RALEIGH — A federal judge has vacated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s cancellation of Solar for All, reopening a path for North Carolina’s $156 million EnergizeNC award while an appeal remains possible.
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy on Friday granted summary judgment to the Rhode Island AFL-CIO and other plaintiffs and denied the EPA’s cross-motion. Her Sept. 18 order declared the agency’s program-wide termination unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act and vacated it.
North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality leads EnergizeNC, a coalition that received the $156 million award in April 2024. An official DEQ fact sheet says the program was designed to expand residential and community solar access in low-income and disadvantaged communities, with incentives aimed at single-family homes, multifamily properties and community-solar projects involving municipal utilities and electric cooperatives.
The state document also says EnergizeNC intended to support weatherization and repairs needed before some homes could accept solar installations. The coalition projected average electricity-bill savings of 20% for participating households, but the fact sheet predates the EPA’s August 2025 termination and does not establish a revised launch schedule.
Congress created the $7 billion Solar for All program in 2022. The court found that the EPA had obligated the full amount before the Sept. 30, 2024 deadline and that a 2025 law repealed the underlying fund while rescinding only unobligated balances. McElroy wrote that Congress intended already-awarded grants to continue and that the EPA exceeded its authority when it ended the program and existing grants.
The judge declined to issue a separate permanent injunction, concluding that vacating the termination was sufficient to prevent the agency from continuing to implement it. The order does not resolve every dispute over individual grant payments; related claims seeking recovery of money lost through grant terminations remain pending in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
The EPA said it was reviewing the decision and considering an appeal, according to Reuters. The agency awarded Solar for All grants to 60 states, tribes and nonprofit organizations in 2024.
Featured image: A Wilmington home with a 13.11-kilowatt rooftop solar array installed in 2015, shown as contextual file photography. Credit: Cape Fear Energy.