For some “shovel-ready” solar infrastructure projects, the cancellation of federal Solar for All grants means scrambling to find other sources of funding.
In the nearly a year and a half since the Biden administration announced the $7 billion in Solar for All funding, the Trump administration then froze and unfroze the money before the Environmental Protection Agency ultimately terminated it earlier this month.
According to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, a Trump appointee, the agency “no longer has the statutory authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds,” after the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill did away with Solar for All’s parent fund, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
The funding had been awarded to 60 states, nonprofits, municipalities, and tribal consortiums to bring solar power to nearly a million low-income homes across the country.
GRID Alternatives, a solar nonprofit, was awarded over $312 million via two grants to bring solar energy to affordable housing units in 29 states and in southwestern tribal communities. CEO Erica Mackie told Tech Brew that it was a huge disappointment for everyone involved to learn of the cancellation of the grant projects, which were aimed at lowering energy bills, providing more reliable electricity, and creating jobs for local contractors.
“It’s not really about the money,” Mackie said. “It’s about all of the impact that this was going to have in communities that have been really saddled by high energy costs [and] not enough jobs.”
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According to Mackie, GRID Alternatives is working on finding a solution to this sudden funding issue and hoping to secure philanthropic contributions, private investment, money from public-private partnerships, and some sort of state or city governmental support.
“We would like to do the work that we dreamed. Our partners would like us to do the work we dreamed. Our communities would like us to do the work we dreamed,” Mackie said. “We’ve got a lot of the pre-work done…and, by and large, many of these projects are really shovel-ready.”
Other Solar for All awardees had already gotten to work, too: The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) Nation, which received a nearly $136 million grant, completed solar infrastructure construction in Montana and South Dakota earlier this year. Nonprofit Indigenized Energy helped MHA Nation manage the grant, and CEO Cody Two Bears told Tech Brew that the organization is looking to take on investments, loans, and philanthropic contributions to continue their planned Solar for All projects.
“To pull the funds of an award that has already been ongoing was just unheard of and unprecedented,” Two Bears said, adding that, “we’re ready to be able to take the next steps.”