Utah let me live the American Dream. I was born here, and I cannot imagine leaving. I’m a first-generation college graduate who worked my way through Utah State University (Go Big Blue!) by starting a carpet cleaning business. Over the years I’ve started multiple businesses, including Smart Wave Solar.
I believe Utah is a great place to do business — limited paperwork, common sense regulations, reasonable taxes, good education and a government that wants you to succeed — so my business installing solar panels for Utahns was soon a thriving one. Six years after my cofounders and I started Smart Wave Solar, we have 120 employees and have installed solar panels on more than 3,000 Utah homes.
Yet Congress is set to make Utah — and, indeed, the entire nation — a much harder place for growing businesses like mine. The House of Representatives has passed a bill abruptly cutting off the 25(D) tax credit for everyday people who invest in solar. By so rapidly changing the rules, Congress will put tens of thousands of jobs, hundreds of businesses and enormous economic impact across the country at risk. Not to mention, they’ll be taking away one of few ways American households can gain energy independence while reining in rising energy bills.
The predictability of Utah’s business climate helped me grow the business. Washington’s new proposal pulls the rug out from under the residential solar industry as soon as this summer since the bill requires that residential solar systems be installed by the end of 2025 to qualify for the 25(D) credit, and these projects take time.
By abruptly changing the tax credit rules right now, Congress is threatening to throw away the predictability that has so distinguished the state. Sen. John Curtis, Sen. Mike Lee and our state’s entire congressional delegation must not allow that to happen.
I’m a business owner, so I get budgeting. I get that the government sometimes needs to adjust spending levels. Yet if Utah’s senators and representatives would, at the very least, support a phase-out — rather than an abrupt cutoff — of the 25(D) solar tax credit, they will do a tremendous service for Utah households, Utah’s workforce and Utah businesses like mine.
Make no mistake, solar has been a tremendous boon to Utah’s economy. The solar industry employs more than 7,500 people statewide, with over 50 installing rooftop solar systems alone. These are solid, blue-collar, middle-class jobs. The average rooftop solar installer in Utah earns over $61,000 a year, making them above-average earners for the state.
It is because Utah traditionally encourages jobs like this that we have the highest inflation-adjusted median household income in the nation.
Utah’s rooftop solar industry, however, is not a glorified jobs program. More than 9% of Utah households have rooftop solar — and for a simple reason: Solar saves them money on energy bills. The 3,000 homes our company has serviced will, over the life of their systems, save an estimated $122 million for Utah homeowners given the average savings of people who get solar installed, even after you factor in the cost of the installation. As the state has over 70,000 homes with solar systems, the savings for Utah households will ultimately be in the billions.
The industry our congresspeople and senators could fight to preserve has other benefits for all Utahns. Home backup batteries, such as the Tesla Powerwall 3, have been exploding in popularity. Many Utah solar systems now pair with rechargeable batteries, which serve as a safety net during a disaster or a blackout. They can provide power to keep insulin cold and breathing machines on when the power goes out. They can also help prevent those blackouts from happening in the first place: By supplying power back to the grid during the hottest days with the greatest energy demand, they keep the grid from getting overtaxed and breaking down.
These benefits are why the solar tax credit has always been a bipartisan idea. The George W. Bush administration introduced it 20 years ago. Congress has renewed it multiple times with the support of Democratic and Republican administrations; indeed, the Trump administration supported it in 2020, as did the Biden administration in 2022.
My story is only possible in Utah. America could use more of Utah’s approach to giving businesses the space to thrive. Yet we seem poised to go in the opposite direction, with Congress forcing Utah to accept the practices that don’t work elsewhere in the nation. Practices like pulling the rug out from under companies just trying to provide jobs and valuable services to their customers.
Sens. Curtis and Lee can keep that from happening by providing a reasonable phase out of 25(D). As a proud Utahn, I deeply hope they will.
Ryan Stucki is CEO of Smart Wave Solar.
Ryan Stucki is CEO of Smart Wave Solar, headquartered in Bluffdale.
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