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.
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.