Joe Biden unleashed a solar manufacturing renaissance in the United States. Now, Donald Trump is casting a cloud over it.
The change in forecast owes to passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the sweeping budget bill signed into law by the president earlier this month.
Some manufacturers are worried there will be less demand for domestically made solar components as the law phases out tax credits that encouraged project developers to buy American. New restrictions that bar Chinese companies from receiving manufacturing tax credits could be an even bigger headache for the industry. China is the preeminent maker of solar components in the world, and Chinese companies flocked to the U.S. to open new factories after Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022.
Heather Cooper, a partner at the law firm McDermott Will & Emery specializing in federal energy tax credits, called the the new law’s restrictions “a dramatic shift in the industry.”
