Announcement – August 2025
The following is a joint statement of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), California Energy Commission (CEC), and Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) regarding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s termination of the Solar for All funding:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s unlawful termination of Solar for All funding needlessly increases the cost of community solar and storage projects in California and damages California’s efforts to unleash innovation, train people for today’s energy jobs, and build clean energy projects.
California is already well underway in implementing its Solar for All grant, which includes $250 million directed to community solar and storage projects through the CPUC, CEC, and LWDA.
An EPA-approved workplan was created by the state through a stakeholder-driven process, and funding was made available to California on March 24, 2025 to make community solar and storage a viable complement to the state’s current powerful fleet of clean energy resources.
Congress appropriated these funds with a clear mandate. Revoking them now undermines our legal system and destabilizes ongoing projects. The CPUC, CEC, and LWDA urge the EPA to reverse its unlawful termination.
Solar for All Coordination
- The CPUC is the lead agency for California’s Solar for All Program, with approximately $190 million of the grant funds to support new mid-scale capacity solar systems, or community solar, in the territories of the investor-owned utilities. California reserved approximately $19 million of the community solar budget to encourage the development of projects on tribal lands, and approximately $9.7 million for Solar on Multi Family Affordable Housing to support site readiness grants to affordable multifamily housing participants to install solar and storage.
- The CEC administers approximately $25 million to establish new programs in the territories of publicly owned utilities, including tribal customers, to deploy community solar, multifamily rooftop solar, and single-family rooftop solar and storage in publicly owned utility territories.
- The LWDA, through the Employment Development Department, administers $8 million to establish a workforce training program.
The CA-SFA program seeks to accelerate the equitable deployment of solar and storage systems to advance statewide decarbonization efforts and reduce electric bill pressures on low-income and disadvantaged communities, and California Native American tribes. With this new federal grant, California will strengthen current efforts, address funding gaps, and add momentum to new strategies under development to encourage deployment of distributed solar and storage systems targeted to the low-income and disadvantaged communities, and California Native American tribes as the state continues to decarbonize.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is the lead and point of contact for this multi-agency effort. Please see the CPUC Solar for All Program for more information, and general inquiries should be sent to the CPUC. The Energy Commission will administer a portion of funds from the grant award focused on the targeted communities in the Publicly Owned Utilities (POUs) service areas (referred to as CA-POU-SFA). This page will be updated with information about the CEC's portion of the program, such as workshops and funding opportunities as they become available. We encourage you to subscribe to the Solar for All email topic to stay up to date.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law by President Biden in 2022, created a $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and includes $7 billion for grant awards through the Solar for All competition. This federal funding is for states, territories, tribal governments, municipalities, and nonprofits to develop programs that enable low-income and disadvantaged communities to deploy and benefit from distributed residential solar.
On Earth Day 2024, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced 60 awards. The State of California was among one of the largest awardees, receiving just under $250 million to develop and implement new California Solar for All programs (CA-SFA). California’s application included a coalition of state agencies including the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the California Employment Development Department (EDD), and the California Energy Commission (CEC). Together, the coalition will leverage California’s transformation of the solar market to reach the homes statewide that are most in need of affordable, reliable clean energy.
CEC’s Solar for All (POU Territories) Program staff is seeking public feedback for the solicitation concept proposal prior to final solicitation release expected in late 2025. Additional items associated with this solicitation are included below. Feedback on the solicitation concept proposal is requested by August 11, 2025.