From Sea to Shining Sea: A Recap of 2025 State Solar Policy Wins

Illinois took a major step forward today as Governor JB Pritzker signed the 2025 Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, expanding battery storage and advancing a statewide virtual power plant program. While energy policy chaos in Washington, DC grabs the spotlight, SEIA delivered meaningful solar and storage victories like this in states across the country in 2025.

From California to Texas to Virginia, blue, red, and purple states alike are turning to solar and storage to ensure that they can meet rapidly rising energy demand affordably.

In 2026, SEIA is doubling down on its state and local advocacy to make sure all people, in all states, can enjoy the myriad benefits solar and storage offer: lower electricity bills; good jobs; economic development; and a cleaner, more reliable electric grid.

Before 2026 state legislative sessions get underway, let’s take a trip across the country, from West to East, to look back at some of 2025’s biggest state policy wins for solar and storage.

California

In the country’s largest solar market, the California State Legislature passed two bills that will help lower energy prices: Assembly Bill 825 and Senate Bill 302. AB 825 begins the process of establishing a regional electricity partnership across the West. By setting the stage for a broader energy market, the state will enable more efficient energy production and distribution, and a more reliable grid. Senate Bill 302 will aid in keeping energy project costs down by aligning California’s tax code with provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act to unlock expiring federal tax benefits for renewable projects in the state.

Moreover, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Executive Order on Bolstering Clean Energy Projects. The EO ensures California’s agencies and utilities stay on track and expedite projects of all sizes to ensure they can take advantage of expiring federal tax credits. This will save Californians billions of dollars in avoided energy costs while strengthening grid reliability.

Nevada

SEIA is leading the charge to ensure the solar and storage industry’s growth is as sustainable as possible. As part of this work, SEIA released a first-of-its-kind circular economy roadmap and hosted the inaugural Sustainability Conference in fall of 2025. In Nevada, SEIA helped pass Assembly Bill 493, which requires utility-scale projects to incorporate decommissioning plans for panels and end-of-life management for distributed solar system owners.  

Colorado

In Colorado, SEIA and the Colorado Solar and Storage Association advanced smart solar policy by successfully advocating for new laws, executive actions, and regulatory changes.  

Colorado extended its residential energy storage tax credit through 2030 and adopted a proactive consumer protection law. On August 1, Governor Jared Polis signed an executive order to streamline the development of clean energy projects by removing local barriers, accelerating interconnection, and advancing utility-scale procurement. These steps will save Coloradans money, create good local jobs, and strengthen grid reliability. 

SEIA also provided key expert witness testimony that led the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to approve the state’s first Virtual Power Plant program, creating a new market for customer-driven grid value and flexibility. The program will be stood up in 2026 and offers a fair, consistent, and performance-based compensation tariff that will drive additional distributed generation storage adoption.  

SEIA also helped reach a settlement with utility Xcel Energy on a first-of-its-kind Dispatchable Distributed Generation program, standing up a pathway for solar and storage to meet critical resource adequacy needs and deliver grid value.  The settlement adds $110 million to the DDG program budget above and beyond the statutorily mandated 50-megawatt (MW) program in 2026 and 2027, further demonstrating the unique ability of solar and storage to meet near term reliability needs.  

Texas

Texas is known as the Energy Capital, and the state proved worthy of its name in 2025 by passing commonsense laws to strengthen solar access and rejecting energy subtraction policies that would have curtailed the state’s solar and storage boom.  

SEIA, energy trade groups, Texas grid experts, business leaders, and rural landowners helped defeat three bills that threatened to destabilize the Texas grid and harm rural economies and tax bases: Senate Bills 388, SB 715, and SB 819.  

SEIA also worked closely with partners and allies in the Texas legislature to pass a trio of bills to strengthen Texas homeowners’ freedom to choose the affordable, clean solar and storage they are demanding. 

As SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper said, “more and more Texans are turning to rooftop solar and home battery storage to strengthen their energy freedom and resiliency while lowering their bills, and they deserve to have as smooth an experience as possible. SB 1202 will streamline installations of home backup power systems like solar and storage. SB 1036 and SB 1697 will ensure that Texans interested in investing in rooftop solar are able to make informed transactions with responsible companies.” 

Illinois

In Illinois, SEIA led a broad coalition to help pass the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, a bill that will help Illinois families and businesses save $13 billion on their electricity bills over 20 years. The bill calls for the Illinois Power Agency to procure 3 gigawatts of energy storage by 2030 to secure the state’s energy future, incentivizes stand-alone energy storage projects, and establishes a forward-looking Virtual Power Plant program to make sure that that distributed generation can send power to the grid and bolster the grid’s resilience when energy is most needed. 

This bill follows the state’s 2017 Future Energy Jobs Act and 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act and will help save money, create good jobs, and strengthen the Illinois grid. 

Virginia

The Democratic-led legislature and Republican Governor in the Data Center Capital of the World passed SEIA-supported HB2346/SB1100, requiring the Commonwealth’s biggest utility, Dominion, to create a Virtual Power Plant pilot program.  

Maryland

The Maryland General Assembly passed two major solar and storage laws that will help  developers plan for the future by providing more regulatory certainty.  

Governor Wes Moore signed the Renewable Energy Certainty Act, which modernizes and standardizes the permitting process for front-of-the-meter solar and storage projects. Prior to the law being enacted, developers considering investing in Maryland had to navigate a patchwork of onerous and shifting permitting frameworks from county to county. These local obstacles often hindered the rights of private landowners seeking to partner with solar developers to secure a consistent revenue stream in the face of volatile agricultural markets.  

In addition, the Next Generation Energy Act creates a process for deploying 1,600 MW of front-of-the-meter energy storage technology. 

New Jersey

New Jersey passed a trio of bills to stabilize the state’s grid and lower customers electricity bills. A5768/S4530 unlocks 3 GW of community solar capacity. A5267/S4289  requires the Board of Public Utilities to procure and incentivize transmission-scale energy storage with a goal to deploy 2 GW of storage by 2030.  

Finallyu, just before Christmas, New Jersey joined Texas in passing a bill to streamline and modernize the process for permitting residential solar energy systems. Smart solar permitting helps businesses and households lower their electricity bills with rooftop solar by cutting costly red tape that can add up to $7,000 to the cost of an average system — while still ensuring the safety and reliability of these systems. 

What’s Next

In state after state, leaders committed to evidence-based decision-making keep drawing the same conclusions: solar and storage are critical for lowering electricity prices and meeting fast-rising demand. The bipartisan support for solar and storage is not ideological; it’s simply good policy. But it’s good politics too.  

As the results of the 2025 election showed, voters support leaders with plans to lower electricity costs through solar and storage. In 2026, 36 states will hold state-level elections and hundreds of state legislative seats will be open. And energy affordability will once again be on the ballot.  

Now is the time for more state leaders to show their constituents that they understand what it takes to lower people’s electricity bills, meet fast-rising energy demand, and strengthen the economy. SEIA looks forward to continuing to work with leaders across the country — and across the political spectrum — to make sure the solar and storage industry can do what it does best: build the fast, affordable, reliable, clean power that people are demanding. 

SEIA’s tireless advocacy for the solar and storage industry will continue in states across the country in 2026. Join the movement for a better, more affordable energy system by becoming a SEIA member or signing up for our Solar Powers America grassroots team today.