Clean-energy stocks are suffering through their worst slump in years, causing the industry’s value to tumble by tens of billions of dollars and endangering America’s environmental goals.
Beyond the financial fallout, the setbacks in green energy have broad implications for the environment, particularly after the hottest summer on record. A consortium of scientists known as the Climate Action Tracker says the country is off track to meet its 2030 goal to roughly cut emissions in half from 2005 levels, and won’t get there “without additional, drastic emission reductions measures.” That will require all of the force that the clean-energy industry can muster.
The transition is “the first major industrial and technology investment cycle that occurs primarily in opaque private markets,” says Peter Gardett, the executive director of climate and clean-tech research at S&P Global Commodity Insights. For companies that sell rooftop solar systems, high rates have complicated the sales pitch. Homeowners are less inclined to finance big home projects when interest costs rise. The Inflation Reduction Act gave homeowners a tax credit worth 30% of the value of their solar system, but even that credit can’t overcome customer doubts when rates are high. In states like Texas and Arizona, where retail electricity rates are low, solar has become a much harder sell, say installers and equipment-makers.
The utility-scale solar market—the panels that are spread across fields that transmit electricity to power plants—is in somewhat better shape. Utilities are rate-sensitive, but they can pass rising costs on to consumers. And power producers are installing solar modules at a rapid rate today, with the U.S. on track to roughly double its utility-scale solar installations this year from last year’s level, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
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