The U.S. renewable energy industry has been experiencing solid growth over the last several years. In fact, reports suggest that U.S. renewable energy capacity has grown threefold since 2008, reaching a record 141 gigawatts at the end of 2016, according to the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

Zeroing in on the solar energy space under the vast renewable energy universe, a report by the Scientific American suggests that the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates wind and solar energy will produce 10% of U.S. electricity by 2020. In fact, alternative energy sources, especially wind and solar, have been the two major sources of electricity in the United States for some time now.

Republican Stance on Clean Energy

The aforementioned data hardly have made any difference to the already-casual stance of Republicans who have long been at war with clean energy (renewable energy). The recent upheaval to Obama’s Clean Power Plan and the United States’ participation in the Paris climate agreement earlier this year shows that President Trump doesn’t have an encouraging stance toward renewable energy.

His so-called ‘Chinese Hoax’ theory of global climatic change resulted in the annulment of the Clean Power Plan that promised to curb carbon emissions to 32% below 2005 levels by 2030.

We note that the annulment will lift the ban on coal leasing on federal lands. This will also decimate regulations that were specially formulated to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production. Undoubtedly, the move will prove detrimental to the clean energy space.

Apart from this, the solar stocks have been grappling with other issues since last year. Dwindling demand from China, lowered Japanese tariffs and the expiration of the tax credits at the end of last year (which were ultimately extended to 2021) added to the woes of the industry.

Factors to Drive Solar Sector in Next 5 Years

Since 2014, when electric utilities throughout the United States closed a number of aging coal-fired generators, wind and solar have been the two major sources of electricity. Let’s take a look at a couple of factors that might lend the solar energy space a competitive edge amid the unfavorable policy changes.