The growing policy uncertainty and weakening economic conditions alone may already be causing some of this to occur.
Since Trump took office, companies have canceled, delayed, or scaled back at least nine US “clean energy supply chain” developments or operations, according to the Big Green Machine, a database maintained by Jay Turner, a professor of environmental studies at Wellesley College, and student researchers there. The projects that have been affected represent some $8 billion in public and private investments, and more than 9,000 jobs.
They include KORE Power’s planned battery facility in Arizona, which the company halted; Envision Automotive Energy Supply’s paused expansion in Florence County, South Carolina; and Akasol’s closure of two plants in Michigan.
VW also scaled back production at its recently expanded EV factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, amid slower-than-expected growth in sales and, perhaps, the expectation that the Trump administration will strive to roll back consumer tax credits for vehicle purchases.
“The biggest challenge for companies that are making hundred-million- or billion-dollar capital investments is dealing with the uncertainty,” Turner says. “Uncertainty is a real deterrent to making big bets.”
Venture capital investments in clean energy have been cooling for a while. They peaked at $24.5 billion in 2022 and settled at around $18 billion annually during the last two years, according to data provided by Pitchbook. First-quarter figures for this year aren’t yet available, though industry watchers are keen to see where they land.
Some parts of the cleantech sector could hold up better than others through the Trump administration and any upcoming economic gloom.
The Pitchbook report, for instance, noted that the surge in development of AI data centers is fueling demand for “dispatchable energy sources.” That means the type that can run around the clock, such as nuclear fission, fusion, and geothermal (though in practice, the data center boom has often meant commissioning or relying on natural-gas plants that produce planet-warming emissions).
