There was $239 billion in new investment in the manufacture and deployment of clean energy, clean vehicle, building electrification and carbon management technology in the U.S. in 2023, up 38% from 2022. A record $67 billion of this investment occurred in the fourth quarter of 2023, a 40% increase relative to the same period in 2022.
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 Q3-2023.
During 2022 and 2023, companies announced $156 billion in new investments in clean energy and vehicle technology manufacturing, a 165% 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.
When it comes to actual clean manufacturing investments, total annual investment in 2022 and 2023 was up 210% compared to the previous two years. We estimate that the electric vehicle supply chain accounted for $12 billion of the nearly $15 billion invested in the final quarter of 2023. The fourth quarter of 2023 also saw significant growth in solar manufacturing investment, up 39% compared to the previous quarter.
During 2022 and 2023, companies announced a total of nearly $250 billion in new investments in clean energy production, carbon dioxide capture or removal, and other forms of industrial decarbonization, a 55% increase over the previous two-year period. The complementary technologies of solar PV and grid-connected storage continue to dominate this segment, and 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. In the fourth quarter of 2023, companies invested $4.3 billion in deploying these technologies, a more than ten-fold increase relative to the same quarter of the previous year.
Only 28% of the investment announced in 2022 and 2023 has occurred—given the relatively long project lead times for big energy-producing projects. Combined with $44 billion from previous year announcements, total Energy and Industry investment was $72 billion in 2023. The most rapid growth in investment in 2023 occurred in emerging climate technologies—clean hydrogen, carbon management, and sustainable aviation fuels. In the final quarter of 2023, companies invested $4.3 billion in deploying these technologies, a ten-fold increase relative to the final quarter of 2022.
American businesses and households in 2023 invested $118 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 17% increase from 2022 and 2.5 times the amount invested in 2018.
Within Retail, the fastest growth has been in the purchase of ZEVs. American businesses and households invested $77 billion in ZEVs in 2023, up from $60 billion in 2022 with total annual ZEV sales increasing by 52% relative to 2022. Purchase and installations of residential and commercial rooftop solar systems, other distributed renewables, fuel cells and battery storage increased robustly in 2023 as well, a 17% increase from 2022. Heat pump installations continued to decline driven by continued weakness in residential construction activity.
