I’ve been building solar battery systems since I was 15. In my small Texas town, I was “the kid who took his family off-grid.” By 19, I was installing solar across my county with my brothers and a master electrician, riding in a pickup truck with more tools than money. Today, I run a fast-growing solar hardware company, but I still see this industry from the rooftop, not the boardroom. Residential solar needs a course correction.

For too long, solar has been shackled to the climate movement and its demand that ordinary Americans sacrifice today for hypothetical gains tomorrow. That narrative—suffer now, maybe save the planet later—has alienated the people who stand to gain the most from energy independence. The good news? Home solar can break free of this trap and finally go mainstream.

Solar’s origins aren’t political. It was invented by Bell Labs during the space race, scaled by off-grid pioneers in the 1970s, and briefly became a symbol for environmentalism in the 1980s. But the future lies elsewhere: in the hands of middle-class homeowners and small businesses sick of being captive to fragile, overpriced utility monopolies.

I recently testified before the Texas House in support of HB4725. It’s a simple fairness issue: homeowners currently pay sales tax on solar equipment, while utilities and AI data centers are exempt. In Texas, residential electricity isn’t taxed, ​​so why tax the equipment that lets homeowners generate their own?

That’s not a green issue. That’s common sense.

Yet the bill faced unexpected headwinds because solar remains linked with the progressive climate lobby. Sales tax parity should be a 90% issue. But too many lawmakers have been conditioned to treat solar as a Trojan horse for sweeping—and costly—climate agendas.

That problem is compounded by how federal subsidies are structured. Take the Inflation Reduction Act: only 2% to 4% of its solar funds went to the 25D Residential Tax Credit. This credit doesn’t hand out money—it lets homeowners recover a portion of taxes they’ve already paid when they invest in solar. Meanwhile, corporations write off their generation assets with pre-tax dollars, stack the same solar tax credit homeowners use, and pile on bonus credits. They’ve even engineered a “fair market value” loophole to inflate project costs and extract outsized payouts from Washington.

This free-market case for fairness is often ignored because residential solar remains politically tied to the Green Lobby. It doesn’t feed the deficit-driven subsidy machine, so it gets left behind.

We’ve seen this dynamic before. For years, grid-tied inverter companies pushed installers to lobby for net metering—a system that overpays for exported solar at the expense of non-solar neighbors. In places like California, the public eventually couldn’t bear the cost. When the backlash came, disruption hit fast, and name-brand battery prices dropped over 40% almost overnight.

I hate to say it, but net metering was a shell game. It wasn’t about energy freedom—it was about using residential installers to prop up subsidies while manufacturers avoided solving the real problem: affordable storage. Those are the values of the Green Lobby, but tradespeople and small business owners know better.

Growing up in a rural area without net metering pushed me to get serious about 100% battery attachment early on. It’s one of the reasons EG4 was ready to step in when net metering began to disappear in more liberal states. Once again, corporate green players were using residential solar as a lobbying tool rather than making batteries that people could afford, as other countries already had.

Even President Trump, despite all the noise around climate policy, understood something the Green Lobby never has: energy independence is about freedom, not fear. Whether it’s oil, gas, or rooftop solar, Americans should be able to produce their energy without interference—and keep the government’s hand out of their pocket. The old D.C. swamp coalitions are crumbling under the weight of common sense and plain talk from the president.

Let’s be clear: the residential solar sector isn’t asking for handouts. We’re asking for a level playing field. That means:

– Permitting reform, to stop cities from delaying installs with red tape.

– Sales tax parity is in the two dozen states where utilities are exempt, but homeowners aren’t.

– Property rights protections are needed to prevent utilities from interfering with behind-the-meter generation.

– Tax code fairness, so homeowners aren’t punished for investing post-tax dollars while corporations use pre-tax funds.

Together, these principles form the Right to Generate—the idea that every American should be free to produce electricity on their property, free from monopoly control and subsidy games. It’s not a partisan issue. It’s not a green issue. It’s an American issue.

The U.S. is one of the last developed countries still pouring massive subsidies into corporate solar. Other nations realized long ago that once the technology works, the market can deliver it better than the government. Meanwhile, billion-dollar firms have hijacked America’s green lobby by running complex schemes to extract public money while using solar and wind as cover.

I say this because my company could benefit from those schemes. EG4 has grown rapidly, and we know how to use the credits. But I didn’t start this company to get rich off the IRS. I started it because I believe people should be able to make power on their property. That belief means more than squeezing out one more subsidy.

In a country running out of other people’s money, we can’t afford to keep bankrolling systems that reward a few and punish the rest. The Green Lobby is becoming a liability—politically, economically, and morally.

Don’t lose hope to the residential installers who built this industry. There’s a broad, untapped coalition for a pro-solar, pro-property rights, pro-freedom agenda. We must stop letting others speak for us and start talking directly to the majority.

At EG4, we’re shifting our policy investments to support the Right to Generate. It’s the only future that honors where we came from—and where we’re going.

James Showalter is the Founder of EG4 Electronics.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.