Sunny With Intermittent Showers

The US solar industry is running into some obstacles

- Brian Eckhouse

Five months after President Joe Biden signed the most ambitious climate law in US history, the country is poised to install a record amount of solar power in 2023. But the industry's big growth spurt may be another year or two away.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) calls for about $370 billion in spending on clean energy to help arrest the worsening climate crisis, but a confluence of factors-supply snarls, trade tensions, delays in connection to power grids and uncertainty about forthcoming rules stemming from the new law-will likely constrain installations this year.

The industry will grow more than in 2022 "and likely more than 2021, but not to our full potential," says Abigail Ross Hopper, chief executive officer of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), a trade group in Washington. "I am very frustrated by the quashing of that potential, but I'm also hopeful that the administration will help untangle some of the challenges." Not too long ago, a year that saw solar installations edge above the previous annual record would have brought cheer to a domestic industry that's been whipsawed by policy-driven booms and busts.

But solar isn't alternative anymore, as more utilities, including in Middle America, are turning to panels to modernize their power grids.