The first months of the Trump administration were characterized in part by lost jobs, particularly among federal workers — to the tune of nearly 200,000 civil servants — and the organizations that rely on federal funding.
But nearly eight months in, the ripple effect is underway. The residential solar industry has relied for nearly two decades on the 25D tax credit, but due to the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill passed in July, it will now abruptly sunset at the end of this year. And in part as a result, companies are beginning to lay off workers — and even close their doors entirely.
The most significant example is residential solar installer PosiGen, which announced last week that it has to cease “most of its operations” throughout the U.S. due to financial difficulties. The initial layoffs include 78 workers in Connecticut and 166 workers in Louisiana, though the company warned that it expects to shut down all operations and terminate all remaining employees between Aug. 31 and Sept. 13. if it does not obtain sufficient financing.
The company said in a WARN Act notice to the Connecticut Department of Labor that it experienced rapid growth recently, which placed a “liquidity strain both in the short term and the long term.”
“Ultimately, [PosiGen’s] efforts to raise long term capital, including through a possible asset securitization transaction, failed,” the company wrote in a letter notifying the impacted Connecticut cities of the decision to close. “This all occurred in the shadow of the passage of a new federal tax law that cancelled certain federal renewable energy tax credits as of the end of 2025, adding regulatory uncertainty to the renewables industry and making it more difficult for the company to secure financing.”
The company, which offers both battery storage and solar installation services, has customers spanning Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.
Meanwhile, the market downturn is also impacting organizations that serve the solar industry. Last week, the California-based solar advocacy nonprofit Vote Solar laid off 20% of its staff, or 11 people, a decision that CEO Sachu Constantine said on LinkedIn came “in response to the rapidly evolving political and funding landscape.”
In the wake of OBBB, industry observers have told Latitude Media that residential solar is in a moment of flux. While it has survived policy whiplash before, the Trump administration is a real test; according to Energy Sage data, 64% of small installers expect the change to “dramatically harm” their business.
Jigar Shah, a renewable energy entrepreneur who led the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office under the Biden administration, told Latitude in August that one of the industry’s fundamental challenges is to “convince people that they really can provide services to the utility.” Surviving this moment, he continued, will require both an evolution in industry leadership, and the willingness to shift business models to bring costs down.
These latest losses are an escalation of a trend that began when Trump took office in January — but intensified post-OBBB. In the weeks after the bill’s passage, the small Massachusetts-based solar developer New Leaf Energy laid off 41 employees, a decision it explicitly linked to the end of the federal ITC.
According to a July report from the research group E2, in the first half of 2025, eight major solar projects have been canceled, closed, or downsized. These amount to nearly $3 billion in investment, and 2,799 jobs lost.
