11/17/2025
💡 Given the sweeping cuts to the tax credits that were part of the federal budget bill, and all the clean energy funding cancellations and rescissions by the Trump administration, you might assume that the solar industry would be down in the dumps and busily preparing to shut down. Indeed, some solar developers are preparing for bankruptcy, and in fact, several companies, including Posigen, a very key player in the Philadelphia region, have already laid off many of their employees.
The solar industry has been on this roller coaster before. In 1980, when President Jimmy Carter was replaced by Ronald Reagan, solar water heating was the primary casualty. (At the time, solar photovoltaics [PV], or solar electricity, were still expensive and had not yet become popular.) Reagan’s sudden withdrawal of federal support for the emerging solar industry caused massive changes, with local businesses closing left and right, investment moving to Germany and the United States losing its advantage as the global leader in solar. Then in 2012, when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding was not renewed, Pennsylvania experienced a similar 180-degree turn, with a sudden drop in support for both energy efficiency and solar. The Mid-Atlantic Solar and Storage Industries Association estimates that many solar companies either closed or left the state at that time due to the lack of favorable state policies for renewable energy in PA.
The current about-face in federal policy has echoes of these earlier shocks, with one very big difference: solar PV is now the cheapest and fastest form of energy in the world. This means that solar can outcompete fossil fuels on a level playing field. That said, in Pennsylvania we do not have a level playing field — the state provides more than $3.5 billion in subsidies to fossil fuels annually — and so we will see more solar businesses go under in Pennsylvania, or move away to greener pastures.
➡️ Read the full story at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2025/11/01/a-path-forward-for-solar-in-pennsylvania/
✍️ Liz Robinson
📸 Alexa Fraiman
