The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to mobilize financing and deliver projects that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants facing American communities. One of the fund’s three programs, a $7 billion Solar For All program, was created to deploy distributed solar energy projects – including residential rooftop solar, residential-serving community and shared solar, and storage solutions – to 60 grant recipients, ranging across all 50 states, plus territories, Tribal governments, municipalities, and nonprofits. Not only will grants and financing help deploy residential solar, but services will also be provided to eliminate other barriers ranging across siting, permitting, and interconnection.
Photo Courtesy Renewable Energy Systems of Alaska
The result of these projects is expected to include a more widespread deployment of this reliable energy source. The EPA estimates that the Solar For All Program will expand residential solar capacity for low-income homes by 4 GW, a one-third increase over the next five years. This available energy will be particularly impactful for those who typically experience grid shortages.
In addition, these solar projects are estimated to eliminate more than 30 million metric tons of carbon emissions, the same amount of emissions generated by more than 7 million cars. The health of the people living in these communities will benefit from fewer pollutants and cleaner air, and the country itself will benefit from the effort to combat the climate crisis.
The projects will also ensure access to affordable energy, with cost savings on electric bills for families. According to the EPA, the average household will benefit from the program by saving approximately $400 per year, or roughly 20 percent. Overall, these projects will deliver more than $350 million in savings per year and more than $8 billion in savings over the 25-year average lifespans of the solar assets.
Finally, the EPA estimates that the program will create 200,000 good-paying jobs over the next five years, with each grant recipient committed to local workforce development.
All of this comes at the perfect time for the state of Alaska. In a November 2024 report, the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Alaska Center for Energy and Power concluded that community solar, in particular, is poised for success: “Alaska shows significant potential for solar energy growth. This is a particularly conducive time for Alaskans to launch community solar projects because of new IRA tax incentives, Solar for All funding and recent state legislation which encourages CS projects.”
Photo Courtesy Alaska Energy Authority
In October 2023, state agencies, the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA) and the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC), submitted a request to the EPA for funding to establish a two-pronged Solar for All program, with the money split between the organizations as a coalition. Last April, the EPA announced that it had selected the AEA, the lead applicant, and awarded the partners $62.45 million for the five-year Alaska Solar for All (ASFA) program.
Separately, but announced in the same press release, the EPA awarded another $62.45 million to the Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC), an Alaska Native non-profit corporation that will lead two other organizations in a tribal consortium operating the Alaska Tribal Solar for All (Alaska Tribal SFA) program. Each of the organizations – which also include the AHFC and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium – have programs dedicated to expanding solar access to Tribal residents living in Alaska. Between these two EPA selections, a total of over $124 million is headed to the state.
Casey Sixkiller, EPA Region 10 Administrator, noted in the press release that “This funding will be used to supercharge the deployment of solar power in communities, create jobs, make our power grid more resilient, and lower the cost of energy for every household.”
Senator Lisa Murkowski has long been a supporter of solar. As she stated in a 2018 Facebook post, “Things are looking bright thanks to solar energy’s growth in Alaska. Many people think of our state as being dark much of the year, however, between the spring and fall equinox most of the state gets 12 hours of daylight and nearly 20 hours around solstice. I have long supported the use of renewables to help diversify our energy portfolio while meeting our growing energy needs. The innovation we are seeing with solar power is another step toward boosting cleaner, more affordable energy in the years ahead.”
Senator Dan Sullivan has also long advocated for clean power at home in Alaska. In a press release last year welcoming $125.1 million in federal funding for five rural energy development projects, he noted that “Alaska is an all-of-the-above energy power house. I’ve long advocated for taking advantage of Alaska’s untapped renewable energy potential to meet our communities’ energy needs, especially in our rural areas where Alaskans bear the exorbitant cost of diesel fuel to heat their homes and keep the lights on.”
Photo Courtesy Alaska Solar
In October, the AEA submitted its workplan to the EPA, with the funding expected to follow at the top of 2025. However, on Monday, January 27, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memo telling federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance.”
The next day, the EPA sent letters to the Solar For All program’s recipients, stating that it was working with the White House Office of Management and Budget to implement the president’s executive order on “Unleashing American Energy.” Section 7 of that order directs agencies to pause fund disbursement from 2021’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act. A memorandum clarified that this directive referred specifically to funding for awards and contracts for clean energy and climate-related projects.
Solar For All program recipients contacted by E&E News that week reported that they no longer had access to the EPA’s grant management portal and lacked contact information to ask questions about the freeze. In late February, the EPA claimed funding was once again available to recipients, but the permanence of that status quo is in question. “Will they be frozen again? What’s going to happen next? To be determined. Many of these grants have been frozen and unfrozen and frozen again multiple times in just the last few weeks,” said Michelle Roos, executive director of the Environmental Protection Network.
This makes uncertain Alaska’s plans to use the funding to construct solar photovoltaic infrastructure through two sub-programs of the Alaska Solar For All program. The Community Program under the AEA is meant to develop community-scale solar projects and battery energy storage systems for rural areas of the state, which modeling indicated had high solar potential and the ability to integrate with microgrids. Meanwhile, the Residential Rooftop Program under the AHFC would focus on bringing subsidized rooftop solar installations to residential or multifamily, grid-connected households, particularly in urban areas.
The AEA and AHFC also plan to capitalize on their impact by leveraging funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program for the same communities and by encouraging the communities themselves to take advantage of production tax credits.
All in all, approximately 84.8% of the funding will be disbursed in the form of subgrants or other financial assistance, with AEA bringing community solar power to an estimated 3,504 households and AHFC bringing rooftop arrays and projects to about 2,596 households.
The AEA and AHFC expect household cost savings of 39.8% from the community program, amounting to over $40 million across 30 years, and household cost savings of 42% from the residential program, amounting to $640 per year and more than $49.8 million over 30 years.
The freeze also jeopardizes the workforce development commitments that would come along with this work. In addition to support from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, the University of Alaska and the Alaska Center for Energy and Power at the University of Alaska Fairbanks backed AEA and AHFC’s proposal due to its implications for building a strong Alaskan solar workforce. Moreover, AEA remains committed to collaborating with the University of Alaska system on creating solar-related courses and certifications. Finally, the Alaska Works Partnership, a nonprofit working to connect Alaskans with workforce opportunities in construction-related industries, is set to receive a sub-award of its own to train locals for associated apprenticeships or employment. It will do so through programs that are already up and running, like Alaska Construction Academies, Helmets to Hardhats, and Women in the Trades.
Photo Courtesy Cook Inlet Housing Authority
The potential funding freeze also puts at risk the work of the Alaska Tribal Solar For All (Alaska Tribal SFA) to expand the resiliency and cost-saving benefits of solar power to all Tribal residents in the state, “Whether a Tribal member owns a house with sufficient capacity to manage distributed generation, or a Tribal member lives in a community that operates a tiny isolated microgrid where rooftop solar isn’t feasible,” as the EPA wrote in the press release. In fact, Alaska is home to 40% of the country’s Federally Recognized Tribes. With its makeup standing at 19.6% Alaska Native and American Indian residents, it maintains the highest percentage of all states.
The consortium has two planned sub-programs that will help them deliver meaningful results to these communities. The Railbelt Tribal Community Solar program would be run by the Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) to bring community solar projects to the Alaska Railbelt, a region of urban areas that are home to 70% of the people living in the state, by giving grants to Tribes and regional Tribal nonprofits. Meanwhile, the Community Solar program would be run by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium to install community-scale solar projects and battery energy storage systems for Tribes in remote and rural areas, thereby enabling them to become Independent Power Producers and bring in associated revenue. Part of the Alaska Tribal SFA program will also be run by the AHFC, which will completely subsidize the cost of solar projects for Alaska Native residences that otherwise qualify; these households will then fully own those systems.
Photo Courtesy Tanana Chiefs Conference
Community leaders in Alaska believe that these funds would go a long way to delivering economic and environmental benefits to Alaskans. As State Representative and U.S. Navy combat veteran Stanley Wright wrote in an op-ed for the Anchorage Daily News last February, “As a state, Alaska has incredible potential when it comes to advancing an all-of-the-above energy strategy that includes clean energy technologies, such as wind and solar power, as well as electric vehicles. Last year alone, roughly one-third of our state’s total electricity came from clean energy resources. With additional projects on the horizon — a large-scale solar farm in the Mat-Su region and an impressive geothermal project out in Unalaska — we can expect to see a robust energy grid that, ideally, will lower energy costs for much of the population across the state.”
