The “Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed at the White House in Washington, DC, on July 4, 2025, creates challenges for the solar industry as it pulls back subsidies. This has caused an immediate shock to the industry and a reevaluation of the market by its largest players. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / POOL / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
POOL/AFP via Getty Images
President Trump has repeatedly criticized solar and wind, most recently in at the U.N. General Assembly, calling them “a joke” and the “scam of the century.” Congressional Republicans passed the One Big, Beautiful Bill, which put the brakes on federal clean energy subsidies by terminating investment and production tax credits for wind and solar projects not in service by the end of 2027, with a “beginning of construction” deadline of July 4, 2026.
A lack of federal support, and in some cases, politically motivated hostility, has caused many to declare that renewables as a source of energy in the United States are on the decline, and China’s rise as the driving force in the green energy space.
However, the U.S. situation is not as bleak as some might suggest. One might expect a decline in an industry that has recently lost significant federal support, but so far, the opposite has been happening. The Energy Information Administration reports that about 33 of the roughly 64 gigawatts of new U.S. electric generating capacity planned for 2025 will be solar. Also of interest are U.S.-based firms working on potentially higher-efficiency, lower-cost technologies. While “picking winners” among these could prove disappointing, one or two successful technological disruptions could transform the U.S. position in this competitive arena. Far from a sector on life support, the solar industry is growing, but it will need to adapt to the new political and economic environment if it is to continue making progress. Without extensive subsidization, only the strongest will survive.
The Solar Industry’s Continued Growth in the U.S.
Current statistics show the solar industry weathering changes fairly well. In 2024, developers added about 30 gigawatts of utility-scale solar, making up roughly 61% of total capacity additions. In 2025, that share is expected to drop to around 50 percent, but the total amount will increase to approximately 33 gigawatts.
A recent report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory indicates that the majority of proposed electric power plants in the U.S. in the queue to undergo impact studies prior to construction are solar (1,086 GW out of the 1,480 GW of combined renewable, nuclear, and hydropower generating capacity seeking transmission access). Though it may be out of favor in Washington, this makes solar a primary candidate to address rising electricity demand in the near term.
Through expedited permitting and a favorable environment, Texas has emerged as a leader in the United States in solar energy capacity, beating out California. (Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
The Texas energy market explains much of this resilience. Sunny Texas has become the country’s solar leader, having already surpassed California in large-scale capacity in 2024. The Lone Star State is now expected to add about 9.7 gigawatts more in the second half of 2025 alone. Sun, open land, expedited permitting, and rapidly rising load demand from industrial growth and data centers create the combined conditions to push solar projects forward even without relying on government subsidies. That mix makes projects less risky to finance and build, which is part of the reason Texas continues to lead the nation in new solar capacity.
The Solar Industry Must Be Prepared to Meet Challenges
The actual test of solar’s resilience will come in the next year, as OBBB provisions heavily impact the qualifications for solar and wind tax credits, requiring projects to start construction by July 5th, 2026, or be placed in service by the end of 2027. These changes reflect a significant tightening of timelines that may not be able to accommodate all comers. An FTI Consulting report notes that 11% of solar and wind projects expected to go online between 2026 and 2029 will be impacted by these measures, increasing to 43% of projects between 2030 and 2034. Leaders in the industry like Enphase and NextEra are already weathering impacts from these measures but are looking to adapt.
Corporate demand and private investment in solar are also quietly driving its continued growth. Data centers and large commercial buyers are locking in long-duration power purchase agreements that value predictable delivery. The Clean Investment Monitor reported that U.S. clean energy investment reached $67.3 billion in Q1 2025, a nearly 7% increase over the same period in 2024, but also a 3.8% decrease from the previous quarter. It is too early to judge the full impact of reduced federal support. However, one reason momentum is holding is simple: utility-scale solar remains among the cheapest new sources of electricity in the United States.
Data centers are expected to drive significant electricity demand, with solar capacity serving as an ideal option to meet it in the near term.
S&P Global Commodity Insights
Investment in battery storage production and technology is one of the main reasons solar has continued to grow. Battery storage is a force multiplier for the industry, enabling solar to make daytime generation more valuable by allowing output to continue into the evening. Developers are increasingly pairing storage with new solar projects so that they can deliver firm blocks of power that fit buyer schedules. That flexibility converts more solar output into higher-value electricity and provides financiers with clearer revenue streams. Although battery storage is expected to increase under the OBBB, this may not be enough to offset reduced investor confidence in solar energy, especially since energy sources like nuclear energy and natural gas can reliably generate power throughout the entire day. While it is impossible to predict the relative per-MW costs of solar plus battery storage projects versus nuclear and gas with 100% accuracy in this rapidly changing landscape, Lazard’s 2025 Levelized Cost of Energy+ report, notes, “Renewables Remain Competitive: on an unsubsidized $/MWh basis, renewable energy remains the most cost-competitive form of generation. As such, renewable energy will continue to play a key role in the buildout of new power generation in the U.S. This is particularly true in the current high power demand environment, where renewables stand out as both the lowest-cost and quickest-to-deploy generation resource.”
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s April 2025 report, Levelized Costs of New Generation Resources in the Annual Energy Outlook 2025, draws similar conclusions, “Solar PV LCOE is lower than natural gas combined-cycle LCOE on average and, in most regions, even without the tax recredit.”
Caveat – at this stage, it is not possible to completely factor in what may prove to be the chilling effect of withdrawing government subsidization through tax breaks will have to access to capital for solar projects, especially in certain regions of the country that lack the advantage of near-daily extensive solar exposure.
Potential Technological Disruptors in the Works?
All of the above projections are based on the current technologies dominating the renewables. While an exhaustive survey of what tomorrow could potentially bring would be beyond the scope of this brief report, it is worth noting that there are U.S.-based firms working to bring potentially disruptive technologies to the field. A few of these include Form Energy (working on longer-term battery storage with next-gen iron-air battery systems); Ambri (a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinout that recently emerged from Chapter 11 and is driving forward its long-duration next-gen Liquid Metal™ Battery Cells, for which it just achieved UL 1973 safety certification); Swift Solar (developing perovskite tandem solar tech – perovskite is still only a tiny slice of the solar energy market, but that may change as the field continues to develop and alternatives to the current dominance of silicon-based technology come on line).
If the solar industry was mostly propped up by federal subsidies, a rapid federal pullback would show up quickly in shrinking annual additions and numerous cancelled projects. Instead, the near-term data point to a potential maturing of the industry, where weak links shake out but more efficient and flexible enterprises and projects that can offer what the market really needs at competitive prices, survive and even thrive.
The new capacity coming online in 2025 is enough for solar to account for more than half of all electrical energy additions. It remains to be seen if the solar industry can adjust accordingly in the long term. With federal subsidies going off the table, new solar capacity will need to be underwritten by private equity, which is examining several options to power data center operations. Within the “all of the above” energy strategy the U.S. is employing, solar is an increasingly viable option to meet the country’s growing electricity demand. Under the Trump administration energy policy, as federal subsidies cease to buttress investor confidence and prop project viability, solar industry must shine on its own merits.