It’s been a tough past few days for First Solar (FSLR 2.25%) shareholders. And understandably so. Investors suspect pro-oil President-elect Donald Trump could also prove unsupportive of renewable energy. Iin fact, most clean energy stocks are down since his Nov. 5 election on this very worry. First Solar has been no exception to the industrywide sell-off.

This weakness, however, is also a buying opportunity for anyone interested in owning a piece of the solar panel maker, or in adding exposure to the solar industry as a whole. The solar power movement is too big and too well-developed for Donald Trump to bring to a halt now.

First Solar is also well-positioned to sidestep one of the few meaningful actions the president-elect could take to disrupt the solar industry’s growth.

Solar is just too competitive to stop now

Don’t misunderstand. Trump certainly has enough authority to rattle the solar power business. He can’t end it, though. He’ll even be hard-pressed to slow its current growth.

See, contrary to a common assumption, solar power is no longer leaps and bounds more expensive than more common forms of energy production. Data gathered by Wood Mackenzie and reported by the U.S. Department of Energy indicates that utility-scale solar power is now in line with the cost of natural gas and coal-fired power, in fact.

That’s a key reason the Solar Energy Industries Association says the United States’ solar power production capacity grew a record-breaking 32.4 gigawatts last year. Indeed, for the first time ever, solar accounted for over half the country’s expansion of its electricity-generating potential. This growth has continued to accelerate through 2024 too, despite economic headwinds.

The irony? Largely because it’s the cheapest means of adding utility-scale power production there, solar is growing like wildfire in several states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas that picked Trump to be president during the recently ended election cycle. To the extent voters picked Trump for economic reasons, they’ll certainly appreciate cheaper electricity and its positive impact on the economy.

Legally limited, with little incentive to stand in its way anyway

The 2022 passage of the Inflation Reduction Act is admittedly fueling much of this growth, by offering taxpayers a tax credit of up to 30% of the cost of a solar power system. The IRA also incentivizes utility-scale solar power projects as well as the manufacturing of solar panels themselves.

And this raises an important detail about solar power’s future. That is, while Trump can undo any of President Biden’s executive orders that may promote renewable energy (such as Biden’s goal of making the federal government’s fleet of vehicles 100% zero-emission by 2035), he can’t unwind voted-upon legislation — like the IRA — without new legislation to repeal or replace it. And there doesn’t appear to be enough political will at this time to undo a law backing a movement that’s already well supported and reducing utility costs anyway; Pew Research says two-thirds of Americans are for the advancement of alternative energy sources.

It’s also worth noting that Donald Trump’s pro-oil stance doesn’t inherently mean he’s anti-solar. The nation’s largest-ever solar power project’s plans — Solar Partners XI’s 690-MW photovoltaic facility near Las Vegas — materialized in early 2020, during Trump’s first Presidency.

But tariffs? While unspecific as well as far from being certain (Trump argues the mere threat of tariffs is enough), First Solar is mostly immune to their impact anyway. Although the company requires some imported materials that may be subject to such tariffs, it’s an American manufacturer mostly serving the North American market, where the company believes over 90% of its immediate revenue opportunities await.

There’s also the not-so-small matter of First Solar’s current backlog of 73.3 gigawatts’ worth of solar panels that have yet to be delivered. For perspective, the company’s year-to-date net bookings have only reached 4.0 gigawatts’ worth of production capacity, and First Solar only produced 3.8 gigawatts worth of panels during what was a respectable third quarter. Although the future of solar power may be a bit murkier than it was just three weeks ago, this is a backlog of orders that make little sense to simply cancel now.

Data source: StockAnalysis.com. Chart by author.

Give at least partial credit for this brewing growth to First Solar’s Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic panels. Although they make its design and production processes more complicated and more costly than that of more conventional silicon panels, this technology proves more durable while at the same time delivering more power. Utility-scale buyers are increasingly seeing these high-performance panels as an investment rather than an expense, as they further lower the effective per-kilowatt cost of solar power.

The market’s overestimating the risk, and underestimating First Solar

There are risks to be sure. If nothing else, the transition from one president to another invites disruption. It’s certainly not inconceivable that the upcoming shift to a largely right-leaning Congress and White House could throw some unexpected curve balls at the solar power industry.

The more likely scenario, though, is the continued expansion of a business that’s ultimately rooted in necessity.

The numbers: The U.S. Energy Information Administration believes the United States’ need for electricity could grow by as much as 15% between now and 2050. It doesn’t sound like much, but for a massive power grid and suppliers that are already strained, it’s a tall order. Traditional energy sources alone like fossil fuels won’t get us there either. That’s why the EIA also expects renewables like solar and wind to account for half the industry’s capacity growth between now and 2050, when they will collectively generate roughly half of the United States’ total electricity output. Solar will be the single-biggest source of domestic power by then, accounting for around one-third of the nation’s electricity production.

Now all of a sudden First Solar’s stumble since early November and its much bigger 37% pullback from June’s peak looks like an entry opportunity.

The analyst community agrees, anyway. Undeterred by political rhetoric and handwringing, most of them still consider First Solar stock a strong buy, sporting a consensus price target of $280.79. That’s almost 50% above the stock’s present price.