A Year of Momentum, Resilience, and Community

As 2025 comes to a close, we at Texas Solar Energy Society are reflecting on an impactful year defined by progress, partnership, and perseverance. Together, we made meaningful advancements—bringing industry leaders, advocates, and supporters together; strengthening consumer protections; and navigating unexpected challenges along the way. Throughout it all, our community showed up in powerful ways to strengthen Texas’s clean energy future.

This work wouldn’t be possible without the passion and dedication of our members, donors, business partners, and board members. Your support fueled every success we celebrate here and has positioned TXSES to step into 2026 energized, focused, and ready for what’s next.

---

Highlights from 2025

Convening the Texas Solar Community

Through events, our business member policy working committees, and our local chapters, TXSES brought together installers, manufacturers, policymakers, advocates, and community leaders to share insights, elevate best practices, and build relationships that move solar forward.

TXSES Annual Member Meeting: Our 2025 Annual Member Meeting on January 25^th kicked off the year with updates on policy developments, industry trends, organizational priorities, along with local chapter activities. Speakers included:

• Drew Bond, Conservative Climate Solutions
• Matthew Boms, Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance (TAEBA)
• Luke Metzger, Environment Texas

(All TXSES members will receive an email invite with Zoom link)

Events TXSES co-hosted, helped organize, and/or was a supporting organization for (with Executive Director Patrice ‘Pete’ Parsons often speaking or moderating panels):

Partnerships: TXSES worked closely with partner organizations and state and local government offices including Travis County, Austin Energy, the Texas Legislature’s Texas Energy & Climate Caucus, Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute, Environment Texas, Solar United Neighbors Texas, ASES, Public Citizen, Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), and Conservative Texans for Energy Innovation. It is with these partnerships that we continue our work toward projects such as these:

• Bringing solar to the Community First! Village in Austin, in order to provide free electricity to more than 420 formerly unhoused neighbors (1900 total once the expanding project is complete), in cooperation with Austin Energy & TXSES Business Member Lighthouse Solar.
• Austin pilot project, “New Pathways for Equitable Rooftop Solar in Texas,” which will install 10 small (3 kilowatt) solar electric systems for income-qualified homeowners in Austin; in partnership with Travis County, Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute, Frontier Energy, and Austin Energy.

---

Education & Workforce Development

Solar Education & Outreach: TXSES continued to expand access to credible, Texas-specific solar information for consumers, businesses, and local leaders.

Workforce Focus: We supported conversations, training, and partnerships aimed at growing a skilled, diverse clean energy workforce aligned with Texas’s rapidly increasing demand for solar, including:

• Providing solar installation training for underserved high school students and low-income adults, in cooperation with Green Careers Texas and with funding from the Texas State Energy Conservation Office.

---

Advocacy & Policy Engagement

Through testimony, coalition work, and public-facing communications, we amplified the role solar plays in grid reliability, affordability, and economic development. Read our 2025 legislative recap here.

Protecting Solar Progress: TXSES Executive Director Patrice “Pete” Parsons engaged with policymakers in the 89^th Texas Legislative Session, along with our partners, to advocate for fair, stable policies that allow solar and storage to thrive across Texas. She also helped organize TXSES business members and colleagues to participate in SEIA’s Lobby Day in Washington, DC, to educate Congressional members on the importance of solar and the solar industry.

Solar Policy & Legislative Wins: In 2025, TXSES continued its work to educate elected officials & the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) on solar issues. This includes:

• Proposing language for a new PUC rule to speed up residential and small-scale solar interconnection to the grid
• Continuing to advocate for fair compensation for solar customers based on the Value of Residential Solar in Texas report TXSES commissioned in July 2024

• Successfully getting legislation passed that will:
  • Protect consumers from unethical solar salespeople (through required licensing at the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation)
  • Protect consumers from loan obligations on incorrectly installed systems
  • Make solar permitting more streamlined; and
  • Require the PUC to create an online best practices guide for rooftop solar.

• Working to kill several bills last session that would have been detrimental for solar in Texas.

---

SolarAPP+ Adoption

TXSES was also heavily involved in promoting the use of the Department of Energy-created SolarAPP+ permitting software to Texas cities. The software is free to municipalities and simplifies & speeds up the permitting process for homeowners & installers. Read more about SolarAPP+ here.

---

Equitable Financing

TXSES continued leading work with the State to develop a sustainable financing model for individuals who income-qualify for weatherization or LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) funding from the Department of Housing and Community Affairs. This project will lower low-income Texans’ electricity bills by making solar an option.

---

Organizational Developments

In early 2025, TXSES welcomed Raina Hornaday of Caprock Renewables and CleanTX to our Board of Directors. Raina is a renewable energy developer with over 20 years of experience, and more than 1 GW of wind and solar projects successfully brought into commercial operation across Texas and the Southwest. She brings valuable experience and perspective that strengthens TXSES’s governance and long-term vision, and we are grateful for her leadership and service.

Toward the end of 2025, we began the process of strategic planning with our board, our colleagues and stakeholders, and a professional strategic planner. The plan will establish a path for success in achieving our mission in the coming years, and will outline our mission, vision, priorities, and goals. We look forward to sharing the results with you in the new year!

---

Meeting Challenges Head-On

2025 also brought some real challenges to solar, and to TXSES. Most notably for solar in general was the federal government’s elimination of the residential solar tax credits at the end of this year. The credits had offered homeowners a 30% tax credit on rooftop solar since 2022 and were meant to extend through 2032. The last-minute cancellation has lead homeowners and installers to scramble to complete installations by years’ end in order to still receive the credits, is expected to tremendously slow down the market for home solar, and has already greatly hurt businesses that install solar. However, other options, such as third-party ownership and solar leases, are coming to fruition. Read more about it in Executive Director Pete Parsons’ article in the last The Solar Report, “The End of the Residential Solar Tax Credit—and the Path Forward.”

For TXSES, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s rescinding of the federal Solar for All grant, which TXSES had been awarded a portion of as part of the Texas Solar for All Coalition in 2024, will be quite challenging. The grant awarded nearly $250 million to the Coalition to deliver residential solar to more than 46,000 low-income and disadvantaged communities and households across Texas. The grant, which was a significant part of our planned 2026 budget, was meant to accelerate investment in clean energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, close the solar equity gap, and create green jobs.

While the loss of Solar for All required us to make adjustments, it also reaffirmed the importance of TXSES’s role as a steady, member-supported organization. Thanks to the generosity of our community, we continue our mission-driven work and have begun to identify new pathways to support our mission for solar access and education in Texas.

---

Looking Ahead to 2026

Next year will mark 50 years since TXSES first began, with a mission to educate and inspire Texans to adopt solar. The challenges of 2025 have sharpened our resolve. With your continued partnership, TXSES is ready to build on this momentum and continue our work to advance a clean, affordable, and reliable energy future for all Texans.

In 2026, we look forward to building on our achievements from 2025, as well as:

• Completing and enacting our new strategic plan (now in progress);
• Holding our Annual Member Meeting in January; and
• Co-hosting the American Solar Energy Society’s annual conference, “SOLAR 2026: Solar for All, Y’all” in Austin, October 19–21!
  • The call for participation is open now! Submit your abstract by February 2, 2026. Learn more here.

---

Thank You

Thank you for being part of the TXSES community. Your trust, participation, and support make this work possible. We look forward to continuing this journey together in the year ahead.

Happy holidays and best wishes for a bright and impactful New Year.