2025 Solar Market Recap: Resets and the Road Ahead

By Jon Semingson

2025 felt like the longest and shortest year of my life. Policy chaos. Layoffs. Bankruptcies. Uncertainty everywhere. The pendulum swung hard and fast from IRA momentum to “wait, what just happened?” regulatory reversals of the current administration.

If you were in the thick of it this year, you’re not alone. The renewable energy market took some hits. But if you zoom out, the picture looks a little different. There’s pain, yes. But there’s also movement. Progress. And some very real tailwinds that will define the next few years.

The Bad News: A Hard Reset

2025 was brutal, especially for residential solar. We saw major players like Sunnova, Mosaic, and PosiGen collapse under the weight of shifting economics and cash-crunches. Even long-timers got caught in the wave.

Utility-scale wasn’t spared either. Pine Gate and Powin both closed, and layoffs hit every corner of the industry: development, engineering, project management, origination. It didn’t matter if you were commercial, community solar, or utility scale. The cuts came fast.

Policy uncertainty only made things harder. New restrictions around Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) compliance threw a wrench into manufacturing plans and created fresh obstacles for developers chasing critical ITC and 45X tax credits. If you didn’t have your supply chain airtight, your project timeline just got longer and more expensive.

The Good News: We’re Still Building

Despite the headlines, 2025 wasn’t just a year of loss. In fact, some of the most important progress in U.S. renewables happened quietly, underneath the panic.

• Corning’s announcement of a full wafer and cell facility in Michigan means we finally have a complete domestic solar module supply chain, from polysilicon to panel.
• Samsung SDI and other battery giants are bringing storage manufacturing stateside. Strengthening our grid and slashing reliance on imports.
• And perhaps most importantly, data center growth is exploding. The surge in AI and cloud computing has created utility demand we haven’t seen in decades. Analysts predict we will need an ADDITIONAL 150 GW of power in the next 5 years.

That’s not a typo.

The Future: Co-Locating Energy and Data

We’re entering a new era. One where data and energy are built together, not separately.

NextEra Energy recently announced a 15 GW pipeline tied directly to data center development, including a 3 GW collocated Power + Data Center partnership with Alphabet. That’s the playbook now: co-location, build the data center, build the power, and cut out the middleman.

This is the infrastructure that will power not just 2026, but 2030 and beyond.

There will still be plenty of room for traditional solar and storage. Both utility-scale and distributed generation (DG) will keep growing. But the market drivers are shifting. Developers and utilities chasing AI-backed projects will need every tool in the toolbox: renewables, storage, gas and if they can pull it off, maybe even modular nuclear projects.

What’s Coming in 2026: The Compressed Cycle

Here’s the punchline: 2026 won’t be easy. In fact, it’s likely to be a down year overall compared to 2024 and 2025.

But that doesn’t mean it’s slow.

There’s a huge backlog of projects, many of which must break ground before July 2026 to qualify for tax incentives.  They will have 4 years to complete construction, but the next few years will be busy for most EPCs. 

It’s also worth noting that we’re not in a “solar plus storage” world anymore. We’re now in a “storage plus solar” cycle. Storage is taking the lead strategically, economically, and politically.

Final Thoughts

We have been through up and down cycles before, and this industry is resilient as hell.

We’re scrappy. We adapt. And we don’t wait for perfect conditions to move forward.

“The reports of the death of renewables have been greatly exaggerated.”

I don’t know what 2026 will bring in full, but I do know this: We’re not done.

If you need help hiring for key roles, building a team that’s ready for the rebound, or just want to compare notes, reach out anytime.

Jon@inpeakdemand.com