‘It’s Not Too Late To Get This Right.’ Solar Industry Pushes For Tax Bill Changes

The U.S. House of Representatives last month passed a bill that would wipe out tax credits for solar projects of every scale, from those generating power for utilities to rooftop panels producing electricity for homeowners. 

Curtis Tate spoke with Sean Gallagher, vice president of policy at the Solar Energy Industries Association, about the economic consequences of the House bill, statewide and nationwide.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tate: What does the House reconciliation bill put at risk?

Gallagher: We’re in an era where we have increasing energy demand, and solar power and energy storage powered by solar is the resource that’s available on the timeline that we need it to meet the rising energy demand from things like data centers and new manufacturing facilities. By putting the brakes on solar energy installations, the House bill poses a real threat to America’s energy future, to our country’s economic stability and to our global competitiveness, and frankly, it threatens to sort of throw the whole AI race to China, the very opposite of what I think the president wants to accomplish.

Tate: The Trump administration is pushing to keep older coal and gas power plants in operation longer. Will that be enough?

Gallagher: I do think we may see some more of that sort of thing with older power plants being asked to stay online longer. But that’s not going to be sufficient to meet the increased energy demand we need to meet that increased energy demand to power the data centers that are going to enable the artificial intelligence that’s coming quickly. Those new sources of energy, as you note, are broadly speaking, going to be solar power and storage. Natural gas turbines simply aren’t available in sufficient quantity in the timeline that’s required. New nuclear, new advanced geothermal are coming along, probably in the 2030s, but on the order of 75% of the power that’s available to be put online in the next five years is solar and energy storage.

Tate: What’s the jobs impact?

Gallagher: We’d lose about 330,000 solar jobs by 2028 including about 94,000 manufacturing jobs. There’s about 900 or close to 1,000 solar jobs lost in West Virginia by 2030. We’ve seen in the last three years a renaissance in solar and energy storage manufacturing here in the United States, largely in Republican districts and in Republican-led states. And we could see as many as 330 factories close down or factories that are in the planning and construction stages now never open. So that would be a real loss for those communities.

Tate: Would this affect homeowners who’d like to install rooftop solar as well?

Gallagher: 100%. The bill, as passed, would basically terminate the availability of the residential tax credit at the end of this year, and that would dramatically reduce the economics of rooftop solar for homeowners and lead to devastating losses in that sector, and also to reduce the ability of homeowners to control their energy bills, and to contribute to grid stability and reliability. It would also result in very large increases in energy prices to consumers across the country if the bill were to be enacted as it’s currently written, because, among other things, it would reduce the amount of power that comes online. And when supply fails to keep up with demand, prices go up. That’s economics 101.

Tate: What comes next?

Gallagher: It’s not too late to get this right. We are working with the Senate. I think there we’ve heard senators say that they expect there’ll be some changes to the House bill, and that our industry is asking for some common sense changes to the tax legislation in order to prevent factory closures, to prevent energy shortages, prevent skyrocketing utility prices in a weakened economy. And all those things are achievable, and I think are consistent with the goal of ensuring American energy dominance, and that’s what we’re going to be trying to work with the Senate over the next several weeks to achieve.