A teetering U.S. residential solar industry may now be on the brink of collapse. Faced by macroeconomic challenges and shifting sands of state and federal policies, an industry once defined by double-digit growth in installations is experiencing steep declines – and the latest draft of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act makes things far worse.
The latest draft of the bill is bad all-around for clean energy, but it is particularly damaging to residential solar, cutting federal tax credits far sooner than expected.
Residential solar installations declined 31% in 2024. Over the last year, industry titans like SunPower, Sunnova, and Mosaic Solar have filed for bankruptcy.
The industry historically has leaned on the value proposition of lowering customer electricity bills and providing predictable costs for the long-term. However, that value has been increasingly difficult to provide.
So to summarise the challenges the industry is facing:
- Tariffs on Aluminium - Trump
- Tariffs on Solar imports - Trump
- Sudden loss of federal grants that covered 30% of the cost for installation (was due to run til 2030 now slashed) - Trump
- Slashing of the fees owners get for selling money to the grid by 75% - Oil industry lobbying / Trump
- Removal of investment credits which have specifically been stripped from solar but not other energy investments - Trump
To call this “macro economic” issues is bizarre. All of this is due to government policy and actions. It’s also notable that the rest of the world’s solar industry is not collapsing. Trump.and the republicans are selling out US consumers to prop up the oil industry and tax cuts for the rich.
Its not bizzare if you take the view that America is a shit hole with spineless media, propping up shameless leaders put their by a borderline retarded electorate.
solar installations declined 31% in 2024
Trump wasn’t in office. Those bullet points will make things even worse, but other factors preceded Trump.
Like a previous Trump adminstration?
I dont know the story here but he definitely was here before 2024 with bug spastic energy.
In 2022, the Biden Administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act, extending a tax credit that covers 30% of installed system costs through the mid-2030s.
And yet the installations crashed 2-years later. We can see how jacked up it is going forward, but why does the article not address past causes?
Currently living in the sunniest city in the world, but had to pass on solar panels. Choices are to either buy outright or lease. The lease option is predatory as hell, but the cost of buying and maintaining outweighs the eventual savings because the power company monopoly keeps juking credits. American fuckery strikes again.
You may want to look into installing used solar from solar farms. They have to periodically swap their panels and stuff, but they still work fine and have most of their efficiency/life left in them, but for a HUGE cost reduction over buying them new.
Have you looked into partially converting your home to off grid solar instead? Basically you have your home running solar during the day and any excess/night time energy required you can get from the power company as usual. No credit fuckery required
If that person lives where I do, the local power company has stupidly high rates for doing that. The only real way to save is to go completely off grid. There are two plans, one pays you almost nothing for the excess solar produced, the other charges you “high demand” rates if you exceed some arbitrary usage number at your peak even if you produced all the power yourself. It’s so freaking confusing for no reason other than to punish you for trying to offset your power bill with solar energy.
I see you’re an APS hostage, too.
SRP, but they’re pulling the same shit, protecting outdated business models.
This generally means a small solar system. Cost per watt is higher than larger systems.
Excuse my ignorance as someone who has not looked into getting my own solar panels, but can you tell me what the preferred option would be, since neither buying nor leasing are an option for you? Is it to purchase on credit?
The ideal would be a loan where the payments aren’t terribly out of line with the electric bill reduction. With current interest rates and price increases from tariffs, the loan payments would probably be 2-3x the electric bill.
The timeline for repayment on purchase has gone from maybe 7-10 years to more like 15. YMMV based on state, local W/m², power supplier, etc.
Solar is the one path to free us from dependency to Big Oil
They therefore must be shut down
Here in Texas, leasing solar is a scam and there are no meaningful savings unless adding decent batteries often not provided by the leasing companies.
Instead, we chose a provider that offers 100% green electricity.
Not surprised, the several quotes I got to install them on my roof were crazy. Could have got a new roof like twice for the price of putting solar on top. And this was a couple years ago before all these new tariffs.
A 20 year break-even timeline isn’t much of a value proposition.
The dirty secret of any home reno tax credit is that the industry gobbles them up with markups. The price ends up being exactly the same as it would be without the tax credit, so it’s a subsidy for uncompetitive installation companies rather than families who want to invest in green energy.
How much for the quoted systems? And what expected output? Genuinely curious
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This right here is why you do not ever trust Media coverage of science. This shows a good increase for a particular material system, but to be clear: Silicon solar panels can achieve around 20-25 mA/cm^2 at 0.7 V while this system jumped up to 11.3 MICRO amps at 7 MILLI volts. A jump for a material system is published to show that a material could use further study, but that doesn’t mean it’s competitive with current tech yet. The real thing to watch for is increasing efficiency and low cost of halides.
I’m a solar researcher, I’m used to any attention over hyping our results.
Tell us more about your field of solar research and what bit around it you think we might need to know about.
1000x over a really inefficient type of solar panel, no comparison with the modern silicon panels, that article is trash.
Modern solar panels are cheap and efficient enough, the issue is energy storage, still expensive and unviable for large scale.
Just want to chip in to say this depends a lot on geography. Places like Sweden with big hydro capacity can store huge amounts of energy easily, and release really fast.
USA can pass a law making solar panels illegal.
It fucks the rest of the world too tho (global warming).
are solar panels still so cheap in China that they’re replacing fences
Probably, if you get them from AliExpress.
Dune: Awakening. The real question here is why are there no solar panels on a planet that literally roasts you if you go out uncovered?
Sand storms? Also heat is bad for panels
I think a potential solution or workaround could be to opt for cooperatively owned large solar installations, but this would require buy-in from a community to get it started, and is something those subsidies would’ve made easier.
Still, it could be that only a portion of your power bill is covered by the solar coop, making the initial price from each member lower. Then more panels could be added slowly as members choose to invest small amounts each month, until over time all of their power usage is from solar.
Yeah I got an email from our solar panel company that they’re filing for bankruptcy. I just hope whoever picks them up doesn’t jack up lease prices to make up for it.
Wait wait wait — lease?
Are you telling me the closest thing humanity has ever made to a true install-once-reap-indefinitely energy machine is a subscription where you are? Solar panel company?!
Solar has been a major, major life changer for me (I’m not in the US). Probably the most expensive thing that isn’t a car that my family has ever bought, but it’s turned my life completely around. I had never had 24 hour electricity at my own house before throwing a bunch of acid batteries and panels onto my roof and it feels like a decadent luxury. Plus I can tell the electricity mob to go get fucked, at least between February and November. Worth every excruciating penny.
I know it might be expensive and maybe not easy to get the best deal but I’d think owning your own solar is more important than owning your own home. Although now that I say it this way, I’m thinking maybe you’re renting and that’s why you need to rent the panels too. Different places are different etc.
My favorite solar scam is the Power Purchase Agreement:
- company installs solar, you pay $0
- typically sized to generate 100-150% of your consumption
- company bills you ~80% of your actual or previous average use
- price is on contract and has scheduled increases
- after 15-20 years, negotiate a new contract, maybe buy the system, or have it removed
What if solar gets 20x better? Fusion gets solved? Too bad, contract pricing.
I think the idea is you eventually pay it off.
What timeline are you from
The United States may find a path forward by pursuing market conditions like Australia, where over 40% of homes in some regions have rooftop solar. Soft costs are far lower in the nation, and average residential solar installation cost was $0.89 per W, more than $2.00 per W cheaper than both Canada and the United States.
That path requires oligarchist monopoly utilities to have less influence on oligarchist political parties. Biden’s approach of creating a new green energy manufacturing oligarchy protection doesn’t help with low prices that could be achieved if main utility monopoly obstruction to home solar were removed. FF Oligarchy assists utility monopolies in their lobbying for centralized power production. It is not within US political corruption overton window to help citizens escape extortion.
Man if only we had cheaper solar panels. Its too bad no one produces those
