President Donald Trump has launched an unprecedented attack on wind and solar power as he seeks to reshape the US energy landscape and reverse the green agenda put forward by his predecessor.
Since Trump returned to office in January, his administration has taken aim at projects on federal lands and oceans, stopping work on wind farms, revoking permits, and making it more difficult for new renewable energy developments to secure approval. He’s also weakened the economics of wind and solar projects more broadly, pushing legislation through Congress that phases out key tax breaks and moving to tighten access to these incentives.
The broadsides have thrown the US clean energy industry into crisis, putting billions of dollars of investment at risk and threatening thousands of jobs. It’s a sharp reversal from just three years ago, when the sector hailed the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act under then-President Joe Biden as the most significant piece of climate legislation in US history.
Why does Trump dislike renewables?
Trump has criticised solar and wind as being unreliable and expensive. He’s called for more power to be generated from fossil fuels, namely natural gas and coal, as well as nuclear.
Renewables generation is intermittent as the sun isn’t always shining nor the wind blowing. But developers are increasingly turning to batteries to store surplus power and discharge it to the grid when needed.
See also: SGX RegCo’s climate reporting extension ‘very generous’, say experts
Trump also isn’t a fan of how renewable power installations look, describing solar projects as “big ugly patches of black plastic that come from China” and mar farmland.
He’s been a vehement critic of wind turbines for years, falsely claiming they cause cancer and deriding them as bird-killing eyesores. Before his first presidential term, Trump lost a legal challenge in the UK to prevent an offshore wind project from being built within sight of a golf course he owns in Aberdeen, Scotland.
See also: BlackRock loses US$17 bil mandate at Dutch pension fund
“Windmills are a disgrace,” he said in July after a visit to the course. “They hurt everything they touch. They’re ugly. They’re very inefficient. It’s the most expensive form of energy there is.”
Looking at the levelized cost of electricity — the long-term price a power plant needs to break even — offshore wind is much more expensive than a new gas-fired facility, but it’s cost-competitive with coal and cheaper than nuclear, according to BloombergNEF’s assessment published in February. Meanwhile, onshore wind, as well as solar, is cheap enough to compete with a new-build gas plant.
How has Trump sought to curb wind and solar developments?
The Trump administration has harnessed its oversight of millions of acres of federal land and waters, where developers need government authorization to build. While these areas are being made easier to explore for the oil and gas industry as part of Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda, the government is imposing standards that would essentially prevent new renewables installations.
On Trump’s first day back in office, he froze permitting for all wind projects on federal land and oceans, and indefinitely halted the sale of new leases for offshore wind development. He also directed the Interior Department to review the “necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases” and to identify “any legal bases for such removal.”
Since then, a number of wind projects have been upended. This includes the Revolution Wind development off the coast of Rhode Island. The government issued an order halting construction of the project — which is already 80% complete — citing national security concerns. This sent shares of developer Orsted A/S to record lows and added to the Danish company’s mounting troubles. Orsted’s Revolution Wind LLC unit filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in early September, seeking to overturn the stop-work order so that it can finish the project.
To stay ahead of Singapore and the region’s corporate and economic trends, click here for Latest Section
For developers hoping to get past the planning stage, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum has ordered that all solar and wind projects on federal lands require his personal sign-off, which could mire the approval process in red tape. The department said it’s acting in accordance with Trump’s order to end “preferential treatment” for these technologies.
As part of this mandate, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management rescinded Biden-era decisions that earmarked coastal waters for future wind turbines. This covers more than 3.5 million acres, including in the Gulf of Mexico, the New York Bight, and off the coast of California and Oregon.
How has the Trump administration targeted renewables beyond federal land and waters?
Only 4% of operational US renewables capacity is located on federal land. While the government doesn’t have direct control over clean energy developments on private property, many of those projects still need federal approvals that are being held up. In addition, the Trump administration has been trying to make the economics of wind and solar less attractive.
Trump has branded efforts to combat climate change as the “Green New Scam” and vowed to do away with subsidies for these activities. The tax-and-spending law he helped push through Congress — known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — phases out the tax credits for wind and solar projects years before they were due to expire. On top of this, the Treasury Department has issued guidance making it harder for developments to qualify for the incentives.
There could be bad news to come on the tariff front, too. Wind turbines and parts are already subject to the 50% duties Trump imposed on imported steel and aluminum products. But the Commerce Department has opened a so-called Section 232 investigation into the national security implications of importing wind energy components, which could lead to sector-specific levies.
It also opened a Section 232 probe into imports of polysilicon — a key raw material for solar modules — which could result in additional duties on imports.
How have these actions impacted the US clean energy industry?
The industry had been building momentum as solar and wind power almost tripled their share of US electricity generation over the past decade, topping 15%. But it’s now in a tough spot. Billions of dollars of new factories and clean energy projects have been canceled, delayed or scaled back since the start of the year.
Clean energy advocacy group E2 estimates that US$22 billion ($28.4 billion) worth of projects were scrapped or downsized from January to June, and more than half of the investment lost was in congressional districts represented by Republicans.
Trump’s crackdown on renewables will likely hit smaller and medium-sized companies harder because they lack the financial moat needed to survive the instability. Larger solar developers have expressed more cautious optimism, saying they’ve been able to start enough projects that qualify for the expiring tax credits in order to continue their projects for the next several years.
The nascent US offshore wind industry is perhaps in the most precarious position given it was just starting to take off before Trump reentered the White House.
How is this affecting energy prices?
That’s a subject of huge debate and has become a hot-button political issue. Electricity prices nationally rose at more than twice the rate of overall inflation in the past year and remained at a record high in June.
While the Trump administration says that adding wind and solar to the grid has been pushing up the cost of electricity, data shows that increased spending on power lines and poles has been the biggest driver of utility bill hikes.
Utilities have been upgrading their grids to accommodate new sources of generation and demand, and network operators are also trying to improve resilience to extreme weather events and modernise infrastructure that was built in the 1960s and 1970s.
Higher electricity costs are a reflection of tight supply as well, as aging coal- and gas-fired plants retire and power consumption rises after years of relatively tepid growth. Demand is being propelled by industrial users and the power-hungry data centers behind artificial intelligence. Slowing the deployment of renewables could exacerbate the situation.
The phaseout of wind and solar incentives under Trump’s tax-and-spending law could raise average US household energy bills by US$78 to US$192 in 2035, and increase annual industrial energy expenditure by US$7 billion to US$11 billion, according to the Rhodium Group.
Where does this leave the outlook for US renewables?
The threat of the federal government pulling the plug on fully permitted and nearly complete assets could make renewables developers and project financiers more wary of making long-term investments in the US, even after Trump has left office. It could also create uncertainty for states such as Massachusetts and Rhode Island that are relying on offshore wind to meet growing power demand and decarbonize their grids.
Blue states won’t be the only ones facing challenges. In red Texas — the top US state for wind generation and number two for solar behind California — all but 6% of new capacity added to the grid since 2020 has come from renewables or batteries, fueling the power needs of its growing economy. That momentum is at risk of slowing as the accelerated phaseout of tax credits makes wind and solar projects more expensive.
Despite the Trump administration’s roadblocks, the US clean energy buildout is expected to continue, albeit more slowly. Solar and batteries are faster to deploy than Trump’s favored energy sources. There’s currently a multiyear manufacturing backlog for the combined-cycle turbines used in gas plants, while new nuclear capacity — whether based on conventional or next-generation reactors — is many years away.
And onshore wind and solar are expected to be cost-competitive even without subsidies, according to BloombergNEF. In addition, blue states including California and New York are still pushing to expand their clean power fleets.
But the outlook for the sector has certainly dimmed. Following the passage of Trump’s tax-and-spending law, BloombergNEF’s revised estimate for new wind, solar and energy storage additions in the US through 2035 is 26% lower than previously projected.
