The country’s largest solar trade association is warning that hundreds of solar and storage installations across the country are at risk of getting derailed by the Trump administration’s expansion of federal control.
Over 500 new projects have yet to receive all the federal, state, and local permits necessary for deployment, and are at risk of getting “trapped in limbo,” according to a new analysis by the Solar Energy Industry Association. That’s 73 gigawatts of solar and 43 GW of storage, for a total of nearly 116 GW in new capacity that could be lost or delayed at a time when the U.S. energy system is in desperate need of new generation to meet the rising demand for electricity.
This risk is the result of a U.S. Department of the Interior’s order for increased federal oversight of solar and wind projects issued in July. The order requires any project involving federal land, permits, or rights-of-way (including those on private land) to go through a lengthy review process, culminating in the direct approval of Interior Secretary Burgum himself. It has been widely perceived as an effort to hinder the buildout of renewable energy.
The threatened projects span 44 states; in 18 of those, over 50% of planned electricity capacity is at risk, according to SEIA.
Roughly 40% of the at-risk projects are in Texas. Nearly 45 GW of the solar and storage capacity planned between 2026 and 2030 in the state hasn’t emerged from the oversight process yet, which means that the federal government could still delay or condition approvals.
Other states with a large amount of at-risk capacity include Oregon, with over 7 GW, California, with nearly 6 GW, and Nevada, with 4.7 GW.
The new risk of unpredictable opposition from the federal government adds to the existing list of threats to solar projects across the country. For the past few years, renewable developers have seen a surge in opposition to local projects, and community resistance and local ordinances have been identified as the “leading causes of project delays and cancellations,” on par with grid interconnection issues.
Delays are particularly widespread, with a recent EIA analysis finding that “solar projects representing about 20% of planned capacity reported a delay” in the third quarter of 2025. Those delays are especially common in the late construction or testing phases, right before they come online.
However, at least when it comes to delays, things are moving in the right direction; EIA found that fewer projects reported delays in 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, at 25% of planned capacity.
