From Sea to Shining Sea: A Recap of 2025 State Photo voltaic Coverage Wins

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Right here’s an replace from the Photo voltaic Vitality Industries Affiliation (SEIA) on its state coverage wins in 2025 and what comes subsequent:

Illinois took a significant step ahead immediately as Governor J.B. Pritzker signed the 2025 Clear and Dependable Grid Affordability Act, increasing battery storage and advancing a statewide digital energy plant program. Whereas vitality coverage chaos in Washington, DC grabs the highlight, SEIA delivered significant photo voltaic and storage victories like this in states throughout the nation in 2025.

From California to Texas to Virginia, blue, purple, and purple states alike are turning to photo voltaic and storage to make sure that they will meet quickly rising vitality demand affordably.

In 2026, SEIA is doubling down on its state and native advocacy to ensure all folks, in all states, can benefit from the myriad advantages photo voltaic and storage provide: decrease electrical energy payments; good jobs; financial improvement; and a cleaner, extra dependable electrical grid.

Earlier than 2026 state legislative classes get underway, let’s make a journey throughout the nation, from West to East, to look again at a few of 2025’s greatest state coverage wins for photo voltaic and storage.

California

Within the nation’s largest photo voltaic market, the California State Legislature handed two payments that may assist decrease vitality costs: Meeting Invoice 825 and Senate Invoice 302. AB 825 begins the method of creating a regional electrical energy partnership throughout the West. By setting the stage for a broader vitality market, the state will allow extra environment friendly vitality manufacturing and distribution, and a extra dependable grid. Senate Invoice 302 will assist in maintaining vitality challenge prices down by aligning California’s tax code with provisions within the Inflation Discount Act to unlock expiring federal tax advantages for renewable initiatives within the state.

Furthermore, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Govt Order on Bolstering Clear Vitality Initiatives. The EO ensures California’s businesses and utilities keep on observe and expedite initiatives of all sizes to make sure they will benefit from expiring federal tax credit. This may save Californians billions of {dollars} in prevented vitality prices whereas strengthening grid reliability.

Nevada

SEIA is main the cost to guarantee the photo voltaic and storage business’s progress is as sustainable as potential. As a part of this work, SEIA launched a first-of-its-kind round economic system roadmap and hosted the inaugural Sustainability Convention in fall of 2025. In Nevada, SEIA helped go Meeting Invoice 493, which requires utility-scale initiatives to include decommissioning plans for panels and end-of-life administration for distributed photo voltaic system house owners.

Colorado

In Colorado, SEIA and the Colorado Photo voltaic and Storage Affiliation superior sensible photo voltaic coverage by efficiently advocating for new legal guidelines, govt actions, and regulatory adjustments.

Colorado prolonged its residential vitality storage tax credit score by way of 2030 and adopted a proactive client safety regulation. On August 1, Governor Jared Polis signed an govt order to streamline the event of fresh vitality initiatives by eradicating native boundaries, accelerating interconnection, and advancing utility-scale procurement. These steps will save Coloradans cash, create good native jobs, and strengthen grid reliability.

SEIA additionally supplied key knowledgeable witness testimony that led the Colorado Public Utilities Fee to approve the state’s first Digital Energy Plant program, creating a brand new marketplace for customer-driven grid worth and suppleness. This system might be stood up in 2026 and gives a good, constant, and performance-based compensation tariff that may drive extra distributed era storage adoption.

SEIA additionally helped attain a settlement with utility Xcel Vitality on a first-of-its-kind Dispatchable Distributed Era program, standing up a pathway for photo voltaic and storage to fulfill essential useful resource adequacy wants and ship grid worth.  The settlement provides $110 million to the DDG program funds above and past the statutorily mandated 50-megawatt (MW) program in 2026 and 2027, additional demonstrating the distinctive skill of photo voltaic and storage to fulfill close to time period reliability wants.

Texas

Texas is named the Vitality Capital, and the state proved worthy of its title in 2025 by passing commonsense legal guidelines to strengthen photo voltaic entry and rejecting vitality subtraction insurance policies that will have curtailed the state’s photo voltaic and storage increase.

SEIA, vitality commerce teams, Texas grid consultants, enterprise leaders, and rural landowners helped defeat three payments that threatened to destabilize the Texas grid and hurt rural economies and tax bases: Senate Payments 388, SB 715, and SB 819.

SEIA additionally labored intently with companions and allies within the Texas legislature to go a trio of payments to strengthen Texas householders’ freedom to decide on the reasonably priced, clear photo voltaic and storage they’re demanding.

As SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper stated, “extra and extra Texans are turning to rooftop photo voltaic and residential battery storage to strengthen their vitality freedom and resiliency whereas reducing their payments, they usually should have as clean an expertise as potential. SB 1202 will streamline installations of dwelling backup energy methods like photo voltaic and storage. SB 1036 and SB 1697 will be certain that Texans all for investing in rooftop photo voltaic are capable of make knowledgeable transactions with accountable corporations.”

Illinois

In Illinois, SEIA led a broad coalition to assist go the Clear and Dependable Grid Affordability Act, a invoice that may assist Illinois households and companies save $13 billion on their electrical energy payments over 20 years. The invoice requires the Illinois Energy Company to acquire 3 gigawatts of vitality storage by 2030 to safe the state’s vitality future, incentivizes stand-alone vitality storage initiatives, and establishes a forward-looking Digital Energy Plant program to make it possible for that distributed era can ship energy to the grid and bolster the grid’s resilience when vitality is most wanted.

This invoice follows the state’s 2017 Future Vitality Jobs Act and 2021 Local weather and Equitable Jobs Act and can assist get monetary savings, create good jobs, and strengthen the Illinois grid.

Virginia

The Democratic-led legislature and Republican Governor within the Knowledge Heart Capital of the World handed SEIA-supported HB2346/SB1100, requiring the Commonwealth’s greatest utility, Dominion, to create a Digital Energy Plant pilot program.

Maryland

The Maryland Common Meeting handed two main photo voltaic and storage legal guidelines that may assist  builders plan for the long run by offering extra regulatory certainty.

Governor Wes Moore signed the Renewable Vitality Certainty Act, which modernizes and standardizes the allowing course of for front-of-the-meter photo voltaic and storage initiatives. Previous to the regulation being enacted, builders contemplating investing in Maryland needed to navigate a patchwork of onerous and shifting allowing frameworks from county to county. These native obstacles usually hindered the rights of personal landowners in search of to accomplice with photo voltaic builders to safe a constant income stream within the face of unstable agricultural markets.

As well as, the Subsequent Era Vitality Act creates a course of for deploying 1,600 MW of front-of-the-meter vitality storage expertise.

New Jersey

New Jersey handed a trio of payments to stabilize the state’s grid and decrease clients electrical energy payments. A5768/S4530 unlocks 3 GW of neighborhood photo voltaic capability. A5267/S4289  requires the Board of Public Utilities to procure and incentivize transmission-scale vitality storage with a purpose to deploy 2 GW of storage by 2030.

Finallyu, simply earlier than Christmas, New Jersey joined Texas in passing a invoice to streamline and modernize the method for allowing residential photo voltaic vitality methods. Sensible photo voltaic allowing helps companies and households decrease their electrical energy payments with rooftop photo voltaic by slicing expensive purple tape that may add as much as $7,000 to the price of a median system — whereas nonetheless guaranteeing the security and reliability of those methods.

What’s Subsequent

In state after state, leaders dedicated to evidence-based decision-making maintain drawing the identical conclusions: photo voltaic and storage are essential for reducing electrical energy costs and assembly fast-rising demand. The bipartisan assist for photo voltaic and storage just isn’t ideological; it’s merely good coverage. However it’s good politics too.

As the outcomes of the 2025 election confirmed, voters assist leaders with plans to decrease electrical energy prices by way of photo voltaic and storage. In 2026, 36 states will maintain state-level elections and a whole lot of state legislative seats might be open. And vitality affordability will as soon as once more be on the poll.

Now could be the time for extra state leaders to indicate their constituents that they perceive what it takes to decrease folks’s electrical energy payments, meet fast-rising vitality demand, and strengthen the economic system. SEIA seems to be ahead to persevering with to work with leaders throughout the nation — and throughout the political spectrum — to ensure the photo voltaic and storage business can do what it does greatest: construct the quick, reasonably priced, dependable, clear energy that individuals are demanding.

SEIA’s tireless advocacy for the photo voltaic and storage business will proceed in states throughout the nation in 2026. Be part of the motion for a greater, extra reasonably priced vitality system by changing into a SEIA member or signing up for our Photo voltaic Powers America grassroots crew immediately.