Property tax exemptions, which prevent your assessment from rising after you add solar, and sales tax exemptions on equipment are available in many additional states. Use the DSIRE database to find what’s current in your state, as programs change.

2026 Solar Prices: Near Historic Lows, Without Federal Help

As of early 2026, the national average installed cost for a residential system runs approximately $2.50–$3.50 per watt before incentives, according to EnergySage’s marketplace. Actual prices vary significantly by region, and many states offer additional tax credits.

Cons

No Federal Tax Credit for Purchased Systems

In past years, the 30% federal credit was often the deciding factor that made solar financially compelling. A $25,000 system effectively cost $17,500 after the credit. That leverage is gone for homeowners who buy their systems with cash or a loan in 2026. The financial case for solar is still compelling in many markets, particularly states with high electricity rates, but payback periods are roughly 2–4 years longer without the federal subsidy.

Solar Recycling Infrastructure Remains Underdeveloped

The state of solar panel recycling in the U.S. has improved marginally but remains inadequate for the volume of panels approaching end-of-life. Most residential panels installed in the 2000s and early 2010s are now 15–20 years old and approaching their rated lifespan. The SEIA’s PV Recycling Program is a voluntary industry effort, but its capacity does not match the growing volume of end-of-use panels.

Net Metering Policies Are Eroding in Key States

Net metering, a billing mechanism that compensates solar owners for excess electricity they give back to the grid, is available in approximately 38 states and Washington, D.C., but the terms are increasingly unfavorable. California’s Net Billing Tariff, referred to as NEM 3.0, took effect April 15, 2023, and reduced consumer generation rates by roughly 75%. Arizona, Indiana, and Nevada have made similar moves toward lower rates. Understanding your utility’s specific net metering structure is now more important than ever when evaluating whether solar makes financial sense. Ask prospective installers to model your savings under the actual export rate your utility will pay, not just the retail electricity rate.

Solar Batteries Remain a Significant Added Cost

Home battery storage is still a significant investment even as prices have gradually come down. The most popular options, including the Tesla Powerwall 3 and the modular Enphase IQ Battery 5P, work very differently, and so do their costs. If you want enough battery capacity to run a typical home through a full night without solar input, you need roughly 25 kWh or more, so plan on paying $25,000 to $35,000 for the installed system regardless of brand. That nearly doubles the cost of a solar-only system for many households.

The Powerwall 3 is a single unit that holds 13.5 kWh of energy and includes a built-in solar inverter, making it an all-in-one solution for most homes. Expect to pay $12,000 to $17,000 after installation. The Enphase IQ Battery 5P is designed differently to store just 5 kWh, and they stack. A single unit runs about $8,500 installed and provides enough to power essential systems during an outage. But most homes need two to four units for meaningful coverage, pushing costs to between $15,000 and $30,000 depending on how much backup capacity is needed. This is the most flexible system because you can start small and add units over time.

One way to improve the financial case for a battery is to enroll in a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) program, where your utility pays you for occasionally drawing on your stored energy during high-demand grid periods. These programs are available in roughly half of U.S. states, though the compensation varies enormously. Some programs offer modest bill credits, while others, like Massachusetts’ ConnectedSolutions program, pay between $233 and $275 per kilowatt of enrolled battery capacity per year.

Check with your utility, not your state, to take the first step toward joining a VPP. The Clean Energy States Alliance’s VPP program page is the most current source of information directory.

Tariffs Have Pushed Equipment Costs Higher

Import tariffs on solar panels, particularly from China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Malaysia, have added upward pricing pressure that partially offsets the efficiency gains from technology improvements. Equipment prices are not as low as they would be in an unrestricted global market.

Pros

Panel Technology Has Advanced Substantially

The industry has undergone a major technology transition since 2019. The dominant PERC (Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell) technology has given way to N-type TOPCon and HJT panels, which achieve 22–24% efficiency in commercial production. Back-contact (IBC and ABC) panels now approach 25%. This matters practically: higher efficiency means fewer panels are needed to generate the same output. The technological shift has not added cost. TOPCon panels are competitive with older PERC pricing.

Community Solar Continues to Expand Access

For renters, those with shaded properties, or homeowners who prefer not to deal with installation, community solar farms remain a viable alternative. Subscribers receive credits on their utility bills for their share of the farm’s production, typically at a 5–15% discount to retail electric rates. The community solar market has matured considerably since 2021, with strong programs now available in New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Colorado, Maryland, Maine, and New Jersey. Some programs offer $0 down with month-to-month cancellation.

Solar Remains a Sound Long-Term Investment in the Right Markets

Despite the loss of the federal tax credit, solar continues to pencil out in many markets, driven by steadily rising utility rates. Residential electricity prices have increased in 44 of 50 states over the past three years. States with rates above 20 cents/kWh — including California (30+ cents in many areas), Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Hawaii — still offer payback periods of 6–10 years even without the federal credit, with substantial savings over a 25-year system life.

Solar makes the strongest financial sense when: your roof is south- or southwest-facing with minimal shading; your monthly electricity bill exceeds $150; your state has meaningful incentives or a strong net metering policy; and you plan to stay in your home for at least 7–10 years. Tools like EnergySage and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s PVWatts calculator can help you model site-specific returns before committing to a quote.

More Reputable Installers and Better Warranties Than Ever

The residential solar installation market has continued to mature. Most major manufacturers now offer 25-year product and performance warranties as standard; Maxeon backs its panels with a 40-year warranty. There are typically several well-reviewed local and regional installers in most markets, which helps keep prices competitive. A labor warranty, which covers defects in installation workmanship, is typically offered by the installer rather than the manufacturer, so installer financial stability matters—you want them to be there later, if problems arise.

Get at least three competing bids and compare cost-per-watt figures to evaluate quotes fairly across different system sizes. Verify installer credentials through NABCEP certification and check recent reviews on SolarReviews.

Solar Is Still The Better Option 2026

Despite 2026 being a genuinely mixed year for home solar economics, equipment costs are at or near historic lows, panel technology is better than ever, and solar remains a compelling long-term investment in high-electricity-cost markets. But the loss of the 30% federal tax credit is a real setback for homeowners, effectively adding back years to the payback period.

The affordability math depends on where you live, your electricity costs, your state’s incentive programs, and your financing approach. In states like New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon, and South Carolina — where strong state programs partially replace the federal credit — solar economics remain solid. In states with low electricity rates and minimal state incentives, the case is harder to make at 2026 prices.

Before signing any contract, use the DSIRE database to identify all state and local programs available to you, get at least three installer quotes, and understand your utility’s actual net metering or export compensation terms. The decision to go solar is site-specific national averages are a starting point, not the answer.

Editor’s Note: Originally published on March 25, 2021, this article was updated in March 2026 to reflect current pricing, tax credit changes, and technology.

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Today’s quote is from Native American author and poet Sherman Alexie. In his award-winning book for young people, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, he wrote: “The world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don’t know.”

Take some time today to quietly observe the world around you and celebrate the wonders of our planet, our home.

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