Why Solar Power Is Booming Under Trump - Energy | PriceONN
Despite the Trump administration’s pivot away from renewable energies, solar continues to dominate new energy additions in the United States. Newly released data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) shows that at the close of last year, solar energy additions were the single largest form of new energy capacity installations for the 28th straight month, starting in September of 2023. In fact, in spite of a broad rollback of Biden-era clean energy incentives since Trump resumed...

The Number That Contradicts the Policy

Here is a fact that sits awkwardly next to the headlines: solar has been the single largest source of new U.S. energy capacity for 28 consecutive months, a streak that began back in September 2023 and shows no sign of breaking. That run continued straight through a White House that has spent the past year and a half steering policy away from clean power.

Fresh figures from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission tell the story plainly. As of the close of last year, renewables accounted for a striking 88 percent of all energy additions in 2025. Utility-scale solar by itself made up 72.6 percent of new U.S. electricity capacity.

So how does an industry boom while the government pulls back its support? That is the real puzzle worth unpacking.

Momentum Built Before the Rollback

Since the administration resumed office in January of last year, it has unwound much of the Biden-era package of tax credits and subsidies that propelled solar and wind. Yet the growth has not stalled. Solar's slice of the national energy mix has now climbed past wind, nuclear, and hydropower combined in terms of fresh installations.

Part of the explanation is timing. A large share of these projects were approved and financed before the incentives were cut, giving the pipeline years of forward inertia. Even so, analysts are not bracing for a sharp drop-off.

Regulators expect solar capacity to expand by another 86 gigawatts over the next three years. At that point it is set to leapfrog coal, despite a $700 million federal push to resuscitate coal production. Look further out and the projection grows bolder still: by 2029, solar could become the second-largest source in the entire U.S. energy mix, trailing only natural gas.

Economics Is Quietly Winning

The cooler political climate for photovoltaics simply cannot outmuscle the underlying math. Surging electricity demand from the technology sector, much of it tied to data centers and computing, has unleashed a wave of capital into power generation of every kind, with renewables and next-generation options leading the charge. That includes ambitious bets on nuclear fusion, enhanced geothermal, and even space-based solar.

One executive captures the mood bluntly. Miguel Stilwell d'Andrade, chief executive of Portuguese utility EDP, argues the country is "living in what arguably is one of the best periods to invest in renewables in the US over the last 20 years."

EDP is backing that conviction with cash, channeling more than half of its capital spending, roughly USD $5.3 billion, into U.S. renewables projects over the next three years.

In his view, America now outranks Europe as a destination for clean energy money. European markets remain tangled in regulation and are still healing from the energy shock triggered by Russia's war in Ukraine, compounded by the more recent disruption tied to the U.S. and Israeli conflict with Iran. American energy and tech markets, by contrast, look better positioned to expand.

The irony is hard to miss. As Washington works to restore the dominance of fossil fuels, Brussels keeps advancing its decarbonization agenda, yet it is the United States that may end up hosting the largest clean energy buildout in its own history.

What Smart Money Is Watching

For investors, the signal here is that durable demand can override unfriendly policy. The clearest beneficiaries are utility-scale solar developers and the equipment supply chain feeding them, alongside the grid and storage operators needed to absorb 86 gigawatts of new capacity. Watch how data center power contracts are structured, since hyperscale demand is the true engine, not subsidies.

Related exposures worth tracking include natural gas, which remains the projected leader and a complement to intermittent solar, plus coal-linked equities now facing a tougher capacity outlook despite federal funding. Currency and rate watchers should note that heavy foreign capital flows into U.S. projects, like EDP's multi-billion-dollar commitment, lend incremental support to dollar-denominated energy assets.

The key risk is execution: financing costs, interconnection bottlenecks, and shifting trade rules on imported components could all slow the pace. But the structural story, cheap generation meeting voracious demand, looks resilient enough to survive a hostile policy cycle.

Energy Fed Sol
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