The US Solar Power Industry Is Trying to Rebrand as MAGA-Friendly

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Seamus Fitzgerald hears a lot of opinions about solar power. As the associate director of real estate at OneEnergy Renewables, a solar energy developer, he approaches farmers and other landowners across the Midwest with proposals to lease their properties for solar projects. Some landowners are excited about being part of the shift to clean energy. Others are hostile to the idea of putting rows of gleaming panels on their land.

Fitzgerald manages to convince many farmers by explaining the simple economics of leasing their land for solar power. “At the end of the day, the financial payments from these types of projects are generally higher than what folks can pull off of their ground through other types of crops,” he said. To sell solar power to people who might have hesitations, he often talks about how the technology was invented in America. “When you install a solar project, you’re collecting an American resource here in America,” Fitzgerald said.

It echoes the way that President Donald Trump talks about energy, though he’s usually heaping praise on American oil and gas, not renewables. Still, the Solar Energy Industries Association, the industry’s primary lobbying group, has found plenty of ways to align its work with the administration’s talking points. Now splayed across its site, next to an image of an American flag hovering over solar panels, is a new slogan: “American Energy DOMINANCE.” Earlier this month, the association participated in a lobbying blitz in Washington, DC, urging lawmakers to keep tax credits for clean energy projects in place.

Solar provided almost 6 percent of total US electricity generation last year, but it’s been growing fast and is expected to supply “almost all growth” in electricity generation this year, according to the pre-Trump Energy Information Administration. Many are hoping that the technology—which is broadly popular among Americans, with 78 percent supporting developing more solar farms—can manage to stay out of Trump’s culture wars over climate change. More so than wind power with its towering turbines, solar energy has an ability to bridge ideological divides, appealing to environmentalists and “don’t-tread-on-me” libertarians alike.

“President Trump has specifically said that he loves solar—and as energy demand soars, we know that solar is the most efficient and affordable way to add a lot of energy to the grid, fast,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, the Solar Energy Industries Association’s president and CEO, in a statement to Grist.

In December her trade group released a policy road map that reflects Trump’s agenda, with priorities such as “eliminate dependence on China” and “cut red tape in the energy sector.” It’s a change from the vision the association laid out in 2020 after the election of former president Joe Biden, when Hopper promised to “meet the moment of the climate era with equity and justice at the forefront.”