2025 ‘a year of loss’ for renewable energy jobs and investments, E2 says
In contrast to some forecast reports for solar in the near future, Economy + Environment (E2) says 2025 was a year of loss in investments, jobs, and manufacturing across the American renewable energy industry.
In the company’s Clean Economy Works analysis piece which tracks the state of the renewable energy industry, E2 officials say that over 38,000 manufacturing jobs were eliminated throughout the renewable energy industry. Additionally, the manufacturing sector itself saw $30.2 billion in losses, and investments were cancelled at triple the rate that they were announced.
In the EV and battery realm, businesses canceled more than $42 billion in projects, which counted for more cancellations than any other sector of the industry.
All of these factors led to the U.S. passing over a “clear and consequential threshold” near the end of 2025, E2 says. That is to say, the renewable energy market went backwards for the first time in years.
“For the first time since E2 began tracking major clean energy projects beginning in 2022, more clean energy investment left U.S. communities than came in,” the company says. “Companies abandoned, closed, or downsized nearly three dollars in clean energy investment for every one dollar newly announced, reversing the net flow of capital that had defined the post-2022 clean energy expansion.”
December 2025 was especially grim, E2 says, with $5.1 billion and 8,000 jobs canceled in that month alone.
Causes and impacts
Losses in the renewable energy space were “widespread and bipartisan,” E2 says, affecting various communities around the country. Still, congressional impacts played a major role in the mass cancellations, the firm’s research finds.
In total, Republican-held districts saw $19.9 billion in renewable energy project cancellations, nearly double that of Democrat-held districts at $10.6 billion. Renewable energy job losses told a strikingly similar story, with red districts seeing 24,500 jobs cancelled, and blue districts seeing just about half of that, at 12,600 jobs. Undetermined districts lost a combined $4 billion.
“Several states that had previously led clean energy growth—such as Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, New York, and Arizona—experienced some of the steepest reversals,” E2 says.
“Together, these findings show that 2025 was not simply a year of slower growth, but a year in which policy and market uncertainty translated directly into lost investment, lost jobs, and stalled manufacturing capacity.”
E2’s research states that Michigan alone lost nearly 9,800 jobs and $7.7 billion.
The impact of these losses is potentially profound for the American economy as a whole. E2 predicts that investments the U.S. refuses to capitalize on will go elsewhere to other countries, including world leader China.
“The implications extend beyond local impacts,” E2 says. “Investment that no longer moves forward in the United States does not disappear—it is increasingly redirected to foreign markets and U.S. competitors offering more predictable policy environments, clearer incentives, and greater long-term certainty.
“As a result, 2025 marked not only a year of lost domestic investment, but a shift in where future clean energy manufacturing capacity is likely to be built.”
Looking forward
For every one dollar invested in renewable energy in 2025, three dollars of investments were canceled and retracted, according to E2. A total of 61 projects were canceled, closed, or downsized during the year, which represented $34.8 billion in cancellations.
That imbalance leaves the renewable energy industry in a perilous place for the immediate future, E2 says.
“This imbalance—$34.8 billion in canceled or reduced investment compared with $12.3 billion in new announcements—was not simply the result of a slowdown in new projects, but of a surge in reversals among large, capital-intensive manufacturing facilities,” E2 says. “These projects were expected to anchor domestic supply chains, create long-term jobs, and position U.S. communities as hubs for clean energy production. Instead, their cancellation left communities with fewer jobs, stranded infrastructure plans, and lost economic opportunity.”
The retraction of state level impacts in places like Michigan, Illinois, and Georgia illuminates the now-halted momentum of the renewable energy industry. With massive losses in the EV and battery sector potentially disrupting the wider energy supply chain, the industry has its work cut out for it in 2026 and beyond, E2 says.
“The experience of 2025 demonstrates how quickly momentum can reverse when long-term signals weaken,” the firm says. “Clean energy manufacturing investment depends on stability, scale, and confidence. When those conditions erode, capital moves—and once it does, communities, workers, and supply chains are left competing to win it back.”
