COVID-19\u27s Impact on Renewable Energy

In keeping with this Symposium\u27s focus on accelerating clean energy growth and nations\u27 ability to meet climate goals, this Article examines recent trends during the COVID-19 pandemic that at least temporarily set back the pace of growth, although conditions have rebounded somewhat since a disastrous spring of 2020. This Article supports several near-term policy prescriptions aimed at promoting a speedier return to the upward trajectory renewable energy enjoyed before the pandemic. These include extending the tax policies that support renewables beyond their short-term extensions in pandemic relieflegislation and establishing robust programs to help workers in renewable energy industries who have been harmed by the pandemic. As Part II explains, these policies do double duty. They can help reverse the adverse conditions in the renewable energy sector, and they can promote a green recovery from the pandemic that helps reach climate goals while being more effective for economic growth than the stimulus programs that have been put in place so far. As this Article went to press, the Biden Administration released its broad-based infrastructure plan, which addressed these policies, highlighting how they are viewed as critical to the nation\u27s economic recovery. [...