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Now that the dust has settled over US President Donald Trump’s “American Energy Dominance” plan, it’s clear that the President didn’t really mean to catch solar power with the same hook he has deployed against the domestic wind industry. The solar industry continues to dominate new capacity additions to the nation’s grid, and now the President has ordered up a new incentive program to boost the domestic supply of polysilicon, the key ingredient in silicon solar cells.
Solar Power Insists Upon Itself
It’s a mystery why Trump has been fighting both wind and solar power. After all, between the two of them, wind and solar are the most economical and accessible domestic energy resources on the market today. For that matter, Trump’s “American Energy Dominance” plan supports other renewable energy resources, namely, biomass, hydro, and geothermal.
The Trump administration justifies leaving wind and solar out of the Energy Dominance loop based a specious “reliability” standard, stipulating that power plants should produce electricity on demand, 24/7, regardless of the weather or time of day. That effectively cuts out both solar power and wind.
