Solar in 2025: Here’s what’s keeping the industry up at night
The solar industry is bracing for a turbulent year, and SolarReviews’ newly released 2025 Solar Industry Survey lays out exactly why. The survey, now in its third year, gathered insights from solar companies across the industry between December 2, 2024, and January 3, 2025, covering everything from the Inflation Reduction Act to workforce development and the state of the supply chain.
Ben Zientara, industry and policy analyst at SolarReviews, summed up the findings: “With pandemic-related supply chain issues largely in the rearview mirror, the industry is now overwhelmingly concerned about political uncertainty and the potential for new tariffs and changes to solar incentives.”
The biggest takeaway – the solar industry is on edge about what’s coming in 2025. More than half (56%) of companies flagged the possibility of new tariffs as a major concern, while 50% are worried about changes to solar incentives. Legislative and political uncertainty isn’t helping either, with 46% of respondents citing it as one of their biggest fears. Considering that Trump’s declaration of a national energy emergency excluded solar from its definition of energy resources, that’s unsurprising.
The outcome of the 2024 US elections has also influenced business confidence. A third (34%) of respondents said their outlook for 2025 became more negative due to election results, while nearly half (48%) reported no change. Only 18% said they felt more optimistic about their business prospects after the elections.
Despite these worries, most solar companies remain resilient. Just 7% of respondents said they were concerned about staying in business over the next six months, while 38% expect to see their business grow this year.
One bright spot is the supply chain. Over the past two years, supply chain disruptions have steadily improved, with 43% of businesses reporting that conditions were better in 2024 compared to 2023. That’s a slight dip from the previous year when 69% of companies saw an improvement, but still a positive sign. Only 11% said supply chain issues worsened year-over-year.
Residential solar installers continue to evolve, expanding their services beyond solar panels. The vast majority (92%) of installers now offer energy storage installation, up from 74% last year. Similarly, 86% of companies are installing EV chargers, up from 64% in the previous year.
Installers named Qcells, REC, and Silfab as their go-to solar module brands, while Enphase, Tesla, and SolarEdge dominated the energy storage space.
However, one of the biggest challenges in 2024 was the wave of solar company closures. A staggering 81% of installers reported that at least one large competitor in their service area shut down. More than 57% said these closures led to negative outcomes, including an increase in service calls from customers left in the lurch by their former solar providers. To adapt, nearly a quarter of residential installers now offer third-party warranty coverage as a way to boost customer confidence and secure more sales.
Ultimately, US solar is still expected to continue its growth trajectory and maintain its top leadership among energy sources.
Read more: Renewables generated 24.2% of US electricity in 2024 – EIA data
To limit power outages and make your home more resilient, consider going solar with a battery storage system. In order to find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and you share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –trusted affiliate link*
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Volkswagen EVs can finally use Tesla Superchargers starting November 18th, after the better part of a year worth of delays getting the system up and running.
Ever since Tesla announced it would open its charging network in 2022 (calling the connector the North American Charging Standard, or NACS), we’ve been covering the gradual drip-drip of companies announcing NACS support and getting access to Tesla’s Supercharger network.
This year was the year that we expected a big flood of vehicles to gain access, and several brands have throughout the year.
But one big exception has been Volts… I mean Volkswagen.
At the very beginning of the year, VW was one of the companies that announced imminent access. It said that cars would be able to use the network in March, then quickly corrected that to June.
But then June came and went, and we heard nothing further. We reached out to VW PR, and they couldn’t tell us either – only that an announcement was coming soon. Then we waited longer.
But now, the day is finally here. 10 months after VW’s original announcement that Supercharger access was coming soon, and 8 months after the initial (later corrected) date, VW ID.4 and ID.Buzz owners in the US will get access to Superchargers starting… in a week.
November 18 is the official activation date, after which those cars will be able to charge on Superchargers – just in time for the Thanksgiving travel season.
VW vehicles will have to use a NACS adapter in order to use the stations, and these are available for $200 from VW. You can purchase them at your dealer or online at parts.vw.com.
ID.4 and ID.Buzz owners with a model year 2025 vehicle are eligible for a $100 rebate on the adapter, if they buy the adapter before July 15, 2026 and submit a rebate claim within 90 days.
The NACS adapters are only intended for use with DC chargers, and not level 2 chargers like Tesla Destination Chargers.
Like all other makes that have access to Tesla Superchargers, VW owners can download the Tesla app to find compatible stations (not every Supercharger can be used with non-Tesla cars, with usually the older stations being incompatible) and arrange payment.
The 30% federal solar tax credit is ending this year. If you’ve ever considered going solar, now’s the time to act. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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Environment
Anthropic to spend $50 billion on U.S. AI infrastructure, starting with Texas, New York data centers
Anthropic announced plans Wednesday to spend $50 billion on a U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure build-out, starting with custom data centers in Texas and New York.
The facilities, which will be designed to support the company’s rapid enterprise growth and its long-term research agenda, will be developed in partnership with Fluidstack.
Fluidstack is an AI cloud platform that supplies large-scale graphics processing unit, or GPU, clusters to clients like Meta, Midjourney and Mistral.
Additional sites are expected to follow, with the first locations going live in 2026. The project is expected to create 800 permanent jobs and more than 2,000 construction roles.
The investment positions Anthropic as a major domestic player in physical AI infrastructure at a moment when policymakers are increasingly focused on U.S.-based compute capacity and technological sovereignty.
“We’re getting closer to AI that can accelerate scientific discovery and help solve complex problems in ways that weren’t possible before. Realizing that potential requires infrastructure that can support continued development at the frontier,” said CEO Dario Amodei. “These sites will help us build more capable AI systems that can drive those breakthroughs, while creating American jobs.”
The move comes as Anthropic rival OpenAI pushes forward with an aggressive build-out of its own. The ChatGPT maker has secured more than $1.4 trillion in long-term infrastructure commitments through deals with Nvidia, Broadcom, Oracle and the major cloud providers, including Microsoft, Google, and, most recently, Amazon.
The scale of that spending has raised questions about whether the U.S. has the power capacity and industrial backbone to deliver on such promises, and whether the AI sector is drifting into bubble territory.
Anthropic serves more than 300,000 businesses, with enterprise clients driving most of its revenue.
The number of large accounts, which generate more than $100,000 annually, has nearly increased sevenfold in the past year. Internal projections obtained by The Wall Street Journal showed Anthropic expects to break even by 2028, well ahead of OpenAI, which is projecting $74 billion in operating losses that same year.
To support that trajectory, Anthropic tapped Fluidstack to build custom facilities optimized for its AI workloads, citing the firm’s speed and ability to deliver gigawatts of power on short timelines.
In parallel, Amazon has opened a dedicated data center campus for Anthropic on 1,200 acres in Indiana.
The $11 billion facility is already up and running, while many competitors are still promising data centers of the future. Anthropic has also expanded its compute deal with Google by tens of billions of dollars.
The move also comes as the role of the federal government in financing AI infrastructure becomes a flashpoint.
Last week, OpenAI asked the Trump administration to expand a key CHIPS Act tax credit to include AI data centers and grid components like transformers, according to a letter obtained by Bloomberg.
That request followed backlash over comments from CFO Sarah Friar, who had floated the idea of a government “backstop” for OpenAI’s compute deals.
Though the company has since walked back the suggestion of federal guarantees, the episode underscored the political and financial uncertainty surrounding how — and by whom — America’s AI infrastructure will be funded.
WATCH: SoftBank’s Nvidia exit fuels OpenAI push despite mounting losses, stiff competition from Anthropic
Robotaxi network Waymo is continuing to expand the reach and capabilities of its driverless vehicles to public riders in new cities. Today, the Alphabet, Inc. subsidiary announced freeway trips in three major US cities, as well as an expansion of its service availability in a familiar region.
2025 continues to be a pivotal year for autonomous rideshare developer Waymo, as it expands its fleet of test vehicles and public robotaxis to new cities around the US. That includes the commencement of customer rides in Austin, Texas, plus expansion plans in cities such like Dallas and Nashville, with other regions like Miami and Washington DC in the works.
Less than a month ago, Waymo shared plans to expand robotaxi operations across the pond, beginning in London in 2026. Today, Waymo offers public robotaxi rides in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco – the last of which is closest to company headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Today however, Waymo announced an expansion of its service map in The Bay Area, which now includes San Jose. Furthermore, Waymo has added freeway driving capabilitites in the region as well as in two other cities.
Waymo adds freeway robotaxi driving in three cities
According to a release from Waymo today, it has begun offering freeway access to public riders in the Phoenix, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Public access to freeway-capable robotaxi rides was enabled by millions of miles logged on freeways with Waymo present in those three cities.
Beyond that, Waymo said it plans to expand freeway access to robotaxi riders in additional cities in the future, including Austin, Atlanta, “and beyond.” Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov spoke:
Achieving fully autonomous freeway operations is a profound engineering feat—easy to conceive, yet hard to truly master. This milestone is a powerful testament to the maturity of our operations and technology. We are proud to begin offering riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix trips that use freeways as we continue to scale the Waymo Driver, always guided by safety.
In addition to freeway-enabled routes, Waymo shared that it is expanding its Bay Area service map, which now covers the entire Peninsula, from San Francisco to San Jose. This expanded map (seen above) also includies curbside service at San Jose Mineta International Airport (SJC).
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