Earlier this week, PosiGen, a Louisiana-based solar developer announced that they will be ceasing operations across the country, including three Connecticut-based offices in Danbury, Shelton and Wethersfield.
Seventy-eight Connecticut workers are set to lose their jobs due to the closures, which PosiGen cited “significant financial difficulties” as the reason. Earlier this summer, President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress passed a budget that ended two key tax credits for solar and wind, putting increased financial constraints on the clean energy industry.
Sen. Julie Kushner, co-chair of Connecticut’s Labor and Public Employees Committee, called Trump’s actions “unconscionable.”
“Donald Trump’s actions are not just anti-science and anti-environment, they are anti-worker,” Kushner, D-Danbury, said. “Connecticut families are already struggling to keep up with the pressures of Trump’s tariffs and trade wars, and his misguided attacks on clean energy are now putting people’s paychecks on the line. It is unconscionable.”
This closure comes right on top of Trump’s stop-work order on the Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island. The wind project is more than 80% complete and would have powered more than 350,000 homes across Connecticut and Rhode Island, while creating high-paying, clean energy jobs for the region.
Sen. Norm Needleman, co-chair of the Energy and Technology Committee, questioned why the administration would abandon clean energy.
“This is another job killing Trump policy supporting the fossil fuel industry and separated from reality,” Needleman said. “In the long-term, solar is expected to be the least expensive form of energy generation. So why would we move away from it, add to pollution, and lend support to oil, gas and coal instead?”
