Is Big Solar Going the Way of Big Wind?

I’ve spent gobs of time in recent months cataloging the travails of the Big Offshore Wind boondoggles being heavily subsidized by the Biden administration off the northeastern Atlantic coast. Last week’s shutdown of the Vineyard Wind 1 project by the feds after a broken turbine blade littered the Nantucket Island beaches with dangerous fiberglass/chemical materials is just the latest in a long line of failures, controversies over marine mammal killings, and financial difficulties that are the signs of a failing industry.

Across the last few years, things have seemed to be going well for the Big Solar business in the US, which has seen a huge buildout of new, heavily subsidized capacity all over the country. True, the industry has, like Big Wind, seen a rising level of pushback from local communities in recent months, a trend well-chronicled by Robert Bryce at his own Substack. Still, industrial solar’s rate of expansion remains strong and impressive.