Solar power is surging across the U.S. as costs plummet and companies ramp up large-scale commercial projects, but experts say the green industry faces an uncertain future as the Trump administration scraps federal subsidies that have helped foster growth of the clean energy sector.
Last year, more than 90% of all new U.S. electrical generating capacity came from renewable sources, with solar power accounting for more than 81% — the largest single-year increase from any energy source in two decades, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Nationwide, there are enough solar installations to power more than 40 million homes, with utility-scale solar accounting for 71% of that capacity, says the Solar Energy Industries Association. A typical 100 megawatt solar project produces enough energy to power 17,200 average U.S. homes, according to the industry group.
“This growth is a testament to the power of American innovation,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA’s president and CEO. “We’re building factories, hiring American workers and showing that solar energy means made-in-America energy.”
But Hopper said the growth of the industry will be impacted by the decision of President Donald Trump’s administration to end federal subsidies for solar and other clean energy projects.
The Trump administration’s opposition to solar power creates a “risk driving investment overseas, stifling job creation,” she said, “raising costs on consumers, and handing America’s manufacturing advantage to our competitors.”
“This industry has proven what’s possible when businesses have the certainty to invest,” Hopper said. “If the administration does not reverse its harmful actions that have undermined market certainty, energy costs will rise even further, and the next wave of factories and jobs could be at risk.”
How it works
Solar energy, which was initially developed in the late 1800s, essentially works by converting energy from the sun into power, which produces both electricity and heat.
Solar panels, installed on a rooftop or in a utility-scale array, are generally silicon-based within a metal frame and glass casing. When this material is exposed to photons of sunlight, it releases electrons and produces an electric charge. The current is then converted for use in homes and businesses or to power the electric grid.
The rapid expansion of large-scale solar farms and smaller installations on rooftops in recent years has largely been driven by falling costs for the technology. China, one of the world’s largest solar producers, has pushed the cost of panels down by almost 90% over the past decade, according to energy analysts.
Globally, solar capacity is set to double by 2030, with China, India and other countries leading the charge through massive utility-scale projects and creative financing models.
Meanwhile, major corporations such as Amazon, Tesla and Target are scaling solar quickly to lower their operating costs and reduce their carbon footprint. Amazon is the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewables, with more than 600 wind and solar projects in the works nationwide, according to the company’s website.
As the technology itself improves, wind and solar are offering some of the cheapest and fastest ways to provide electric power, supporters say.
Administrative priorities
Experts say the industry faces darkening skies as the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress roll back clean energy tax credits and throw up roadblocks to renewable energy projects, which threatens to leave the United States behind other countries in the shift to solar power and renewables.
Trump has moved to scuttle major wind and solar energy projects since he returned to the White House in January.
Trump’s hand-picked Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued a series of orders earlier this year to restrict solar and wind development, including changing the criteria for evaluating renewable energy projects on federal lands, requiring that the Interior secretary personally approve each project.
“Based on common sense, arithmetic and physics, wind and solar projects are highly inefficient uses of federal lands,” Burgum said in a statement, claiming it will “level the playing field for dispatchable, cost-effective and secure energy sources,” such as “clean” coal and natural gas.
Meanwhile, Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Act, signed in July, mandates oil and gas lease sales, fast-tracks environmental reviews and opens millions of acres of public land for coal leasing and terminates incentives for solar power, including one that offered homeowners a federal tax credit of up to $10,500 for installing rooftop solar panels.
Many companies with projects in the works are scrambling to install solar panels, wind turbines and batteries the size of shipping containers before federal tax credits expire or become harder to claim. Solar projects must break ground by July to be eligible for tax credits that Congress voted to eliminate years earlier than previously planned.
In August, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pulled the plug on the $7 billion Solar for All program, approved by Congress in 2023 as part of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act to expand solar power to low-income households.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called it a “boondoggle” that’s “rife with grift” from unscrupulous companies taking cuts from the federally funded grants. The move prompted federal lawsuits from states, labor unions and the solar industry.
Among the companies impacted by the grant freeze is Groundswell, a nonprofit that works in several Southern states, including Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama, which was expecting $156 million. To date, the group has broken ground on 24 megawatts of solar projects worth more than $20 million that benefit low-income households.
“There’s a lot at stake,” Groundswell CEO Michelle Moore said in a statement. “These projects — located in small towns across seven states, all of which were sited in partnership with the local community — now hang in the balance.”
‘No going back’
Environmentalists say, despite the pushback by the Trump administration, the economics of solar are strong and it has proven itself as a valuable renewable energy to help reduce excess greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are contributing to a warmer planet, fueling devastating storms and rising seas.
“Globally, there is no going back on this,” Kate Sinding Daly, vice president for law and policy at the New England-based Conservation Law Foundation. “Wind and solar are the future of renewable energy. The momentum may be slowed in this country, but it’s not going to be reversed.”
The solar power movement has plenty of critics who argue the full-throttled embrace of clean energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will ultimately drive up consumer costs, cause rolling blackouts and won’t provide enough electricity to meet demands, among other criticisms.
Lisa Linowes, a New Hampshire-based energy policy analyst, argues that states such as California, New York and Massachusetts are pushing through policies aimed at encouraging the expansion of green energy, which are hurting energy consumers, driving up costs and putting increased pressure on the nation’s electric grid.
“The public is largely in the dark about what’s happening with renewable energy,” she said. “The states and environmentalists who are pushing for a net-zero environment are telling everyone that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of electricity. But the reality is it’s cost-prohibitive, and we just don’t have the land for it.”
One way states are trying to accelerate the shift to solar power through net-metering programs, which allow consumers who install rooftop solar on their homes to pay lower rates for electricity for sharing power with the regional grid. Some states require utilities to buy the electricity generated by solar power at retail prices.
But Linowes and other critics say those programs are largely benefiting homeowners who can afford to install rooftop solar, with ratepayers who aren’t benefiting directly from net-metering picking up the tab. Those costs have added to utility bills in regions such as the northeast, which already has some of the highest energy costs in the nation.
“Net-metering is one of the largest portions of a utility bill in Massachusetts and other states with these programs,” Linowes said. “These policies are hurting energy consumers.”
A recent report by the Fiscal Alliance Foundation, Americans for Prosperity Foundation and other conservative groups looked at six New England states’ decarbonization plans and said it would cost the states $815 billion collectively through 2050, with the average household paying nearly $100 more a year for electricity.
Commercial employers would see their costs rise by about $489 per year, while industrial manufacturing customers would see their electric bills increase by an average of almost $5,280 per year, according to the report. The report’s authors called on policymakers to focus on expanding access to natural gas and other cheaper, reliable sources of energy.
“We should be focusing on a common sense and realistic approach to make energy more affordable for everyone — including investing in reliable and affordable energy sources and avoiding money wasted on these rebate programs and subsidies for expensive and unreliable alternative energy,” said Paul Craney, the Fiscal Alliance’s executive director.
“This approach would lower costs for every household and business in Massachusetts — not just the ones who qualify for tax breaks,” he said.