Since President Trump took office, almost $19 billion worth of wind and solar power generation projects have been canceled, according to U.S. consultancy Atlas Public Policy.
As President Trump slashed subsidies and regulatory support for wind and solar, companies involved in these industries have canceled projects worth a total $18.6 billion, the consultancy said, as quoted by the Financial Times.
Investment announcements since January have declined by 20%, Atlas Public Policy also said in its Clean Economy Tracker, down to $15.8 billion compared to $20.9 billion last year.
The radical change in federal government attitudes towards the wind and solar industries has already shaken them, causing bankruptcies and stock price slumps. In the case of Danish wind turbine major Orsted, that change contributed significantly to a government bailout in the form of a rights issue worth close to $10 billion.
The report from Atlas Public Policy comes on the heels of a fresh threat by President Trump, who said earlier this week that his administration will no longer approve wind and solar projects.
“Any State that has built and relied on WINDMILLS and SOLAR for power are seeing RECORD BREAKING INCREASES IN ELECTRICITY AND ENERGY COSTS. THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY! We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar. The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!! MAGA,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Indeed, with the axing of the Inflation Reduction Act and its subsidy stipulations for wind and solar projects, the Trump admin has already effectively suspended new wind and solar projects by rendering them economically unviable.
Meanwhile, energy transition proponents are warning that this course of action may compromise energy supply security for data centers.
“Renewables can be built and connected in a matter of a year or two, in a way that meets data centre developers’ timelines,” Advait Arun, an energy policy analyst at the Center for Public Enterprise, told the FT. “If you’re ignoring renewables, then you’re missing a key part of the equation.”
Wind and solar, however, cannot generate electricity around the clock, which is another key part of the equation that most pro-transition analysts consistently ignore.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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