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.
This right here is why you do not ever trust Media coverage of science. This shows a good increase for a particular material system, but to be clear: Silicon solar panels can achieve around 20-25 mA/cm^2 at 0.7 V while this system jumped up to 11.3 MICRO amps at 7 MILLI volts. A jump for a material system is published to show that a material could use further study, but that doesn't mean it's competitive with current tech yet. The real thing to watch for is increasing efficiency and low cost of halides.
I'm a solar researcher, I'm used to any attention over hyping our results.
Tell us more about your field of solar research and what bit around it you think we might need to know about.