out of work. The import restrictions did spur the
growth of about 2,000 domestic solar-manufac-
turing jobs, according to an analysis by the SEIA.
But that was more than offset by solar-panel
sticker shock — Americans chose to forgo nearly
$19 billion in solar investments that could have
supported 62,000 solar-installation jobs.
It’s not hard to understand why 31 service
jobs would be lost for every manufacturing job
gained. American manufacturers cannot com-
pete with Asian producers on labor costs, so
they’ve invested in automation. In 2017, I toured
the Oregon-based factory of SolarWorld, one of
the companies that petitioned Trump for tariffs.
The massive 465,000-square-foot complex was
eerily devoid of people — almost all of the work
was performed by robots. The passage of tar-
iffs has not boosted worker fortunes here. The
plant has changed ownership twice, benefiting
large, foreign-owned corporations that bought
and sold it, but not local workers. Solar produc-
tion now employs just 250 people here — down
from a peak of 800. Most of the building is now
used as a server farm.
Trump dealt solar another bad hand in the
2020 budget deal he signed in December. The
solar-investment credit, available to both home-
owners and utilities, was not extended, and has
begun winding down, from 30 percent in 2019 to
26 percent in 2020. In two years, it will end for
homeowners. “Congress definitely dropped the
ball,” Hopper says. “Extending the tax credit was
really a tool to help address the climate crisis.”
Solar still makes economic sense for many homes
and businesses, but capacity would “grow muchROLLING STONE 77GET INVOLVED
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Big utilities are attacking “net
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critical research, including the
authoritative National Solar
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Trump’s tariffs
killed business
that would
have supported
62,000 solar-
installation jobs.more quickly, and reduce the car-
bon much more quickly, if we had
that additional incentive,” she says.
Trump’s solar slowdown is a
gift to the utility sector, which has
warned since 2013 that a rapid rise
in distributed solar power could
prompt customers to live off-the-
grid, sparking a “utility death spi-
ral” in which remaining rate payers receive
higher and higher energy bills to sustain aging
electrical plants — prompting ever more cus-
tomers to declare energy independence. The
utilities don’t oppose solar technology, per se,
but they do want to develop it themselves, in
large-scale, centralized installations, similar to
legacy power plants, allowing them to contin-
ue to make a profit. The Trump administration
has their backs. In keeping with Trump’s agen-
da of opening public lands to industry, the Inte-
rior Department recently approved a record $1
billion, 690-megawatt solar plant to be built on
a federal desert outside Las Vegas, to the bene-
fit of NV Energy, owned by billionaire investor
Warren Buffett.
The positive news is that states and localities
are stepping up to address the void in federal
leadership. “In response to the Trump admin-
istration, the states have been doing more than
we thought they would,” says Shah. New York
state has passed aggressive clean-energy legisla-
tion and celebrated reaching more than two giga-
watts of solar power in December, with a goal of
six gigawatts by 2025. And standards passed by
New York City will require green roofs or solar
arrays on new and renovated buildings.
California continues to be the runaway leader
in solar with more than 10 gigawatts installed,
and it passed 1 million solar rooftops last year.
In January, the state began enforcing a mandate
that new homes be built with solar panels suffi-
cient to cover the home’s electricity needs. “We
build about 120,000 homes a year in California,”
says Hochschild, who notes that solar homes fre-
quently lead their owners to adopt other green
technologies, like electric cars.
Hochschild points to a growing number of
states, as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto
Rico, that have followed California’s lead in
adopting 100 percent renewable-energy man-
dates, now covering nearly 30 percent of Amer-
ica’s population. “States have a huge amount of
power,” Hochschild says. “California should be
understood as a postcard from the future for
what U.S. policy can be” on solar energy. “It’s
been a win for us, very clearly,” he says. “That’s
why I’m hopeful that we can see a lot more prog-
ress on clean energy under new leadership in the
White House.”