Just how many jobs and GDP dollars do US clean energy factories create?

Yahoo

20-05-2025

American manufacturing has already surged in the clean energy sector, bringing with it significant economic rewards.
That's the main takeaway from a census of U.S. clean energy factories, published today by the American Clean Power Association trade group. The report identifies 200 operating across 38 states as of early 2025. The production of solar panels leads the count with at least 90 facilities. About 65 factories are making batteries, while a smaller number produce equipment for onshore and offshore wind. A broader population of over 800 facilities plays a supporting role in the clean energy supply chain, manufacturing materials and subcomponents that turn the solar panels and batteries into full-fledged power plants.
Those facilities already contribute 122,000 jobs and create $33 billion of economic activity annually, which includes earnings, goods and services produced, and payments to supporting industries, ACP found. Notably, 73% of these factories operate in what the report describes as 'Republican states' (as determined by presidential vote). That economic impact could grow to $164 billion by 2030 if the currently planned and announced factories come to fruition.
The report came out as ACP met for its annual conference in Phoenix, but the intended audience includes the Republican members of Congress who will soon vote on cuts to the slew of tax credits underpinning this factory buildout. The report asserts that the burgeoning cleantech factory sector could 'be the foundation for American energy dominance that is built by Americans for Americans.'
'We have seen a tremendous amount of momentum over just even the past couple of years in clean energy manufacturing growth,' MJ Shiao, ACP's vice president of supply chain and manufacturing, said on a press call Friday. 'With stable tax and stable trade policy, we can really continue to amplify, grow that momentum.'
Clean energy leaders have spent the months since the November election hoping that the sheer economic dynamism their factories inject into Republican congressional districts could overcome President Donald Trump's desire to unravel Joe Biden's legacies. It didn't help that the Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act, with its many highly targeted tax credits for clean energy deployment and manufacturing, on a party-line vote.
But enough Republican representatives publicly argued against a wholesale repeal of the credits to give cleantech insiders hope. Indeed, the House Ways and Means Committee declined to eradicate the credits entirely in its budget proposal from last week. But the proposed tweaks to many of the individual programs narrow their scope and could render them wholly unworkable nonetheless.
'If they are implemented as currently drafted, which we certainly hope they are not, we will see factories shutting down,' Shiao said. 'We will see these American manufacturers have to lay people off, and we will see them having to tell their local business partners that they no longer have the opportunity to work with them.'
In that light, the ACP report reads as a tabulation of what the country could miss out on if policy changes underway in Washington bring the onshoring trend to a staggering halt.
The manufacturing job count could grow to 579,000 by 2030 if the other announced factory projects get built and come online. Total job count doesn't confirm how desirable the work is, but these jobs happen to pay quite well, especially solar manufacturing salaries, which averaged $134,000 in 2024.
A Canary Media visit to the enormous QCells solar factory in Dalton, Georgia, last year showed why this work pays more than traditional manufacturing. The brand-new factories leverage considerable automation and robotic assistance for the heavy lifting and repetitive, high-precision tasks. Workers patrolled the lines and intervened when the machinery needed help. That greater output of an in-demand, high-tech product supported considerably higher pay than the carpet factories down the road.
'This is not our parents' generation's manufacturing,' Shiao said. 'There is automation, there is robotics, there is AI in these facilities. And that's a good thing, because these are high-tech, high-skill opportunities that are being brought into some of these communities that are really eager to find ways to keep their best, keep their brightest in the places that they grow up in.'
Across cleantech factories, annual earnings from clean energy manufacturing averaged $118,000, the study found, well above the average U.S. worker's pay of $76,000.
It's not just immediate employees who benefit, though. First comes the intensive but temporary construction phase. Once complete, the factories create additional work for support services in the region, such as shipping and delivery companies, food vendors, hotels for visiting customers, and waste disposal. Domestic manufacturing also relies on other component suppliers: Utility-scale solar panels sit on American steel trackers, covered in U.S.-made solar glass. The authors calculate that each job in a clean energy factory leads to three more in supporting industries.
This reality sounds a lot like the vision that Trump campaigned on last year, of growing jobs at home by restoring U.S. manufacturing from the ravages of globalization. He also repeatedly emphasizes a desire to secure more critical minerals for the U.S.; clean energy technologies provide much of the expected demand growth for those minerals.
'This administration talks a lot about an all-of-the-above energy strategy that facilitates American energy dominance,' Shiao said. 'I think there needs to continue to be that recognition that solar, wind, energy storage are key pieces and critical pieces to realizing that growth, certainly in terms of the speed at which those projects can be deployed.'
The Ways and Means budget proposal dealt a blow to the cleantech industry's hopes for a predictable investment landscape. It was also the opening volley of a weekslong negotiating process that will soon involve the Senate as well. Amid all that uncertainty, ACP has at least provided some fresh numbers on the value clean energy factories have created in their short moment of ascendancy, as well as helped clarify what's at stake.
'We think we've got a winning message, one that is bringing positivity, and of course, economic growth to the country,' said John Hensley, ACP's senior vice president of markets and policy analysis. 'We're going to continue to tell that story, and hopefully it lands on ears that are willing to listen.'