Solar News This Week - October 4, 2026

Bill would expand federal role in transmission

A permitting reform bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last week would, in most cases, prevent the revocation or suspension of previously issued federal permits for energy projects, and strengthen the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's authority to site transmission lines.

The bill, named the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act deals with energy system permitting, power grid and transmission expansion and data center cost allocations.

Under permitting, the bill would reduce the authority states have under the Clean Water Act to block gas pipeline applications, shorten deadlines and impose a 150-day limit for judicial challenges to projects, and restrict federal interference and protect permits once they have been issued.

The bill also expands the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) permitting authority for transmission infrastructure, mandates inter regional grid planning and cost sharing and requires modern grid-enhancing technology and virtual power plant market access.

The bill also takes aim at data center cost allocations, forcing data centers to pay for their specific transmission upgrades and attempts to prevent large energy costs from shifting to residential and small business rate payers.

California is 10th state to legalize balcony solar

The Plug and Play Solar Act, SB 868, was recently signed into law by California governor Gavin Newsom. California is the tenth state to legalize balcony solar, which allows homeowners and renters to buy qualified "plug-in" solar panels from retailers without needing an interconnection agreement from their utility. The cost and time involved in getting those permits has been a barrier to widespread deployment of these systems.

The law is designed to eliminate the red tape that has kept these systems from use in apartments, condos and single-family homes. The new law also ensures the systems comply with strict safety standards.

Using language sought by the utilities, the California Assembly added a provision that ends the interconnection exemption for balcony solar on January 1st, 2030 unless the legislature extends it at some point over the next four years.

States that now permit balcony solar include: Utah, Maine, Virginia, Colorado, Maryland, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California. A bill permitting plug-in solar has passed the legislature in New York but has not yet been signed into law by the governor. Bills have also been introduced in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, but have not yet been voted on by the state legislatures.

REAP update makes ground-mount solar projects on farmland ineligible

Historically, the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) has provided grants to rural farmers and small business owners for renewable energy projects. The program gave grants valued at 25 percent of a qualifying project's cost, and the Inflation Reduction Act raised that to 50 percent.

In April of this year, the USDA administration halted the distribution of these funds while the department rewrote program rules to comply with an executive order by President Trump last year aimed at cutting subsidies for renewable energy projects.

The USDA published an update to REAP on Oct 1st that will take effect on Oct. 16th. The update outright prohibits ground-mounted solar projects built on farmland from being eligible for REAP grants. Rooftop solar is apparently still eligible.

Additionally, renewable energy and energy efficiency projects applying for REAP grants no longer can do so ahead of time. A solar project must already be built, and have at least 12 months of "pre-installation data" and 12 months of production data must be submitted in order to apply for the funds.

REAP grants have been critical in expanding solar production in rural regions of the United States. Some solar contractors have relied on these grants to not only build new solar, but make the payback period on PV projects significantly shorter for farmers and rural businesses working within narrow operating margins.

U.S. small-scale solar adds 1.6 GW in Q2 2026

While solar retained its position as the primary source of new U.S. electricity generating capacity, its relative market share contracted compared to previous quarters according to data from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance: A national research and educational organization that promotes local economies, sustainable community development, and decentralized clean energy, banking, and waste systems.

The report indicates this dilution was driven by a significant increase in natural gas generated power coming online, with Q2 recording higher thermal capacity additions than any single quarter over the past two years.

The U.S. distributed solar market added almost 1.6 GW of new capacity in the second quarter of 2026, maintaining a steady buildout rate across behind the meter installations. According to the latest quarterly report , total solar power accounted for 55 percent of all new electric generating capacity added to the national grid when combining utility-scale and small-scale assets.

A key factor supporting small-scale solar resilience is the rapid co-location of battery energy storage systems (BESS). Behind the meter storage deployments saw over 2.5 GWh of distributed storage capacity added across residential, commercial, and community sites.

Battery storage paired with 37 percent of new U.S. residential solar systems in 2025

And echoing this data, More than one-third of new residential solar installations in the United States included battery storage in 2025, as batteries increasingly shift from an optional addition to a standard component of rooftop solar projects. According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's latest U.S. Distributed Solar and Storage Data update.

Battery storage was paired with 37 percent of new residential photovoltaic systems in 2025, up from 25 percent in 2024.

Berkeley Lab highlighted particularly large increases in Arizona and Texas. Hawaii and California continued to post the highest residential storage attachment rates in the country.

The typical amount of energy stored in residential batteries did not change significantly. Median residential storage capacity remained 13.5 kWh in both 2024 and 2025.