By Kennedy Maize
As the solar power industry is recording booming business, now the fastest growing source of new electricity supply in the U.S., the hostile Trump administration is proposing to stop collecting data on the solar industry’s performance by the Department of Energy for its seminal Electric Power Monthly.
The Department of Energy’s supposedly non-political Energy Information Administration on Aug. 28 published a notice in the Federal Register, proposing changes on how it collects data for its Electric Power Surveys. Among the anodyne, boiler-plate language in the FR notice is the only significant change: “EIA proposes to discontinue Form EIA-63B, Photovoltaic Module Shipments Report. EIA has determined that the value of the data collected by the survey no longer exceeds the burden of collecting and publishing it.”
The notice provides no data to support its assertion on the costs and benefits of collecting the solar data, instead offering only gross data for the cost of collecting and analyzing all the data its 10 annual surveys. The draft cites EIA’s “Annual Estimated Reporting and Recordkeeping Cost Burden.” According to the filing, “The cost of the burden hours is estimated to be $23,851,229.08 (251,092 burden hours times $94.99 per hour).”
In reporting on the DOE proposal, PV Magazine noted, “By contrast, the solar module shipments report (EIA-63B) represents only a fraction of the EPS program cost. When the last three-year filing was submitted in 2022, EIA-63B was still active. At that time, the report listed 57 respondents out of 21,488 total, accounting for just 0.2% of the agency’s $16.5 million estimated program costs. That proportional share equates to around 10 staff hours per week, costing roughly $44,000 a year.”
That sum is insignificant, amounting to perhaps a half of a year’s cost of an EIA analyst. The EIA’s Federal Register notice figures resemble how a veteran sports reporter describes most sports’ statistics: “Hocus, pocus junk.”
The timing of the EIA announcement raises questions about its origins and intent. Reflecting President Trump’s irrational antipathy to all things green, particularly wind and solar power, Energy Secretary Chris Wright has been widely repeating long discredited claims that wind and solar are “worthless” because they don’t work at night or when the wind doesn’t blow. Wright’s rhetoric prompted Elon Musk, who knows a few things about batteries, to reply, “Um … hello?”
As DOE was proposing to dig its head into the sand on solar, EIA’s June Electric Power Monthly showed that solar was the fastest growing electric generating source in the nation, growing 30.1% from June 2024 to June 2025. Coal generation grew by 5% over the same period, while natural gas fell 2.5% and nuclear dropped 2.9%. According to EIA data for Sept. 9, the combined share of wind and solar generation in the U.S. was 14.1% of the U.S. total, up 15% from 2024.
The news of the EIA plan surfaced as the Solar Energy Industries Association, the industry’s Washington trade association, released a new report it did in association with the Wood Mackenzie consulting firm, showing the industry flexing its muscles. The report found, “The U.S. solar industry installed nearly 18 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in the first half of 2025. Even as the Trump administration rolled out a series of anti-clean energy policies, solar and storage still accounted for 82% of all new power added to the grid in its first six months.”
Those sunny figures come in the face of hostility from the Trump administration. SEIA warns that administration actions could “put the United States at risk of losing 44 GW of solar deployment by 2030, an 18% decline. When comparing this forecast to pre-HR1 [Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act] forecasts, the U.S. is at risk of losing a total of 55 GW of solar deployment by 2030, a 21% decline.”
The DOE move also surfaced as the renewable energy industry was gathered in Las Vegas for RE+ 25, the industry’s giant annual trade show and gabfest. Among the major groups at the meeting were SEIA and the Solar Electric Power Alliance (SEPA). Some 40,000 attended the meeting.
It’s doubtful that EIA initiated the plan to stop collecting solar data. More likely is that it came from Wright over EIA opposition. Wright has consistently demonstrated that, except for natural gas, which made him a billionaire, his understand of U.S. energy, reflecting that of his boss, is an inch deep and an inch wide.
Comments on the EIA proposal are due Oct. 27.
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