Pennsylvania Solar Decommissioning Law: What Changes Now

Every solar project eventually stops producing power — through age, storm damage, obsolete equipment, or a lease simply running out. For years, what happened next in Pennsylvania depended entirely on where the project sat. Some municipalities required a decommissioning plan. Many didn't. Landowners often found out too late that removing a defunct array was their problem, not the developer's.

That changed on July 20, when Governor Josh Shapiro signed Senate Bill 349 into law as Act 44 of 2026, giving Pennsylvania its first statewide framework for solar decommissioning.

What Does Act 44 Require Solar Developers to Do?

Act 44 requires Pennsylvania solar developers to file a decommissioning plan, restore the land, and set aside removal funds that grow from 10% to 100% of the estimated cost over the project's life.

The law applies to ground-mounted, front-of-the-meter solar projects larger than 2 MWAC built on leased land — the utility-scale style of project developed on someone else's property. Smaller, net-metered systems tied directly to a home or business's own usage generally fall outside its scope. That distinction matters if you're trying to figure out whether a given project is actually covered: it comes down to size and ownership structure, not just megawatt count on its own.

For projects that meet the threshold, here's what's now mandatory:

• ●Decommissioning plan in the lease. Lease agreements between landowners and solar project owners must spell out how the project will eventually be removed.
• ●30-day filing deadline. Project owners must submit that plan within 30 days of starting construction.
• ●Full removal + land restoration. The project and its access roads come out; the land is restored close to its pre-construction condition, including topsoil.
• ●Growing financial assurance. Owners set aside removal funds starting around 10% of the estimated cost before construction, phasing up to 100% by year 25.
• ●Five-year review cycle. An independent professional engineer revisits the plan and cost estimate every five years.
• ●18-month decommission clock. Once a facility stops producing power, it generally must be removed within 18 months unless it's actively being restarted.

The bill also folds in a Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act compliance requirement, meaning covered projects can't use components made with forced labor.

The five-year review cycle is what keeps the financial assurance meaningful over a project's life. Decommissioning costs — labor, equipment removal, disposal, land restoration — don't stay flat over 25 years, and neither does the resale value of any salvageable equipment. Tying the cost estimate to an independent engineer's review every five years, instead of locking in a number at construction and walking away from it, is meant to keep the fund realistic rather than letting it quietly fall behind actual removal costs by the time a project needs to come down.

Why Did Pennsylvania Need a Statewide Decommissioning Standard?

Before Act 44, decommissioning in Pennsylvania was handled piecemeal — through local ordinances where they existed, and through whatever individual lease agreements happened to say where they didn't. That left a lot of variation and a lot of exposure for landowners who leased their property without a clear end-of-life plan attached.

Act 44 puts the responsibility squarely on developers instead. The bill passed with unusually broad bipartisan support — 49–1 in the Senate and 196–6 in the House — and drew praise from both the solar industry and Pennsylvania's Farm Bureau, whose members lease a meaningful share of the land these projects sit on.

Is Pennsylvania's Law Part of a Bigger National Trend?

Pennsylvania isn't out ahead of this trend so much as catching up to it. A 2025 policy review found 23 states already had statewide solar decommissioning policies, with another 10 combining state rules with local ordinances on top.

The pace is also picking up. States enacted 26 new solar and storage decommissioning laws in 2025, more than double the 12 passed in 2024. Many of those newer laws go beyond basic removal requirements to also cover financial assurance, equipment recycling, battery storage systems, and land restoration — the same categories Act 44 touches.

26 new state solar and storage decommissioning laws passed in 2025 — more than double the 12 passed the year before.

That acceleration tracks with how much solar capacity built in the 2010s and early 2020s is now moving into the back half of its operating life. As more of that fleet ages, regulators in more states are formalizing rules that used to live only in individual lease agreements or local zoning ordinances — turning a patchwork of one-off protections into a standard developers have to plan around from day one.

What Does This Mean If You Own an Aging Solar System?

If you're not currently developing a 2+ MW ground-mount project in Pennsylvania, Act 44 doesn't apply to you directly. But it's a useful signal regardless of where your system sits or how big it is.

Regulators are increasingly treating decommissioning as something that has to be planned for on day one, not figured out after the fact. That mirrors what a lot of commercial owners are already discovering the hard way: a system that's ten or fifteen years into its life isn't just a maintenance question anymore. It's a decision point — repair it, repower it, or plan its exit — and the earlier that decision gets made, the more options are on the table.

Owners sitting on aging commercial systems are often surprised by how much unclear ownership and murky lease terms complicate that decision when the time actually comes. And the "what happens to the equipment" question Act 44 answers for future Pennsylvania projects is the same one raised by today's aging panels reaching end of life across the country right now.

Start With a Ballpark Estimate

Whether your system is nearing a lease renewal, showing its age, or just hasn't been looked at in a while, the first useful step is the same: find out what your project may be worth today, before a decision gets made for you by a failing part or an expiring lease.

Sources: SolarPowerWorld, Times Observer