OBBBA has cost over US$100 billion in clean energy investment, says E2

The OBBBA was passed into law on 4 July 2025, though the industry was anticipating changes to support structures for clean energy projects from the time of Donald Trump’s election in November.

These cancellations and delays have cost a total of 124,511 five-year construction-phase jobs and, more strikingly, 343,390 jobs annually for operations and maintenance, E2 estimates.

Overall, investment and job losses arising from the OBBBA have cost the US heavily in GDP terms. E2 estimates a US$91 billion hit to GDP from lost construction activity and US$55 billion of GDP growth lost annually from cancelled manufacturing plants and other operations. The report said this is a “bigger economic impact” than the entire US spectator sports industry.

“Because many of the affected projects are closures or downsizings, which curtail ongoing operations rather than initial construction, annual operating expenditures are relatively high compared with capital investment,” the report said.

Battery energy storage was the technology most affected, sustaining 35% lost capital investment and employment since January 2025. Solar followed with 25%, electric vehicles 24% and wind power 16%.

The OBBBA introduced restrictions and shortened timelines for many of the federal tax supports introduced for clean energy deployment and manufacturing by the Biden administration. E2 conducted previous research, which showed that the Biden government’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) resulted in US$130 billion in investments into 338 major clean energy projects over two years.

Previous estimates from the US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) said that up to 116GW of US solar and energy storage projects were facing political “limbo” as a result of Federal policy changes. SEIA said that at a time when demand for power was “skyrocketing”, the US administration was “using every tool at its disposal to slow down solar and storage projects”.

The bill introduced tighter deadlines for projects to qualify for the 30% investment and production tax credits (ITC/PTC) introduced under the IRA, with requirements to prove the “start of construction” within one year of the OBBBA’s passing to secure access to the credit. Those rules created a rush of early-stage project development and procurement deals, and are still subject to potential changes and retroactive rulings even though the deadline has passed. You can read coverage of the safe harbour process in a series of articles on PV Tech and PV Tech Premium.

The Bill also introduced complex Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) restrictions on sourcing products, financing or components from companies associated with China. Violation of these rules, which have moving thresholds over time, can void access to tax credits.

In its analysis, E2 said: “Together, these lost direct and indirect jobs and investments tell a nationwide story of stunted progress in domestic manufacturing, clean energy production, transportation and infrastructure modernisation, and foregone economic benefits catalysed by the rollback of clean energy incentives in the OBBBA.”