I started working at Solar Power World in 2017 — the year the first Trump presidency began. At that point, I didn’t know a lot about the delicate balance of policy, demand and pricing that makes the solar industry so volatile from year to year.
Eight years and lots of solar policy education later, we’re now leaving behind a presidential administration that set ambitious renewable energy goals out the gate — and put a lot of money behind them — for a second Trump presidency.
The tonal shift has already begun. SEIA released its “policy priorities” for the Trump administration focusing on domestic energy production instead of combatting climate change as a whole. If that’s what it takes to keep our industry growing for the next four years, so be it.
Trump and his allies have harangued the Inflation Reduction Act during the election and promised to get rid of it, but study after study has found most of the IRA’s big manufacturing incentives have gone to red states and cities, creating jobs and decreasing our reliance on other countries for the latest technologies and products. The industry will need to shout these stats from the rooftops to save parts of the IRA.
While “Drill, Baby, Drill” is Trump’s popular catchphrase for increasing U.S. oil and gas production, why should home-grown solar + storage be left out of the Americanmade energy conversation?
The effects of a second Trump presidency and a Dept. of Energy led by a fracking company executive still remain to be seen, but the Biden administration’s massive investments have made a measurable impact on this industry over the past four years, with a boom in large-scale projects and, finally, onshoring solar manufacturing. In this first issue of 2025, we take a look at the trends we expect to make waves this year, from robotic assistance on huge solar projects to modules better-tailored for extreme weather conditions. We also dive into new technologies like liquid cooling, commercial microinverters and more.
Stick with us this year for all the latest project, technology and policy updates in solar power.
Kelsey Misbrener
Managing Editor
[email protected]
Thre will be effects, some of which we don’t even know yet. Common sense would say that clean energy has come too far to be stopped (or measurably slowed down). But in times like these, what does “Common Sense” still mean. Most of what happened in Washington during the first weeks of the 2nd trump term defies any semblance of common sense. And we’re only at the beginning!