EPA officially rescinds $7 billion in committed Solar For All grants
The Environmental Protection Agency Administrator posted a video on social media, announcing the agency will rescind all $7 billion of Solar For All grants.
The Solar For All grant was passed into law as part of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 to expand access to affordable and reliable solar energy to low-income regions across the country. 60 projects have been awarded a total of $7 billion in federal grants. These previously legally committed funds could have given 1 million homes in the United States access to solar power.
That looks to be over, even though many groups are saying the action is illegal and they will fight it in court. In the meantime, the organizations and groups that operated for years under the assumption that these funds were committed — and all of the lower income families that would have seen reduced electric bills — are left in the lurch. And my inbox is filling with messages from all of them.
Solar For All-gone
The Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA) puts this clawback in context: The 60 Solar for All awardees—mostly state government agencies—have spent the past two years working creatively and diligently to design and roll out cost-effective low-income solar programs in both red and blue states. Ending this popular bipartisan program squanders both their hard work and valuable federal dollars.”
CESA estimates that hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans who would have saved significant money on their electric bills—more than $400 million in savings annually for the next 20 to 30 years. Anya Schoolman, Executive Director of Solar United Neighbors, narrows down the savings further: “Solar for All provides a lasting solution to the skyrocketing energy bills. It will slash household electricity costs by 20 percent, lowering electricity bills for each household that benefits from this program by $400 each year.
The Solar for All funding was also dispersed all across the country.
“Appalachian communities have been hard hit by the downturn of the coal industry and rising electric bills. Solar for All is a practical program that could create real relief for households across the region,” stated Dana Kuhnline, Program Director at ReImagine Appalachia.
The Solar for All program has granted $637 million to programs in VA, PA, OH, WV, and KY, as well as another $811 million that communities in these states would have access to via multi-state projects.
“We can roughly estimate that the proposed Solar for All clawbacks would undermine good work for more than 6,000 Appalachians over four years, and prevent the installation of solar on more than 150,000 households in low-income and disadvantaged communities in our region,” Kuhnline continued. “These programs would have saved Appalachia’s low-income households more than $70 million on their utility bills.”
In Georgia, the Solar for All award has expanded the Georgia BRIGHT program, offering no cost solar for about 900 households with low incomes across the state. Nearly 500 households signed up within 24 hours of the no cost solar plan’s launch. Additional residential lease programs and community solar programs are also planned.
“If leaders in the Trump administration move forward with this unlawful attempt to strip critical funding from communities across the United States, we will see them in court,” said Kym Meyer, litigation director at the Southern Environmental Law Center.
The SELC puts it into context: “Nearly five million households in the South face a high or severe energy burden, some of the highest in the country. Rooftop and community solar programs funded by SFA are helping to alleviate these burdens with a guaranteed 20% savings on electricity bills for participating households. In addition, the SFA program is a source of immediate, cost effective, and shovel-ready energy for the electric grids across the country, which are scrambling to meet growing energy demand driven by data centers.”
