There was $213 billion in new investment in the manufacture and deployment of clean energy, clean vehicle, building electrification and carbon management technology in the U.S. over the past year, a 37% annual increase.
Rhodium Group and MIT CEEPR’s Clean Investment Monitor is a comprehensive database, updated each quarter, of investment across the United States in:
Manufacturing: The construction or expansion of factories that manufacture clean energy, clean vehicle, building electrification, or carbon management technology.
Energy and Industry: New or expanded facilities to produce clean energy, capture carbon dioxide emissions, or decarbonize industrial activity.
Retail: The purchase and/or installation of clean electricity generation and storage, clean vehicles or building electrification technology by individual households and businesses.
To create a historical baseline against which to assess recent clean investment developments in the U.S., the CIM includes all investments in our covered technologies since 2018. This results in a database with roughly 20,000 individual facilities, 3 million zero emission vehicle registrations, 20 million heat pump sales, and 4.5 million distributed electricity generation or storage installations as of Q2-2023.
Over the past two years, companies have announced $137 billion in new investments in clean energy and vehicle technology manufacturing, a five-fold increase over the previous two years. Most of the announcements by investment value are in the electric vehicle supply chain, from critical mineral production to battery and charger manufacturing to final vehicle assembly. There has also been significant growth in the number of new solar manufacturing facilities announced.
We estimate that $37 billion of the $137 billion in announced manufacturing investment over the past two years has already occurred. On a quarterly basis, actual clean manufacturing investment reached $13.6 billion in Q2-2023, five times more than the quarterly average two years ago.
Over the past two years, companies have announced $257 billion in new investments in clean energy production, carbon dioxide capture or removal, and other forms of industrial decarbonization, a 75% increase over the previous two-year period. The majority of these announcements have focused on the complementary technologies of solar PV and grid-connected storage, while announced investment in new wind projects declined by half over the same period. There has also been significant growth in announced investments in emerging climate technologies like clean hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuels, and carbon dioxide capture or removal.
Only $63 billion of the $257 billion in investment announced over the past two years has occurred—given the relatively long project lead times for big energy-producing projects. Coming on top of $18 billion from previous year announcements, total Energy and Industry investment was $61 billion last year. This is a 15% annual increase, and a doubling in annual investment relative to five years ago.
American businesses and households invested $113 billion last year in the purchase and installation of zero emission vehicles (ZEVs), heat pumps and distributed renewable energy generation, fuel cells and energy storage systems. That’s a 32% annual increase and a 138% increase relative to the annual rate five years ago.
Within Retail, the fastest growth has been in the purchase of ZEVs. American businesses and households invested $70 billion in ZEVs over the past year, up 46% from the year prior and 211% relative to the annual rate five years ago. Purchase and installations of residential and commercial rooftop solar systems, other distributed renewables, fuel cells and battery storage has increased robustly as well, while heat pump installations slowed last year after four years of meaningful growth.
