US Clean Energy Industry To The World: We Are Still Here

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Clean energy stakeholders in the US suffered another death blow, or a wake-up call, or both, when the Trump administration summarily halted construction work on the 800-megawatt Empire Wind I offshore wind project this week. Still, the winds will blow and the sun will rise every day as long as the Earth keeps spinning, which could be for another billion years or so. Meanwhile, the clock is already ticking on Trump’s final years in office.

Trump’s Clean Energy Funding Freeze Meets A Trump Judge

Trump abruptly froze billions in federal funding for clean energy projects upon taking office. The legality of that arbitrary executive action has been already challenged several times, considering that the funds were already committed by the legislative branch — that being Congress — through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Despite favorable rulings, however, plaintiffs have largely failed to recover their funding.

The hammer finally came down earlier this week when U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy — a Trump appointee — demonstrated that at least some Trump appointees follow the law, not the convicted felon.

Taking note the largely futile attempts by organizations to access their funds even after favorable rulings, Judge McElroy decided that a more vigorous pursuit of the law was in order. In a case brought against the Trump administration by six nonprofits, she ruled that the freeze violated three provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act, and she issued a preliminary injunction, which applies nationwide, to “turn the funding spigots back on” pending further action by the court.

McElroy also took the opportunity to raise questions about the legality of the entire Trump operation, ruling that “the broad powers that OMB, the NEC Director, and the five Agencies assert are nowhere to be found in federal law.”

Not stopping there, she also took a poke at the Roberts court, where Republican-appointed justices, three of which are Trump appointees, maintain a six-person conservative supermajority that has bent over backwards for the Commander-in-Chief.

“Justice Roberts put it best: Justice Holmes famously wrote that ‘men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government,’” McElroy wrote in her decision.

“But it is also true, particularly when so much is at stake, that the Government should turn square corners in dealing with the people. Here, the Government failed to do so,” she admonished.

A Little Proof Of Life For US Clean Energy Stakeholders

Trump being Trump, the spigot will not be turned back on any time soon. After all, Trump’s entire administration has proved its lawlessness time and again. The Republican majority in Congress is disinclined to call then to account, leaving the matter in the hands of the judiciary.

Meanwhile, private sector funding is still operative, though the chaos fostered by Trump upon US energy policy has stung. The organization E2 tracks major clean energy projects around the US, and their latest monthly report notes a sharp downturn.

“$8 Billion and 16 New Clean Energy Projects Abandoned in First 3 Months of 2025,” reads the topline, which the organization emailed to CleanTechnica earlier today. E2 also has also tracked 7,800 clean energy jobs lost since Trump took office.

As may be expected, Republican congressional districts have suffered a disproportionate loss. That’s to be expected because they also enjoyed the most gains from Biden-era tax credits. “Through March, over 62 percent of all clean energy projects announced—along with 71 percent of all jobs and 83 percent of all investments —are in congressional districts represented by Republicans,” E2 recounts.

Whelp, you get what you pay for. “More than $6 billion and over 10,000 jobs have been cancelled in Republican districts so far,” E2 summarizes.

So much for the bad news. The good news doesn’t make up for the losses, but E2 does report that in March alone, 5,000 new clean energy jobs came on board along with $1.6 billion in 10 new investments covering solar, EV, grid, and transmission projects, spread among six states.

As pointed out by E2, that includes a new $200 million battery factory in Texas under the umbrella of Tesla, which still appears to be holding out hope that a little brand reputation crisis and a lot more competition from other EV makers will not dampen its prospects for future growth.

Clean Energy, Clean Buildings

CleanTechnica has been taking note of some bright spots poking through the murk of the Trump era. Among the smaller projects not included in the E2 tracker, community solar is a particularly attractive arena for both global and domestic investors. EV charging has been another haven for investor dollars, and the British startup RBW Electric Cars is on track to rev up a new EV factory to produce its high end Roadster sportscar in Virginia this summer.

One particular area to keep an eye on is the construction industry. Despite Trump’s bloviating, home builders value opportunities to deploy clean energy and energy efficiency technologies, too, because those are the things that sell homes and other buildings, because, well, a lot of home buyers value these things.

The US geothermal startup Dandelion Energy, for example, has just announced a manufacturing partnership with the firm Enertech Global, to supply the leading builder Lennar with geothermal heat pumps for 1,500 homes at 14 sites in Colorado.

“This project delivers on our promise to make geothermal energy accessible and affordable,” explains Dandelion.

“Homeowners are expected to save approximately $30 million over 20 years compared to using air-source heat pumps,” the company adds. “Homebuyers will also be eligible for the Section 25D clean energy credit, which provides a 30% federal tax credit for residential geothermal HVAC installations.”

Dandelion further takes note of a US Department of Energy report, in which the agency anticipates that 24,500 miles of new transmission lines could be avoided if geothermal heat pumps go into widespread use.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

When the majority of the US voting public decided that it would be a good thing to hand over the reins of federal governance to a convicted felon, well, that was their decision, and the rest of us are stuck with it.

The rest of the world isn’t stuck with it, though. Earlier today the World Economic Forum reminded everyone that the share of clean energy in the global electricity profile has topped 40%.

“Clean energy” can include nuclear power plants according to some definitions, but WEF notes that renewables headed up the charge, with solar turning in the largest share.

“Renewable power sources added a record 858 terawatt-hours (TWh) of generation in 2024, 49% more than the previous record of 577 TWh set in 2022,” WEF elaborated. “This was largely driven by an increase in solar power generation, which has doubled over the last three years to reach over 2,000 TWh.”

That translates into a lot of investor activity around the global clean energy industry. Too bad Trump blew up opportunities here in the US. On top of everything else, the Empire Wind stop work order demonstrated that the Trump government is not a trustworthy business partner.

However, it’s a big world out there, and the money has to go somewhere.

If you have any thoughts about that, drop a note in the comment thread. Better yet, find your representatives in Congress and let them know what you think.

Photo: A federal judge has just unfrozen the Trump freeze on federal funding committed to clean energy projects, as authorized by Congress (via CleanTechnica archive).