Gary Blackouts Measure the Cost of Indiana's Cancelled $117 Million Solar Program
Indiana's $117 million Solar for All allocation was cancelled before a single system was installed; the August storms that cut power to thousands in Gary showed what the absence meant.
Stephen Mays spent 12 days without electricity after violent storms and tornadoes struck northwest Indiana in August (2026). His neighbor Lori Latham went 13 days. Both were among thousands of Gary residents who had been in line to receive rooftop solar and battery storage under Indiana's Solar for All allocation, a $117 million federal grant for solar, battery, and microgrid installations in marginalized communities that the Trump administration cancelled before any system was installed.3
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin had called the broader program a "boondoggle." Thirteen days without power in Gary in August (2026) supplies a different kind of evidence.3
Indiana's allocation was part of a national program created under the Biden administration to bring subsidized solar-plus-storage systems to low-income and energy-burdened households. Denise Abdul-Rahman, founder and CEO of the nonprofit Black Sun Light Sustainability, said her organization was awarded almost $30 million under the Indiana grant to deploy 200 residential solar-plus-storage systems, 50 resiliency hubs with energy storage, and five community solar projects. None were completed.3
The cancellation's reach extended well outside Indiana. A Georgia-based coalition was awarded a $156 million Solar for All grant. One operator within the coalition described what followed: a new facility, additional trucks, more staff, all scaled to serve 10,000 households. When the grant was terminated, those expansion costs became sunk. The households those operators were scheduled to serve remain on standard grid supply, some paying $300 to $400 a month in utility bills that combined solar-and-battery packages were designed to reduce.3
National utility bill debt stood at $25 billion in data reported by Utility Dive, up from $15 billion three years earlier. That increase preceded the Solar for All cancellation but describes exactly the household conditions the program was created to address.2
The hardware cost is not what limits adoption for low-income households. Bureaucratic overhead — permitting, inspections, and interconnection — accounts for roughly 78% of what a US homeowner pays for a rooftop solar installation, according to Utility Dive, with panels, inverters, and wiring representing just over one-fifth of the total. Federal subsidy programs were the mechanism that closed the gap between market pricing and what energy-burdened households could afford.2
The policy gap shows up in penetration figures. Roughly 7% of US homes have rooftop solar, against 33% in Australia, where incentive programs introduced in the early 2000s cut installed system costs by 30% to 40% over two decades, according to Utility Dive. By mid-2026, 40% of Australian houses had rooftop solar totaling 28.3 GW, more than the country's entire coal fleet, and nearly 5% had home batteries. More than 400,000 battery systems were installed in Australia in the twelve months through June (2026).2,1
Operators who expanded into new facilities and hired staff in anticipation of Solar for All grants now hold equipment and payroll with no funded work ahead. No replacement program to cover the gap has been announced. The August (2026) storms that cut power to Gary arrived before any of the promised installations did, and the next period of severe weather carries the same exposure for the same communities.3