A new report from the Nevada Independent found that increased utility bills, job losses, and significant cuts to Nevada’s solar energy industry are on the horizon due to Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”, which Joe Lombardo has celebrated. The bill will undermine environmental protections and cost the state jobs and federal investments. 

The Republican budget bill repeals nearly all of the clean energy tax credits enacted under the Inflation Reduction Act–credits that helped spur more than $15.5 billion in investments and more than 21,000 good-paying clean energy jobs in Nevada.

Nevada has claimed more of its potential IRA funds than any other state in the nation, including receiving over $96 million for consumer home energy rebate programs to help families lower their energy costs. In 2023, Nevada’s clean energy industry employed 35,158 workers and more than 41,000 Nevada families benefited from more than $151 million in tax credits. 

Due to these cuts to solar in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”, Nevadans will have to pay an estimated $350 annually for energy costs in the coming years.  

A report released by the Nevada Current revealed that Joe Lombardo has spent his time – on the campaign trail and as governor – criticizing investments made by federal Democrats while attempting to take credit for job-creating projects funded by those same investments, including the IRA. Now, as those same projects – as well as tax credits benefiting our solar industry – have been cut by Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration, Lombardo said Nevadans should be “excited” about the loss of tens of thousands of good-paying jobs and the disruption to hardworking people’s lives and wallets. 

Read more below:

The Nevada Independent: For future growth, Nevada needs solar. Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ won’t help.

Cuts to utility-scale and residential solar tax credits could hamstring a major Nevada power source

Key points:

• Increasing power bills and significant cutbacks in Nevada’s burgeoning solar industry are among some of the consequences that clean energy experts say to expect from the recent passage of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

• The act repeals nearly all of the estimated hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy tax credits enacted under former President Joe Biden and rescinds any unobligated funds for clean energy and climate programs created during his presidency. Biden enacted various ambitious climate-related acts in his effort to reduce national emissions, including offering substantial tax credits on utility-scale and residential solar construction.

• Although the credits were set to eventually expire, their accelerated cancellation (some as soon as this fall) could have outsized effects on Nevada, a state that leads the nation in solar generation per capita and relies on solar energy for about a third of all power produced within the state.

• Clean energy advocates worry that rolling back the credits will push Nevada to rely even more heavily on imported fossil fuels such as natural gas, raising electricity bills higher in Nevada than in states that produce their own natural gas. Experts are predicting a loss of 140 gigawatts of solar production nationwide through 2035, and, as a result, the average American’s energy costs are expected to rise by about $280 over the next decade. In Nevada, experts project even larger increases, with bills rising by as much as $320 by 2035.

• At the same time, the state’s demand for power isn’t slowing. NV Energy is forecasting “unprecedented load growth” in the coming decades with much of that pressure coming from industry and data centers. But if solar production slows, it could be harder to whet the state’s appetite for power given that solar is the leading power source being added to the national grid.

• Since 2022, federal clean energy tax credits have spurred more than $15.5 billion in investment and created more than 21,000 jobs in Nevada, according to Steve Hamile, chair of the Nevada Solar Association. Nevada leads the nation with the most solar jobs per capita — for every 100,000 residents, roughly 269 are employed in a solar-related industry, such as installation, manufacturing and recycling.  

• Nevada ranked fourth in the nation for total electricity generation from utility- and small-scale solar resources combined last year, and there are more than 130,000 megawatts of proposed renewable energy development set to come online in Nevada through 2030. Most of that is in the form of battery storage (more than 54,000 megawatts) and solar (more than 72,000 megawatts).

• Nevada currently produces about 15,000 megawatts of power annually through renewable sources, according to the Governor’s Office of Energy.  One megawatt is equivalent to the power required to serve about 600 households, according to NV Energy. 

• Under the new law, utility-scale solar tax credits previously set to expire at the end of 2032 — as well as other credits for renewable sources such as wind — will be rolled back much sooner; now, utility-scale projects must be under construction within the next year and completed by the end of 2027 to qualify for credits.

• The cuts also affect residential solar credits — they are slated to expire at the end of this year. 

• There are roughly 135,000 solar customers in the state, according to NV Energy; Hamile predicts there will be a rush of people trying to take advantage of the residential solar tax credits during the next several months followed by a sharp drop in sales at the start of next year. But it’s not just sales that will be affected, he said. “It’s not only a labor-intensive business, it’s an equipment intensive business,” he said. “The ancillary support around solar companies is extensive, so the impact will be felt in a wide variety of industries.”

• Combined, the state is likely to lose as many as 7,000 solar-related jobs over the next decade, according to Dan O’Brien, a senior modeling analyst at Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan energy and climate policy think tank.

• With the shortened timelines for credits, some solar and storage projects already under construction in Nevada could be completed, but dozens of others in the early stages of development face what Olson says are major hurdles. As a result, she says Nevadans will see a mismatch in energy supply and demand by the end of the decade that will consequently increase prices and see the state rely more on natural gas or other forms of imported electricity.

• “Solar is the cheapest and most effective way to build energy production in Nevada. De-insentivizing the utilities from doing so is really detrimental,” O’Brien said. “What we’re seeing is in the next four or five years [is] we’re not going to be able to add in new gas plants to fill in the gap left by solar and wind.”