Trump Or No Trump, The US Solar Industry Is Hanging In There

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Now that the President of the United States has gone completely off his rocker and sent the entire nation spinning into a black hole of chaos, it’s rather difficult to pay attention to other things. Take the state of the US solar industry, for example. Well, Trump or not, the domestic solar industry is in pretty good shape, all things considered. After all, the President can’t stop the sun from shining, and he can’t stop investors from placing money on a good bet. But, before we get to that…did somebody say Epstein?

Did Somebody Say Epstein?

If Trump’s nuttery has a singular goal — and that’s an open question — the end game is to keep the Epstein files under lock and key, despite an Act of Congress stipulating their release by December 19. For the record, that was supposed to be December 19 of last year, not this one.

Seen through that lens, Trump’s battier-than-bat—t antics amount to an increasingly desperate attempt to steer public attention towards anything and everything but the Epstein files. After all, how else to explain this latest missive from the President to another head of state:

“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”

Who talks like this? Not even your crazy old uncle’s even crazier and older uncle could concoct such a hot mess of cognitive disconnect. Nevertheless, the above is a confirmed text message, sent from Trump himself to the Prime Minister of Norway by way of doubling down on his other whackadoodle obsession, the takeover of Greenland. Greenland, fergawdsakes.

Trump has established a lifelong pattern of leveraging chaos for personal gain, which got him to where he is today. However, of late the mental gears have been slipping. The more he tries to bury the Epstein files, the more he’s got people — including his own MAGA cult — thinking that he has something to hide.

$22.2 Billion For Solar Energy In The US

If you have any thoughts about that, drop a note in the comment thread. Better yet, find your representatives in Congress and let them know what you think.

And now back to the state of the US solar industry. In one particularly interesting development this week, the firm Mercom Capital ran the numbers for 2025 and found a downturn in investments, as expected. “Total corporate funding, including venture capital (VC) funding, public market, and debt financing into the solar sector, decreased 16% year-over-year (YoY) in 2025, with $22.2 billion raised in 175 deals, compared to $26.3 billion in 157 deals in 2024,” Mercom summarized in its newly released 2025 Annual Solar Funding and M&A Report.

Yes, $22.2 billion is significantly less than $26.3 billion. But it’s still a lot of money pouring into the idea of converting sunlight into zero emission electricity. That indicates an industry able to sustain itself through tough times, and if you caught that thing about 175 deals, that’s where Mercom has spotted the potential for a rebound.

A Bright Spot: Mergers And Acquisitions

With the increase in deals from 157 to 175 front and center, Mercom describes 2025 as “a year of adjustment rather than retreat, with investors favoring smaller, lower-risk, execution-ready projects amid policy uncertainty, trade pressures, and higher financing costs.”

“Despite these challenges, corporate funding activity was resilient, with deal counts increasing to multi-year highs even as total capital raised declined, reflecting a shift toward smaller and more selective transactions,” noted Mercom Capital CEO Raj Prabhu in a press statement.

“Corporate and project M&A were bright spots in 2025, reflecting sustained demand for solar assets driven by rising energy demand,” Prabhu added, with M&A being short for mergers and acquisitions.

Solar Is Hanging In There

The report itself unveils some interesting details about the direction of investment in the US solar industry. The sharp U-turn in federal energy slowed things down but there was still plenty of activity, with global investors playing a key role.

“Global VC and private equity funding in the solar sector in 2025 came to $3.5 billion in 75 deals, 22% lower than the $4.5 billion raised in 60 deals in 2024. There were eight VC funding deals of $100 million or more in 2025,” Mercom observes.

“Public market financing in the solar sector in 2025 totaled $2.6 billion, 13% lower than the $3 billion raised in 2024. Nine companies went public in 2025, bringing in $926 million, compared to the same number of companies that raised $1.3 billion in 2024,” the firm added.

In another interesting data point, Mercom took note of a rise in M&A transactions. “M&A activity was 17% higher YoY in 2025, with 96 corporate M&A transactions compared to 82 in 2024,” the firm recounted, taking particular note of note of a $2.3 billion transaction in which a branch of the New York firm Ares Management Corporation acquired 20% of the Plenitude branch of Italy-based Eni Renewable Energy.

Eni is new to the pages of CleanTechnica so this is a good time to play catch-up. “With our photovoltaic and storage plants, we have 1.7 GW of total installed capacity, spread across more than 20 plants in over 5 states,” Eni Plenitude says of itself.

“We have also completed the construction of the Guajillo plant, located in Webb County, southwest Texas. It is the largest battery storage system we have built so far. With a capacity of 200 MW, the plant is located near the Corazon Solar Farm, enabling more efficient use of resources and energy. It is set to become operational by 2025 and will contribute to a more stable and efficient regional power grid,” the company adds.

So Much For The Good News …

As for the big picture, it’s all well and good to see a significant the US solar industry sustaining a significant degree of investor interest. However, solar is just one piece of the clean energy puzzle, and 2025 saw plenty of pieces missing.

The business organization E2 has been keeping track of the number and value of major clean energy projects canceled, closed, or downsized in 2025. The picture is not a pretty one. “More than $32 billion in investments and nearly 40,000 jobs have been abandoned by in 2025, compared to less than $12 billion and 19,000 new jobs announced,” E2 summarized in its latest report, which included data from January through October.

For those of you keeping score at home, that’s a difference of roughly 20,000 jobs…and where are those people supposed to go for work? Greenland, maybe?

Photo: The US solar industry experienced a slowdown in growth during 2025, but investor activity still contributed $22.2 billion to the domestic economy (cropped, by Werner Slocum, NREL).