By Benjamin J. Hulac, Washington Correspondent, NJ Spotlight
WASHINGTON — After Congress voted to end a federal tax credit for rooftop solar installations, homeowners are galloping to buy, install, and hook up, panels to their houses before the year is out.
As part of President Donald Trump’s signature new domestic policy law, lawmakers voted to phase out a 30% tax credit for residential solar, which could defray about $9,000 of the cost of a project, on Dec. 31, roughly a decade before the scheduled date.
Now homeowners are racing to purchase, rack, and connect solar panels to the electric grid to meet that deadline.
“It is a rush,” Lyle Rawlings, president and co-founder of the Mid-Atlantic Solar & Storage Industries Association, said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “Anybody who’s been thinking and dreaming of doing solar on their home understands that they have to do it now.”
Solar companies are struggling to keep up with demand, said Rawlings, president of Advanced Solar Projects, a commercial solar company based in Flemington. “Salespeople are overloaded.”
Surge of interest in NJ
After Congress passed the new law, online solar marketplace EnergySage hit an “all-time high in customer inquiries in July,” the company said, and the number of New Jersey customers who registered to receive quotes from local installers increased 109% from June to July, according to data from the firm. “Pedal to the metal right now,” Emily Walker, director of content and insights at EnergySage, said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News.
Expiration of the credit lands as the U.S. solar industry is under strain from Trump’s tariffs, trade disputes, a hazy business outlook, and a federal administration hostile to renewable energy, solar included.
Over the summer, the Environmental Protection Agency canceled $7 billion in funding for solar grants, hundreds of millions of which had been slated for New Jersey.
Even before the budget law took effect, the residential solar industry was already in trouble. Solar installations dropped 31% in 2024, versus the previous year, and large companies in the field — SunPower, Sunnova, and Mosaic Solar — filed for bankruptcy.
The new federal law, which almost every Republican in Congress voted for and every Democrat voted against, also phased out a 30% federal tax incentive for commercial-scale solar projects — the sort of installations that might go atop a big-box store.
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