Source: Ars Technica
After years of explosive expansion, the US solar market is facing genuine headwinds—not cyclical dips—driven by supply chain normalization, grid interconnection backlogs, and the expiration of IRA incentives for manufacturing. The sector needs 15-20% annual growth to hit climate targets and compete with natural gas. A structural slowdown would force it to solve harder problems—transmission bottlenecks, storage pairing, labor—rather than ride manufacturing subsidies. Utilities are simultaneously confronting peak demand from AI data centers and heat pumps, so stalled solar deployment directly impacts grid stability and decarbonization timelines.