Now, as Grid Alternatives prepares to launch its first Solar for All projects, he said, “We’re in capacity-building mode and compliance mode.”
Rumors that the EPA plans to terminate Solar for All have been swirling for months, said Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit coalition of attorneys, law students, and activists that’s challenging other EPA funding cuts.
“There are many, many Solar for All grantees doing everything in their power to move things forward,” she said. “But EPA is not making it easy.”
Cutting off Solar for All grants would almost certainly draw a legal challenge, given that the funds were awarded by the EPA last year under contracts that cannot be terminated without cause.
“If leaders in the Trump administration move forward with this unlawful attempt to strip critical funding from communities across the United States, we will see them in court,” Kym Meyer, litigation director for the Southern Environmental Law Center, told Canary Media. “We have already seen the immense good this program has done on the ground, and we won’t let it be snatched away to score political points.”
An EPA spokesperson declined to say if the agency intends to terminate Solar for All grants, but told Canary Media in a Tuesday email that “with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, EPA is working to ensure Congressional intent is fully implemented in accordance with the law.”
Blanchard said that language in the megalaw clearly indicates that the intent of lawmakers was to retain obligated spending from the GGRF. “If EPA does this unilaterally, it will be pulling a complete bait and switch on the American people, increasing utility bills, and flouting congressional intent,” she said.
Building the energy the grid needs — and fast
Terminating Solar for All funds wouldn’t just harm the communities burdened by high and rising electricity prices, said Sachu Constantine, executive director of nonprofit advocacy group Vote Solar. It would also hurt utilities struggling to meet rising electricity demand.
A growing body of research shows that low-income neighborhoods and communities of color face greater risks of power outages and grid failures, partly due to decades of underinvestment in the grids that serve them. Solar for All “targets frontline underinvested communities, which means it’s targeting weak spots on the grid,” Constantine said. “It’s infrastructure in the right places for the right people.”
And solar and batteries are the right technology to solve the problem, he contended. Solar panels and lithium-ion batteries are not only the cheapest and fastest-to-deploy sources of new grid supply; they’re also capable of lowering peak electricity demands that drive the lion’s share of utility costs, by serving as virtual power plants.
“When we don’t have to deploy the most expensive peaker [power plants], when we can better utilize the distribution lines, we’re saving the cost for everyone,” he said. “We’re taking the entire system and making it run better.”
That’s a role Georgia Bright wants to play with its community-benefits solar program, Brown said. Last month, the Georgia Public Service Commission approved a long-term resource plan from Georgia Power, the state’s biggest utility, which has been criticized by environmental and consumer advocates for extending the life of aging coal-fired power plants and opening the door to building up to 8.5 gigawatts of new fossil gas–fired turbines.
But the plan also includes a pledge from Georgia Power to develop a pilot program that will seek up to 50 megawatts of solar and battery capacity from customers. Georgia Bright worked to get that program included in the utility’s plan, Brown said — and it plans to use its community-benefits solar program to help churches, nonprofits, businesses, and multifamily housing properties install the solar and batteries to participate in it.
“I think we’ll hit the 50 megawatts pretty quickly — and the commission is open to raise that limit,” she said. “They recognize if you need to serve all this new load, you can’t wait on natural gas plants that have a five-year backlog to get a turbine.”
Groundswell’s Southeast Rural Power Program offers similar fast-start options for utilities struggling to meet growing demand for power, Moore said. “It’s a straightforward way to work across the Southeast in very diverse states with very diverse needs.”
SECO Energy, a rural electric cooperative in Florida, is one of the potential partners for Groundswell’s new program. About 80,000 of SECO’s roughly 250,000 customers are low and moderate income, and “Solar for All checks a lot of the boxes for us to serve that segment of the population,” SECO CEO Curtis Wynn said.
“We’re in a high-growth area, and during the last two or three days, the heat index was over 100 degrees — it puts a strain on our system,” he said. “If there’s a way we can use grant dollars to buy down the cost of generation today that’s going to remain stable in the next 20 years in a rising-cost environment, that’s a huge advantage.”
