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Here’s what will happen if the company you signed with goes under.
The version of Trump’s budget bill that passed the House late last month would be devastating to the rooftop solar industry. Not only would it end a tax credit for homeowners who invest in rooftop solar, it would also end subsidies for companies that lease these systems to families.
If the bill were to become law, the tax credits for new installations would terminate abruptly at the end of this year, giving companies no time to adjust to the new market reality. Rooftop solar as it exists today will cease to make financial sense in many places, and the customer base could run dry. Building owners with existing leases or power purchase agreements for rooftop solar may be wondering what will happen if the company they signed with goes under.
The first thing to understand is that many of these companies, like Sunrun and Trinity Solar, bundle their leases and PPAs and sell them to banks or other financial institutions. That upfront cash helps them expand and invest in new installations without taking on more debt. But even though they no longer own the lease, the solar company typically retains the responsibility to maintain the system and ensure it is working properly.
The biggest risk if the solar company ceases to exist is that maintenance will fall through the cracks, Roger Horowitz, the director of Go Solar Programs at the nonprofit Solar United Neighbors, told me. There may no longer be anyone monitoring your installation. Unless you’re actively keeping an eye on it, such as through a phone app, you might not notice if an inverter goes down. And then if something like that does happen, or if a bad storm causes damage, the leaseholders, aka the bank, may be unresponsive.
The good news is that as long as the system is installed correctly, rooftop solar doesn’t typically require much maintenance. “In general, the whole thing with solar is that there aren’t any moving parts,” Horowitz said.
I reached out to several solar companies to ask whether they were still signing new contracts and how their lease terms addressed the possibility of the company going out of business. Sunrun, the biggest installer in the country, did not respond.
I did get on the phone with Ed Merrick, the corporate vice president at Trinity Solar, which is the largest privately held residential solar company in the U.S. Merrick said that ever since interest rates went up, making loans less attractive, the majority of Trinity’s business has been in solar leases and PPAs. For now, the company is still moving forward with business as usual, enrolling customers in new contracts.
When I asked whether Trinity could still offer financially attractive leases and PPAs if the tax credit went away, the line went silent for a few seconds. “Doubtful,” Merrick eventually responded. “It would be very hard.” That’s especially true in states like Pennsylvania and Maryland that have low electricity rates. “Those states probably won’t have any viability for any kind of solar system for homeowners unless they just really want to be green, which is a very small subset, and those people have probably already got it,” said Merrick. But even in states with higher electricity costs like Massachusetts and Connecticut, he said it would be questionable whether they could make an attractive offer to homeowners.
Merrick agreed that the primary risk to existing customers is maintenance. “We have a huge service department,” he said. “If something were to happen to us and we can’t continue, then obviously our service department would fall in, too. I don’t think that’s gonna happen with us, but I do see a material impact to our business over the next couple of years if this bill goes through as is.”
He noted that if Trinity’s not around, the third party financial institutions who own the leases have a legal obligation to service the systems, so homeowners should still be okay, although there will likely be more hiccups in the process.
I also spoke with Tom Neyhart, the founder of PosiGen Solar, which exclusively offers solar leases and retains ownership over them. After the Inflation Reduction Act passed, the company thought it would have continuity on the tax credits through 2032, he said. The solar tax credits had been around for nearly two decades, but the IRA also made solar leases more attractive by offering a higher subsidy for projects that used domestically manufactured materials and were built in low-income neighborhoods or in so-called “energy communities” — places that have long depended on fossil fuel industries to support the local economy. Posigen raised $150 million in equity and borrowed a bunch of money to expand its footprint, Neyhart told me. It also engaged with its suppliers, asking them to move their manufacturing to the U.S.
“We went from only having basically two factories that built anything we used on the roof in the U.S. now to 20 factories that we buy from,” he said, and began listing all of the factories that arrived in the last three years — SolarEdge built projects in Texas, Florida, and Utah. Silfab, a Canadian company, is expanding in South Carolina, and moved its headquarters there. “It’s huge, it’s tens of thousands of jobs.”
Neyhart told me that PosiGen’s customers should not be worried about maintenance. “We guarantee it performs, and if it doesn’t perform, then you’re going to get a credit against your bill,” he said. “Whoever owns the lease knows that if they don’t service the account, then they’re going to lose the revenue from it.”
But Neyhart is hopeful that Congress will reverse course. He said he’s spent more time in Washington, D.C., over the last few months, lobbying for the tax credits, than he has at home in Louisiana. “I think that they realize that, if nothing else, we need a transition time,” he said. When Louisiana ended its state solar tax credit several years ago, it phased the program out over three and a half years. That gave PosiGen enough time to adjust its business model and continue to operate there. Neyhart said the company could find a way to work without the federal tax credits with a similar transition period.
“Every time I talk to a senator, especially Republican senators, they talk about business surety and ‘people have to understand what the rules of the game are.’” he said. “You just can’t pull the rug out. Senators, please don’t pull the rug out on us.”
Merrick had a similar message. “We do understand the need to eliminate subsidies on solar,” he said. “What we’d like to see is a phase down, not a cliff.”
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All of the administration’s anti-wind actions in one place.
The Trump administration’s war on the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry has kicked into high gear over the past week, with a stop work order issued on a nearly fully-built project, grant terminations, and court filings indicating that permits for several additional projects will soon be revoked.
These actions are just the latest moves in what has been a steady stream of attacks beginning on the first day Trump stepped into the White House. He appears to be following a policy wishlist that anti-offshore wind activists submitted to his transition team almost to a T. As my colleague Jael Holzman reported back in January, those recommendations included stop work orders, reviews related to national security, tax credit changes, and a series of agency studies, such as asking the Health and Human Services to review wind turbines’ effects on electromagnetic fields — all of which we’ve seen done.
It’s still somewhat baffling as to why Trump would go so far as to try and shut down a nearly complete, 704-megawatt energy project, especially when his administration claims to be advancing “energy addition, NOT subtraction.” But it’s helpful to see the trajectory all in one place to understand what the administration has accomplished — and how much is still up in the air.
January 20: Trump issues a presidential memorandum temporarily halting all new onshore and offshore wind permitting and leasing activities “in light of various alleged legal deficiencies underlying the Federal Government’s leasing and permitting of onshore and offshore wind projects,” while his administration conducts an assessment of federal review practices. The memo also temporarily withdraws all areas on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf from offshore wind leasing.
March 14: The Environmental Protection Agency pulls a Clean Air Act permit for Atlantic Shores, which was set to deliver power into New Jersey.
April 16: The Department of the Interior issues a stop work order to Empire Wind, a New York offshore wind farm that began construction in 2024. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum accuses the Biden administration of giving the project a “rushed approval” that was “built on bad and flawed science,” citing feedback from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
May 1: The Interior Department withdraws a Biden-era legal opinion for how to conduct permitting in line with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that advised the Secretary to “strike a rational balance” between wind energy and fishing. The Department reinstated the opinion issued under Trump’s first term, which was more favorable to the fishing industry.
May 2: Anti-offshore wind group Green Oceans sends a 68-page report titled “Cancelling Offshore Wind Leases” to Secretary Burgum and acting Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals Management Adam Suess, according to emails uncovered by E&E News. The report “evaluates potential violations of Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) and related Federal laws in addition to those generally associated with environmental protection.”
May 5: Seventeen states plus the District of Columbia file a lawsuit challenging Trump’s January 20 memo halting federal approvals of wind projects.
May 19: The Interior Department lifts the stop work order on Empire Wind after closed-door meetings between New York governor Kathy Hochul and President Trump, during which the White House later says that Hochul “caved” to allowing “two natural gas pipelines to advance” through New York. Hochul denies reaching any deal on pipelines during the meetings.
June 4: Atlantic Shores files a request with New Jersey regulators to cancel its contract to sell energy into the state.
July 4: Trump signs the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which imposes new expiration dates on tax credits for wind and solar projects, including offshore wind, as well as on the manufacture of wind turbine components.
July 7: The Environmental Protection Agency notifies the Maryland Department of the Environment that the state office erred when issuing an air permit to the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, also known as MarWin, because the state specified that petitions to review the permit would go to state court rather than the federal agency. The state later disagrees.
July 17: New York regulators cancel plans to develop additional transmission capacity for future offshore wind development, citing “significant federal uncertainty.”
July 29: The Interior Department issues an order requesting reports that describe and provide recommendations for “trends in environmental impacts from onshore and offshore wind projects on wildlife” and the impacts that approved offshore wind projects might have on “military readiness.” The order also asserts that the Biden administration misapplied federal law when it approved the construction and operation plans of offshore wind projects.
July 30: The Interior Department rescinds all designated “wind energy areas” on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, which had been deemed suitable for offshore wind development.
August 5: The Interior Department eliminates a requirement to publish a five-year schedule of offshore wind energy lease sales and to update the lease sale schedule every two years.
August 7: The Interior Department initiates a review of offshore wind energy regulations “to ensure alignment with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and America’s energy priorities under President Donald J. Trump.”
August 13: The Department of Commerce initiates an investigation into whether imports of onshore and offshore wind turbine components threaten national security, a precursor to imposing tariffs.
New Jersey regulators also decide to delay offshore wind transmission upgrades by two years. They officially cancel their contract with Atlantic Shores.
August 22: The Interior Department issues a stop work order on Revolution Wind, an offshore wind project set to deliver power to Rhode Island and Connecticut, citing national security concerns. The 65-turbine project is already 80% complete.
Interior also says in a court filing that it intends to “vacate its approval” of the Construction and Operations Plan for the Maryland Offshore Wind Project.
August 29: The Interior Department says in a court filing that it “intends to reconsider” its approval of the construction and operations plan for the SouthCoast wind project, which was set to deliver power to Massachusetts.
The Department of Transportation also withdraws or terminates $679 million for 12 offshore wind port infrastructure projects to “ensure federal dollars are prioritized towards restoring America’s maritime dominance” by “rebuilding America’s shipbuilding capacity, unleashing more reliable, traditional forms of energy, and utilizing the nation’s bountiful natural resources to unleash American energy.” The grants include:
September 3: The Interior Department says in a court filing that it intends to vacate its approval of the construction and operations plan for Avangrid’s New England Wind 1 and 2, which were set to deliver power to Massachusetts.
The New York Times also reports that the White House has instructed “a half-dozen agencies to draft plans to thwart the country’s offshore wind industry,” including asking the Department of Health and Human Services to study “whether wind turbines are emitting electromagnetic fields that could harm human health,” and asking the Defense Department to probe “whether the projects could pose risks to national security.”
September 4: The states of Rhode Island and Connecticut, as well as Orsted, file lawsuits challenging the stop work order on Revolution Wind.
At the start of all this, the U.S. had three offshore wind projects that were fully operational and five that were under construction. As of today, the Trump administration has halted just one of those five, but it has threatened to rescind approvals for each and every remaining fully permitted project that hasn’t yet broken ground.
The tumult has rippled out into the states, where regulators in Massachusetts and Rhode Island are delaying plans to sign contracts to procure additional energy from offshore wind projects.
Looking ahead, we can expect a few things to happen over the next few weeks. We’ll see the Interior Department formally begin to rescind permits, as it indicated it would do in numerous court filings. We’ll also likely get an opinion from a federal court in Massachusetts in the case that states filed fighting Trump’s Day One memo. Orsted also said it intends to ask for a temporary injunction, so it’s possible that Revolution Wind could resume construction soon.
It’s been barely a month since Jael dubbed the Trump administration’s tactics a “total war on wind.” While the result hasn’t been a complete shutdown of the industry, it seems he might still be in the early stages of his plan.
The Nimbus wind project in the Ozark Mountains is moving forward even without species permits, while locals pray Trump will shut it down.
The state of Arkansas is quickly becoming an important bellwether for the future of renewable energy deployment in the U.S., and a single project in the state’s famed Ozark Mountains might be the big fight that decides which way the state’s winds blow.
Arkansas has not historically been a renewables-heavy state, and very little power there is generated from solar or wind today. But after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the state saw a surge in project development, with more than 1.5 gigawatts of mostly utility-scale solar proposed in 2024, according to industry data. The state also welcomed its first large wind farm that year.
As in other states – Oklahoma and Arizona, for example – this spike in development led to a fresh wave of opposition and grassroots organizing against development. At least six Arkansas counties currently have active moratoria on solar or wind development, according to Heatmap Pro data. Unlike other states, Arkansas has actually gone there this year by passing a law restricting wind development and requiring all projects to have minimum setbacks on wind turbines from neighboring property owners of at least 3.5-times the height of the wind turbine itself, which can be as far as a quarter of a mile.
But activists on the ground still want more. Specifically, they want to stop Scout Clean Energy’s Nimbus wind project, which appears to have evaded significant barriers from either the new state law or a local ordinance blocking future wind development in Carroll County, the project’s future home. This facility is genuinely disliked by many on the ground in Carroll County; for weeks now, I have been monitoring residents posting to Facebook with updates on the movements of wind turbine components and their impacts to traffic. I’ve also seen the grumbling about it travel from the mouths of residents living near the project site to conservative social media influencers and influential figures in conservative energy policy circles.
The Nimbus project is also at considerable risk of federal intervention in some fashion. As I wrote about a few weeks ago, Nimbus applied to the Fish and Wildlife Service for incidental take approval covering golden eagles and endangered bats throughout the course of its operation. This turned into a multi-year effort to craft a conservation plan in tandem with permitting applications that are all pending approval from federal officials.
Scout Clean Energy still had not received permission by the time FWS changed hands to Trump 2.0, though – putting not only its permit but the project itself in potential legal risk. In addition, activists have recently seized upon risks floated by the Defense Department during development around the potential for the turbines to negatively impact radar capabilities, which previously resulted in the developer planning towers of varying heights for the blades.
These risks aren’t unique to Nimbus. Some of this is a reflection of how wind projects are generally so large and impactful that they wind up eventually landing in a federal nexus. But in this particular case, the fact that it seemed nothing could halt this project made me wonder if Trump was on the minds of people in Carroll County, too.
That’s how I wound up on the phone with Caroline Rogers, a woman living on Bradshaw Mountain near the Nimbus project site, who told me she has been fighting it since she first learned about it in 2023. Rogers and I chatted for almost an hour and, candidly, I found her to be an incredibly nice individual. When I asked her why she’s against the wind farm, she brought up a bunch of reasons I couldn’t necessarily fault her for, like concerns about property values and a lack of local civil services to support the community if there were a turbine failure or fire at the site.
“I still pray every day,” she told me when I asked her about whether she wants an outside force – à la Trump – to come in and do something to stop the facility. “There have been projects that have been stopped for various reasons, and there have been turbines that have been taken down.”
One of the things Rogers hopes happens is that the Fish and Wildlife Service’s bird crackdown comes for the Nimbus project, which is under construction even as it’s unclear whether it’ll ever get the take permits under the Trump administration. “Maybe it can be more of an enforcement [action],” she told me. “I hope it happens.”
This is where Trump’s unprecedented approach to energy development – and the curtailment of it – would have to cross a new rubicon. The Fish and Wildlife Service has rarely exercised its bird protection enforcement abilities against wind projects because of a significant and recent backlog in the permitting process related to applications from the sector. Bill Eubanks, an environmental attorney who works on renewables conflicts, told me earlier this week that if a developer is told by the agency it needs a permit, then “they’re on notice if they kill an eagle.” But while enforcement powers have been used before, it is “not that common.”
Even Rogers knows intervention from federal species regulators would be a potentially unprecedented step. “It can never stop a project that I’ve seen,” she told me.
Yet if Trump were to empower FWS to go after wind projects for violating species statutes, it is precisely this backlog that would make projects like Nimbus a potential target.
“They got so many applications from developers, and each one takes so much staff time to finalize,” Eubanks told me. “Even before January 20, there was already a significant backlog.”
Scout Clean Energy did not respond to requests for comment. If I hear from them or the Fish and Wildlife Service, I will let you know.
And more on the week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy projects.
1. Newport County, Rhode Island – The Trump administration escalated its onslaught against the offshore wind sector in the past week … coincidentally (or not) right after a New England-based anti-wind organization requested that it do so.
2. Madison County, New York – Officials in this county are using a novel method to target a wind project: They’re claiming it’ll disrupt 911 calls.
3. Wells County, Indiana – A pro-solar organization is apparently sending mass texts to people in this county asking them to sign a petition opposing a county-wide moratorium on new projects.
4. Henderson County, Kentucky – Planning officials in this county have recommended a two-year moratorium on wind power, sending the matter to a final vote before the county fiscal court.
5. Monterey County, California – Uh oh, another battery fire in central California.