GRID Alternatives, which describes itself as the nation's largest nonprofit installer of clean energy technologies, was approved for $312.3 million in federal grants in May 2024 but has received just $4.5 million as of March 2026, according to a new report from the Capital Research Center titled "Enemies of Energy." The report examines the organization's track record with federal funding and its role in the Biden administration's push to install solar panels in low-income communities. The findings raise questions about the group's ability to deploy large-scale taxpayer dollars efficiently.
The EPA approved at least $2.3 billion in solar panel grants for "low-income and disadvantaged communities" (LIDACs) in 2024, with GRID Alternatives receiving the largest share at $312.3 million through two separate grants. However, following the Trump administration's repeal of most of the Inflation Reduction Act in March 2026, GRID has collected only $4.5 million of that approved amount. That $4.5 million still represents nearly $2 million more than the combined total of all federal grants GRID received from every federal department between 2008 and 2023. In one earlier example, the Denali Commission approved $381,000 in 2021 for GRID to work on solar projects in two remote Alaskan villages, but the organization spent just $25,000—only 6.5 percent of the approved funding. For 2024, GRID reported total revenue of $46.9 million and net assets of $34.9 million.
The report highlights that the $2.3 billion in LIDAC solar funding "could have been used to purchase a $230,000 home for 10,000 of America's most impoverished families" instead of solar panel installations. It also notes that in January 2019, GRID co-signed a group letter to the U.S. House of Representatives endorsing the Green New Deal, which then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed as "the green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is." The Green New Deal petition denounced both hydrocarbon fuels and nuclear power as "dirty energy."
The report's findings suggest a pattern where federal agencies approve massive grants for renewable energy nonprofits without clear evidence those organizations can execute at scale. GRID's failure to spend 93.5 percent of its Alaska grant over multiple years, combined with receiving less than 1.5 percent of its 2024 EPA approval, illustrates the gap between government ambition and nonprofit capacity. The Capital Research Center frames this as part of a broader critique of the Inflation Reduction Act's approach to climate policy, which prioritized distributing funds to favored organizations rather than assessing their operational readiness. The EPA's decision to award GRID more than 13 percent of the entire $2.3 billion LIDAC solar budget—based on limited prior federal grant history—demonstrates what the report characterizes as wasteful spending.
The collapse of GRID's anticipated $312 million windfall following the Inflation Reduction Act's repeal means the organization won't face the test of scaling up its operations twentyfold from its $46.9 million in 2024 revenue. But the report's central takeaway remains: federal agencies approved billions in grants to install solar panels for low-income Americans through organizations with questionable track records, raising fundamental questions about whether the goal was effective energy assistance or simply funneling taxpayer money to aligned advocacy groups.