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26 GW of U.S. Solar Will Reach Retirement by 2035. What Happens Next? - By 2035, 26 GW of U.S. solar will reach the end of its life with no clear plan in place. The Northeast faces a choice to walk away or repower.
26 GW of solar is approaching the end of its useful life by 2035 in the United States.
There’s no roadmap. No exit strategy. Just liability and risk.
This isn’t just a challenge for asset owners. It’s a signal to the whole industry.
In the Northeast U.S., we’ve spent years installing solar on rooftops, landfills, and open land. Now, much of that early capacity is approaching the end of its useful life, and we still don’t have a plan for what happens next. Not for the systems, and for the lost generation they represent.
A recent article from RenewEconomy puts it plainly. We built a clean energy system without fully considering how to handle its failure. That oversight is catching up fast.
But it also opens the door to something bigger: repowering.
At Do Good Energy, we acquire aging or underperforming solar assets. We replace broken components. We redesign outdated arrays. We take stalled projects and turn them back into productive infrastructure.
Repowering means less waste. Fewer permitting headaches. More value from systems that communities already rely on.
Because when people supported clean energy, they weren’t signing up for abandoned panels or broken promises. They were investing in long-term solutions.
How we manage this next chapter will define public trust in renewable energy.
Do we walk away from aging systems?
Or do we build smarter with what is already in the ground?
Author: Sophie Vorrath