A version of this article first appeared in WFAE’s Climate Newsletter. Sign up here to receive weekly climate news straight to your inbox.
This has been a turbulent year for North Carolina’s solar industry:
- The Trump administration nixed the 25d Residential Clean Energy Credit, which would have expired in 2032. Now, it expires at the end of the year.
- New FEOC requirements, or Foreign Entity of Concern, are leaving solar installers struggling to determine which solar panels still qualify for the Clean Energy Investment and Production tax credits.
- The EPA also cut funding for EnergizeNC, which would have lowered energy bills for thousands of low-income residents, according to North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson.
Clean energy tax credits have saved people money on home solar installations for more than 20 years. However, it might already be too late for homeowners to save on new solar. Bryce Bruncati, with 8MSolar in Raleigh, said it’s been a busy few months, meeting a surge of demand that followed the passage of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
“When the Big Beautiful Bill passed, and they ended 25d, we signed up like 200 people in a couple weeks,” Bruncati said. “So, all solar installers in North Carolina right now are booked through the year.”
It was the same story with other solar installers I spoke with in the Carolinas. One reported that it has some spots available for upgrades and small projects, but the queue is otherwise full.
The story of solar so far
Home solar systems have steadily grown in popularity in North Carolina since the mid-2000s. In recent years, they’ve added significant capacity to the grid, approaching the size of a small power plant. That role has only expanded as new battery storage systems and power management agreements allow utilities such as Duke Energy to draw power from homes, reducing energy demand on the system during peak hours.
However, the solar ship had already encountered some headwinds before President Trump returned to office. In 2023, new solar installations declined for the first time in six years, falling by over 15% from the year prior. They dropped again in 2024 — this time by nearly 44%.
Creating energy islands after the flood
Even if 2024 was a low-performing year overall for solar, Asheville-based Rhino Renewables got an unexpected boost after Hurricane Helene.
“Since the storm, we’ve been very busy. A lot of people realize the need for solar,” said Glynnis Hollifield, office manager at Rhino Renewables. “Even people with existing systems wanted to add a battery, just because they were like, ‘I should have had one for the storm.’”
Rooftop or standalone solar panels that are connected to the grid won’t work during a blackout without battery storage. The utility requires panels to switch off when the grid goes down to prevent energy from backfeeding while lineworkers restore power. An at-home battery enables homes to function like an energy island, powering them without risking the electrocution of lineworkers. In this way, they can replace their noisier, more polluting counterpart — the diesel generator.
“People were realizing that to have power when nobody else does, or when the grid goes down, is just so important,” Hollifield said.
Immediately after Helene, organizations such as The Footprint Project deployed battery and solar systems in western North Carolina to power Starlinks, phone chargers and more. Buncombe County installed its first two battery storage systems earlier this year at the county’s Public Safety Training Center and the Health and Human Services building.
“We didn't initially design these battery systems to be like resilience projects in the traditional sense,” said Jeremiah Leroy, deputy recovery officer for Buncombe County, in an interview this past spring. “They were really more designed to be like cost savings projects, to shed peak load and reduce demand charges.”
Leroy said that changed with Helene, and the county shifted to asking questions about emergency preparedness. Suddenly, these battery systems meant more than the sum of their cost savings.
“Resilience is our big focus, and probably will be for the foreseeable future,” He said.
Rhino Renewables had also been part of EnergizeNC, a federally funded program that would have expanded community and residential solar installations in low-income and disadvantaged communities to lower electricity bills. The $156 million program was scheduled to launch later this year, but the Trump Administration canceled funding for the project. North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson has since joined several other states in a lawsuit against the EPA over the Solar for All funds.
“These funds were going to help low-income and rural North Carolinians save money on their energy bills,” said Attorney General Jeff Jackson in a written statement. “Thousands of families were going to have the option to install solar power, save money, and have another energy option after a major storm. Now the EPA has illegally cancelled those funds — so I’m going to court to bring $150 million back to our state.”
Looking ahead
For companies that have diversified their services, such as South Carolina’s Southern Energy Management, other home electrification programs, such as Duke and Dominion’s HERO rebate program or Energy Saver NC, have been a boon. Graham Alexander, co-owner of Southern Energy Management, said his industry will weather the new changes, tax credit or no.
“We’d rather see the energy industry in North America on a level playing field,” Alexander said. “Take the subsidies away from the natural gas and the coal and everything else, and let’s see where the field balances out to.”
The One Big Beautiful Bill expanded federal subsidies for oil extraction and reduced the royalties that fossil fuel companies pay for federal leases.
8MSolar’s Bruncati was similarly optimistic about the future of his industry.
“Even without the tax credit, I'm selling systems that have about a 10-year breakeven,” Bruncati said, referring to the amount of time it takes for new panels to pay for themselves.
Bruncati said that math gets more favorable as electrical rates increase. Duke Energy’s proposed 2025 resource plan forecasted that rates will rise an average 2.1% annually over the next decade. Similarly, at-home battery storage has begun to compete more with gas generators as unit prices decrease.
The federal policy shift may favor other business models. In California, where electricity rates are higher, solar leasing has overtaken outright ownership in the past.
When a homeowner signs a solar lease, they don’t own the panels or battery system, but they do benefit from the savings. The leasing company claims the commercial tax credit and charges the homeowner monthly for the panels. These agreements typically last 10-20 years.
“It's a little more tricky. You have to have a really good site. You have to be okay with having someone else owning the equipment we roof,” Bruncati said.
A 2017 law legalized solar leasing in North Carolina and put a cap on leased solar relative to the utility’s total peak demand. Solar leases tend to decline in popularity when panel prices decrease or financial incentives lower the barriers to ownership. It’s possible that solar installers might pivot to so-called third-party ownership models after 25D expires.
In the Carolinas, there are still other incentive programs to offset the upfront cost of solar and battery systems. South Carolina offers a state tax credit for 25% the cost of a new solar system, including installation. In Mecklenburg County, the Solarize Charlotte-Mecklenburg campaign is a group-purchase program that has lowered the price of a solar system to below $2.00 per watt.
Duke Energy’s PowerPair program offers up to $9,000 back to homeowners who install both solar and battery systems on their homes.
“We have 100 projects booked for [quarter one] of next year where those homeowners are not getting the 30% tax credit, but they're still getting that PowerPair incentive,” Bruncati said.
But the program's future is uncertain. This three-year pilot is already nearing capacity after just over a year. Duke Energy Progress has started a waitlist.
Duke Energy will need to request permission from state regulators to extend the pilot program. The company provided the following written statement:
“Currently, there is no plan for expansion of upfront solar + battery incentives programming. However, Duke Energy continues to offer demand side programs that provide eligible customers with opportunities to earn incentives.”
Additional solar information:
- The deadline to apply for Solarize Charlotte-Mecklenburg has been extended to Nov. 28.
- For folks interested in solar or battery installations, the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association maintains a list of reputable installers on its website.
