In an article for The Houston Chronicle, United's Harry Godfrey warns that clean energy growth in Texas could be stalled as a result of the passage of H.R. 1, emphasizing that the removal of key federal tax credits could potentially stunt job growth, increase electricity costs, and reduce domestic manufacturing across the state.
Less clean energy will be built in Texas as a result of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law by President Donald Trump on the Fourth of July, which could raise annual energy costs for everyday residents by hundreds of dollars in the coming years, industry associations and energy researchers say.
Most damaging to the clean energy industry is that the Big Beautiful Bill aggressively phases out federal tax credits for solar and wind projects, which were greatly expanded in former President Joe Biden’s signature climate legislation in 2022.
Clean energy developers will have a harder time raising money to build their projects if they can’t factor in the tax credits. Many projects may no longer make financial sense and could be abandoned altogether.
“We are, in essence, pulling the rug out from underneath these projects,” said Harry Godfrey, a managing director at Advanced Energy United, a trade group for clean energy companies across the country.
Different groups, however, disagree on just how damaging the new law might be to the industry, which has the most future solar and wind capacity planned for Texas, the state that already has by far the most renewable energy.
One model of the Big Beautiful Bill’s impact forecasts a bloodbath: Texas could lose out on 77 gigawatts of electricity capacity — enough power to supply more than 19 million homes — that might’ve otherwise been built over the next decade if the tax credits were maintained.
In other words, instead of adding 104 gigawatts of new electricity supply in the next ten years, Texas is expected to add only 27 gigawatts, according to Energy Innovation’s modeling, said Dan O’Brien, a senior analyst at the think tank.
Potential job impacts
Still, Godfrey, the managing director of the national clean energy trade group, said he’s worried that fewer solar and wind projects being built in the United States means there will be less demand for domestically-made solar and wind component parts.
Texas has seen an influx of these manufacturing factories — some of them adding thousands of jobs to the Houston region.
Energy Innovation, the think tank, projected that Texas could lose out on 94,000 jobs that might’ve otherwise materialized by 2035 if the Big Beautiful Bill didn’t pass. Some of those would’ve been in the construction of solar and wind farms; others for manufacturing at various points in the clean energy supply chain.
Republicans, though, weren't deterred, including Texas Rep. Chip Roy, who said wind and solar jobs made the country “weaker.”
The clean energy boom from the Biden climate law was also just beginning — meaning many of the projects and factories supported by the tax credits had yet to be built, Energy Innovation's O'Brien said.
Read the full article here.