The IRA And A New Dawn For Solar Power: Join The Webinar August 27

Depending on your perspective, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act is either a wolf in sheep’s clothing or the greatest thing to hit the market since sliced bread. Starting with the second one first, you can hear all about the impact of the IRA on solar power in the US on August 27, when the Solar Energy Technologies Office of the US Department of Energy holds a webinar for solar stakeholders, reviewing the past two years and previewing what comes next.

The State Of Solar Power, Two Years After The IRA

For those of you interested in attending, the registration link is here. Be prepared to submit questions in advance and wait for an invitation to join.

To get an idea of what the discussion will be like, check out the webinar SETO held in September of 2022, shortly after President Joe Biden signed the IRA into law. Slides are available for download including one titled, “IRA Positions the Domestic Solar Industry for Growth.”

In terms of growth, I’m not going to predict what SETO plans on predicting this time around, but if the next two years are anything like the past two years, hold onto your hats. Earlier this month the US Department of the Treasury ran the numbers on household use of renewable energy and energy efficiency tax credits since President Joe Biden signed the IRA into law on August 16, 2022, and they are over the moon about it.

“The number of families benefiting from these expanded credits for investments that lower their utility bills increased almost one third compared to tax year 2021,” the Treasury Department reported. The increase is notable because these household  investments — including solar panels, heat pumps, and weatherization — were already popular before the IRA. The new tax credits added even more fuel to the fire by giving ratepayers a break on their up-front costs.

“In addition to upfront cost savings on home improvements, consumers will save on their energy bills for years to come,” the Treasury Department emphasized, noting that the median household savings for installing residential solar panels clocked in at $2,230 per year in 2023, the first full year of IRA implementation.

One thing I will predict is that SETO will help build on efforts to bring the benefits of solar power to millions of low- and middle-income households that are not in a position to take advantage of IRA tax credits. Keep an eye on the community solar movement and check out the activities of rural electric cooperatives, which cover 92% of the nation’s persistent-poverty counties.

US Leads On Solar Power

Excitement over the impact of the IRA on large-scale energy projects was already building in the summer and fall of 2023, when I traveled to Germany and the Netherlands for some insights into the European clean tech field. The people I encountered were excited over the potential for other governments to deploy the IRA model and stimulate their own renewable energy and energy efficiency industries. It was a great feeling to be the citizen of a nation taking meaningful steps to decarbonize.

The upbeat mood in Europe was a real sea change from mid-January of 2017, when I was in Abu Dhabi for the World Future Energy Summit. There, people were in shock. Months after Election Day 2016, they still could not believe that US voters tapped a coal-loving, immigrant-hating, former “reality TV” personality with a string of bankruptcies behind him to occupy the most powerful office among democratic governments world-wide.

As it turned out, US voters were better than that, as underscored by the former President’s conviction on 34 charges of felony for illegal election interference in 2016.

Oh well, water under the bridge. I’m bringing all this up because the IRA represents more than just a list of tax credits. It has provided the global financial community with a financially sound, reliable platform for making long term investments in an energy-transitioning economy that is under responsible federal oversight, including the prioritization of environmental justice. In contrast, the former President was simply not up to the task of negotiating a working plan for stimulating the US manufacturing and infrastructure sectors.

Don’t just take my word for it. Earlier this month I had a conversation about the IRA with longstanding White House advisor and tax expert Carl J. Fleming. He emphasized that the provisions supporting new large-scale investments in solar power and other clean tech will far outlast the administration of President Joe Biden, whose tenure in office will end when the next President is sworn in on January 21, 2025.

Get Ready For The Next Solar Power Revolution

I’ll have more details about Mr. Fleming’s insights later this week. In the meantime, it’s fun to guess what SETO’s crystal ball will say about the future of solar power in the US, especially in the context of support from both the IRA and the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

One area to keep an eye on is thin film solar manufacturing. The US thin film startup First Solar launched in 1999 with a bet that relatively inexpensive, lightweight energy-harvesting film could catch up to the more familiar, rigid silicon format in terms of solar conversion efficiency. Thin film is still playing second fiddle to silicon in the US marketplace, but the IRA has stimulated a fresh burst of activity and the pipeline has climbed into the scale of multiple gigawatts.

Silicon technology isn’t going away any time soon, so look for the IRA to support more manufacturing activity in that area, too.

The emerging field of agrivoltaics is another piece of the solar power puzzle that has been taking shape in recent years. I’m guessing that SETO and other solar offices at the Energy Department will be forging new and significant partnerships with agricultural stakeholders to push the agrivoltaic envelope into new territory. In particular, keep watch for programs that enable new Americans and aspiring farmers to acquire small, affordable leases within solar arrays.

The IRA And Perovskite Solar Technology

Aside from stimulating the domestic manufacture of existing thin film solar technology, the IRA can also support new formulas that drive down the cost of solar power. That’s where perovskite solar cells come in. The finicky material was difficult to harness for solar conversion when it first emerged in the research in 2009, but synthetic perovskites are already poised for commercialization on the heels of a rapid R&D trajectory (see more perovskite background here).

IRA support was mentioned in a profile of the award-winning perovskite solar startup Verde Technologies, published by Vermont Business Magazine last spring. Verde is working its way towards commercial development with a healthy assist from the Energy Department, so stay tuned for more on that.

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Learn all about the future of solar power in the US as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 hits the US solar industry with force: join the SETO webinar on August 27 (courtesy of SETO).