Trump's tax bill jeopardises clean power factory plans

Reuters

27-05-2025

May 27 - A rapid expansion in U.S. clean energy manufacturing capacity is being curtailed by cuts to tax credits in President Trump's House budget bill currently being thrashed out by Congress.
Tax credits in Biden's 2022 Inflation Reduction Act accelerated solar, wind and battery storage deployment and spurred a flurry of new clean energy manufacturing projects to meet rising demand. The act provides tax credits to clean power developers, incentives to buy domestic content and offers 45X advanced manufacturing production tax credits to suppliers that build factories in the United States.
However, Trump's House budget bill proposes to speed up the expiry of the tax credits for developers and block the 45X manufacturing tax credits from going to foreign entities of concern (FEOC). The bill was narrowly approved by the House of Representatives on May 22 but many Republican states have benefited from the tax credits and the bill may undergo significant changes in the Senate.
'If Congress does not change course, this legislation will upend an economic boom in this country that has delivered an historic American manufacturing renaissance, lower electric bills, hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs, and tens of billions of dollars of investments primarily to states that voted for President Trump,' Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), said in a statement.
CHART: US planned power generation installs in 2025
Manufacturers have spent more than $321 billion in clean technology manufacturing since the inflation act was introduced in 2022, according to a Q1 2025 report by the Rhodium Group-MIT/CEEPR Clean Investment Monitor. A total of 2,369 new clean energy manufacturing, utility-scale clean electricity and industrial decarbonisation facilities have opened since 2022, creating nearly 13,000 jobs in Texas and 12,500 in Georgia, for example.
Many manufacturers are pausing expansion plans until the final bill is approved by Congress.
The proposed block on manufacturing credits for foreign entities of concern seems to apply to Chinese-owned companies and also companies 'that have a licensing agreement with or receive any material assistance from a Chinese-owned company' and this would impact a significant amount of existing and planned U.S. solar manufacturing capacity, Elissa Pierce, Research Analyst, Solar Module Technology and Markets at Wood Mackenzie, told Reuters Events.
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For solar manufacturer Heliene, major amendments to the 45X production tax credits are the first concern, but the accelerated expiry of other tax credits would "also directly affect demand,' Heliene CEO Martin Pochtaruk told Reuters Events.
Heliene and Indian partner Premier Energies plan to develop the first module manufacturing chain to use U.S.-made polysilicon, wafers and cells but the final decision is still pending, Pochtaruk said.
Until the tax credit changes are finalised, 'we only have the uncertainty of the possible changes putting things on hold,' he said.
Tariff pain
Manufacturers have already held back investments following Trump's appointment as President, due to looming tax credit cuts and a raft of import tariff announcements.
Almost $8 billion in investment and 16 new large-scale clean energy factories and other projects were cancelled, closed, or downsized in Q1 2025 'amid escalating market uncertainty and as Congress begins debate on repealing the tax credits and other incentives,' think tank E2 Clean Economy Works said in its latest market update.
MAP: US clean power manufacturing facilities operational or planned
President Trump has raised import tariffs to boost American manufacturing and gain leverage in international trade but volatile trade policies have deterred investors and U.S. clean energy manufacturers will likely face increased costs if the tariffs are implemented as proposed, Pierce said.
There are large gaps in U.S. clean energy supply chains and developers and manufacturers want certainty over trade policy before making large investments in facilities.
China dominates the global supply of solar components and imports into the United States from China and Southeast Asian countries, where many Chinese companies have relocated production, are subject to tariffs and antidumping and countervailing duties. President Trump has imposed an additional 30% tariff on imports from China as well as a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminium imports, impacting suppliers reliant on Chinese components.
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The inflation act led to a rapid increase in U.S. module production capacity, reaching 55 GW in May 2025, compared with just 8 GW in 2022. In comparison, the U.S. is forecast to install around 40 GW of solar capacity per year in the coming years.
Upstream solar production capacity has lagged far behind module production however, making many suppliers heavily dependent on components from Asia.
U.S. solar cell production capacity was just 8 GW/year in Q1 2025, according to the Rhodium Group-MIT/CEEPR Clean Investment Monitor.
Financing for cell factories is usually contingent on the 45X credits, so their uncertain future 'is holding back development of these factories," said Pierce.
U.S. polysilicon capacity is currently around 26 GW/year but there is minimal wafer production capacity.
'The upstream supply chain remains underdeveloped and is highly sensitive to future policy and market signals," Hannah Hess, Associate Director, Rhodium Group, told Reuters Events.
The trade measures could be designed more effectively by imposing tariffs on solar panels from China while allowing the continued low-cost imports of key components such as wafers, Hess said.
Other potential improvements include a phased implementation to 'give domestic manufacturers time to ramp up and investors time to respond—rather than a sudden cost spike," she said.
Offshore wind hit
President Trump waylaid the burgeoning U.S. offshore wind sector by pausing the review of leases and permits and ordering the review of approved projects, prompting major uncertainty for developers and manufacturers.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration offered the sector some hope when the Department of Interior rescinded a stop work order on Equinor's $5 billion Empire Wind project off New York. The reversal prompted rises in the share prices of some offshore wind developers, including Orsted, the world's largest offshore wind developer, which is constructing two wind farms off the East Coast.
Equinor had warned in early May that the stop-work order could mean cancelling the 810 MW project that was 30% complete. New York Governor Kathy Hochul said the state was suing the federal government over its offshore wind policies.
The resumption of Empire Wind should help secure the future of a tower factory developed by Equinor, Marmen and Welcon at the Port of Albany.
Empire Wind will consist of 54 large offshore wind turbines of capacity 15 MW and the manufacturing facility will create up to 550 direct jobs, Welcon said.
"This is the largest thing the port has ever done," Port of Albany CEO Rich Hendrick said in 2022. "We put all of our effort into offshore several years ago and this project will be as monumental as building the original port."