The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is the latest in a series of federal policies that will make electricity prices in Southwest Colorado more expensive, make rural communities less resilient to climate change and hurt regional job growth, according to energy providers, policymakers and employers.
Signed into law by Congress on July 4, the Big Beautiful Bill reverses Biden-era tax incentives for building renewable energy projects in the hopes of expanding America’s fossil fuel industry. That includes the Residential Clean Energy Credit, a 30% tax break for people wanting to install solar panels on their homes.
Reversing that tax cut has already lost Josh Shipley business, whose company Alternative Power Enterprises installs residential solar systems in Montrose. Shipley said many of his clients planned on installing solar in their home with that 30% tax break as a major factor. Since the bill passed, inquiries into Shipley’s services have evaporated, posing an existential threat to his business and the livelihoods of his seven employees.
“It’s taken a long time to get to where we are,” Shipley said. “I have a whole bunch of friends and family that work with me, and seeing all of our livelihoods potentially be affected makes me emotional.”
Before the bill’s passage, Shipley saw a 30-45% decline in installation inquiries. Since it became law, he has had only five, none of which were serious, he said.
John Shaw founded Shaw Solar in 2005, and in the two decades since, he has hired 30 people and services both residential and commercial solar systems. Shaw has seen a similar decrease in inquiries for residential solar projects, he said.
Shaw has been able to absorb some of the losses by expanding into energy-efficient heating and cooling system installations and doing more commercial solar jobs. But the cuts contained within the Big Beautiful Bill come just as solar was finally becoming available to a larger part of the population, he said, and with it offering low-cost electricity.
“Twenty years ago, everyone we installed solar for were very wealthy people wanting to do the right thing,” Shaw said. “Just in the last five years, we started installing solar for teachers and firemen, bringing solar to a different part of the population that could finally afford it. I think this bill is a step in the wrong direction.”
What Shaw observed lines up with national trends in energy prices. The Lazard Levelized Cost of Energy report, which helps governments, energy providers and investors make informed policies, showed that solar and onshore wind are the cheapest form of electricity generation available. The American Energy Information Administration predicted that in 2025, solar and battery storage will make up the majority of energy capacity in the U.S., out competing fossil fuels.
“The combination of wind, solar, batteries and gas created a very low cost, affordable portfolio,” said La Plata Electric Association CEO Chris Hansen. “The federal legislation and tariffs have raised the prices of all of those options, including gas.”
Hansen said the bill’s slashes to renewable energy tax incentives, in addition to tariffs placed on imported steel, copper and aluminum have made power infrastructure more expensive to build. This fact, in addition to a rising demand for electricity, has created an economic “scissor effect,” he explained; there is more demand and less low-cost supply, which means energy becomes more expensive, regardless of where it comes from.
Hansen said in the coming years, consumers can expect to pay 30-50% more on their energy bills because of the government’s economic policies.
EcoAction Partners Climate Policy Director Siobhan Montoya-Lavender said in addition to hurting local jobs and making energy in the region more expensive, the government’s economic policies will make rural communities throughout less resilient. She said communities like Silverton and Ridgway, which see power outages because of wildfires and snowstorms, will now have a harder time installing renewable energy sources that serve as backups for when the electricity goes out.
“It's hard, because the challenges that are we're facing with wildfires and reduced snow melt are happening more and more frequently,” she said. “We’re in such a time crunch here.”
Wildfires and sporadic precipitation events are becoming more common due to climate change, Montoya-Lavender said. Making renewable energy more costly has only hindered communities’ ability to be resilient to those events in the future.
For Shipley, choosing to cut incentives for renewable energy is a purely political decision. He pointed out that many communities throughout Southwest Colorado, like his home in Montrose, are Republican. More people are choosing to go solar purely because they want to save money on electricity, regardless of their political leanings.
“It just blows me away that energy, in any way, shape or form, has become a political thing,” Shipley said. “The Montrose area tends to be heavily Republican. So most of the solar systems we install here are for people doing it for fiscal reasons.”
According to Nerdwallet, homeowners wishing to install solar panels can receive the 30% tax break if they install the panels before Dec. 31, 2025.
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
