Since President Trump took office for the second time, 35 clean energy projects have been closed, cancelled, or downsized. That’s more than the totals for 2023 and 2024 combined.
That’s according to new analysis by research group E2, which has been tracking clean energy projects since the summer of 2022, when the Inflation Reduction Act was passed. The closures in the first half of 2025 have led to over 16,500 lost jobs and over $22 billion in lost investments, according to E2’s estimates.
The electric vehicle and battery storage spaces have been particularly hard-hit, with 11 and 16 projects affected, respectively. Five projects — or the equivalent of $6.7 billion of lost investment — were downsized or cancelled in June alone, all of them in the electric vehicle or battery storage manufacturing space. This is particularly because major automakers scaled back their plans.
General Motors cancelled a multibillion-dollar plan to expand its Michigan Orion plant to include the production of new electric pickups, and Toyota downsized a $2.2 billion plant to retool an Indiana manufacturing plant for EV production. In the battery storage space, Powin, one of the world’s biggest battery storage integrators, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in mid-June, laying off hundreds of people at its campus in Oregon.
More than $2.1 billion in new investments, including in new hydrogen, EV, and grid equipment factories, were also announced in June. But the new announcements are far from offsetting the spike in cancelled projects, which seems to indicate that months of crippling policy uncertainty have started to take their toll on the clean energy industry.
And it’s Republican congressional districts that are losing most: More than $11.7 billion in investments and 11,700 jobs have been closed, cancelled, or delayed in right-leaning communities so far this year.
Impact of the OBBB
These numbers have yet to take into account the consequences of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which was signed into law earlier this month, and includes tax credit sunsets, tight construction deadlines, and foreign entity restrictions. Together, these are expected to cut clean energy deployment by as much as 59% over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Rhodium Group.
And it may already be taking a toll. In the weeks after OBBB’s passage, several small solar developers have announced layoffs.
The Massachusetts-based New Leaf Energy laid off a fifth of its workforce, or 41 employees — explicitly as a reaction to the bill’s earlier phaseout of the federal clean energy investment tax credit. The company, it said in a statement on LinkedIn, “recognized the need to move quickly to reduce its cost structure in preparation for a market without the federal ITC.”
Rumors have swirled on social media that North Carolina-based Pine Gate Renewables has come to the same conclusion, laying off 15% of its staff. In response to Latitude Media‘s request for comment, a spokesperson said the company is “committed to the privacy of its current and former team members and does not publicly comment on employee-related matters.”
Meanwhile, two Department of Energy-run national labs are reportedly also mulling cuts. Politico reported last week that the labs are considering laying off more than 3,000 scientists and staff in light of the threat of President Trump’s budget cuts. This would amount to a third of the entire staff of the labs, which have become increasingly key in recent years for bringing new energy technologies to market.
That budget, importantly, is separate from the OBBB; it’s one element of policy uncertainty that looms both for federal government employees and for the industry itself. White House released its budget proposal in May, which is now under consideration in Congress. The Senate is racing to bring at least its first appropriations package —- a “minibus” — to the floor before the August recess.
