Purelight Power lays off 84 Medford workers, citing Republican rollback of solar credits as it shuts down
An Oregon company is blaming President Donald Trump’s signature budget bill for more than 100 layoff notices it sent to staff two days before Christmas.
A worker carries a solar panel on the roof of the Alta Sea building, an urban, ocean-based research and blue technology innovation campus, at Berth 58 in the Port of Los Angeles on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025.
Damian Dovarganes / AP
In a notice sent to the state on Tuesday, Medford-based solar company Purelight Power said it is cutting 109 jobs nationwide and shuttering operations as it prepares to file for bankruptcy liquidation.
About 84 people in Medford will be laid off, as well as another 25 people who work remotely.
The Republican-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which canceled federal tax credits meant to encourage solar power adoption, “had a significant impact on the Company’s business and profitability,” Purelight CEO JD Beck wrote in a letter to the Oregon Dislocated Worker Unit, which supports employers and workers experiencing layoffs.
Purelight specialized in selling and installing rooftop residential solar panels and in helping homeowners navigate tax credits to help with those costs.
Its business strategy had relied on tax credits that it expected would continue for a full decade under the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022 at the urging of then-President Joe Biden.
When Republicans reversed federal support for solar projects, Purelight “reduced its operating costs, attempted to size its business appropriately to the new sales volume, and shifted to selling via a third-party ownership model,” Beck told the state.
But it was not enough for a company that was already facing economic challenges before the policy shift.
Climbing costs and interest rates strained the business as Purelight emerged from a merger with Solgen Power from Tri-Cities, Washington, Beck wrote.
In January, Purelight laid off all 104 Washington state workers who had worked at Solgen, according to the Tri-City Herald.
With the reversal of public support for renewable energy under Trump, “incentives for solar energy vanished, and investments dried up,” and Purelight was unable to finance new projects, sell its assets to another company, or take out a loan to fund operations, Beck said.
