In the first quarter of 2025, U.S. companies announced $9.4 billion in new manufacturing projects, despite the ongoing uncertainty around federal policy, shifting tariffs, and global trade tensions.
According to the latest report from the Clean Investment Monitor, a joint project of Rhodium Group and MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Q1’s manufacturing announcements were a 47% increase over Q4 2024, though a 23% drop compared to the same quarter last year.
The Inflation Reduction Act’s manufacturing incentives — including the 45X advanced manufacturing production credit — have had a dramatic impact on domestic manufacturing since its implementation, the report found. Actual investments in U.S. manufacturing of clean energy and transport technologies has increased substantially since Q3 2022, to a total of $115 billion altogether. Of the 380 clean tech manufacturing facilities announced since the IRA was signed into law, 161 are now operational.
At the same time, six manufacturing projects, totaling $6.9 billion in investment, were canceled in Q1. That’s the highest value of quarterly cancellations on record, the report found.
“The uptick in new announcements, coupled with significant cancellations, highlights both the progress achieved under the IRA and the risks posed by an unstable policy environment,” the report said.
The report also outlines potential future paths for domestic supply chains for clean technologies. Those analyses, however, consider state and federal policies on the books as of last summer, and do not include the Trump administration’s tariff changes or federal policy reversals. That uncertainty, other research suggests, is already complicating domestic solar and storage manufacturing plans.
Solar and storage manufacturing
As of March 31, the Clean Investment Monitor tracks 110 operational solar component manufacturing projects around the country. In total, those projects currently have the capacity to produce 42 GW of modules, 8 GW of cells, and 26 GW of polysilicon. And as those existing facilities ramp up, they’ll add an additional 19 GW of module capacity and 6 GW of cell capacity.
Polysilicon production, which is where the solar PV manufacturing process begins, faces a tough scale up. The report estimates that there is around 9 GW of capacity that could come online by 2035 — but only 13% of that capacity is currently under construction; 87% is connected to facilities that have been announced, but haven’t yet broken ground.
The middle stages of manufacturing — converting polysilicon into wafers, ingots, and ultimately PV cells — is also struggling. Current cell manufacturing capacity is at only 24% of deployment levels, though around 34% of the planned 14 GW of capacity slated to come online is under construction.
Batteries, the Clean Investment Monitor found, are faring better, and are in fact the “dominant driver of post-IRA manufacturing activity.” In fact, the advanced stages of the battery supply chain — cells and modules — are “far ahead of wind and solar,” the report said.
Battery manufacturing accounted for 69% of all clean tech manufacturing investment since the IRA’s enactment, and is “the most advanced segment of the clean tech supply chain in terms of current operational capacity and forward momentum.”
The 123 operating battery manufacturing projects Clean Investment Monitor tracked as of Q1 account for around 202 gigawatt-hours of cells and 208 GWh of modules annually. An additional 202 GWh of cells and 114 GWh modules are expected to come online soon, as those factories ramp up to full production. In total, that capacity already exceeds domestic demand for EV batteries and stationary storage.
An additional 65 facilities are currently under construction, with the potential to add 656 GWh of cell capacity and 560 GWh of module capacity by 2035. Another 44 projects have been announced but aren’t yet under construction.
Of course, all of these supply chains could be severely hampered by ongoing changes to federal policy. The fate of the IRA tax credits looms particularly large, the report acknowledges.
If Congress maintains credits like the 45X production credit, the clean electricity tax credit, and the consumer EV credit, the current manufacturing momentum could continue. But if those credits are weakened or reversed, the U.S. should expect an increase in project delays and cancellations.
As the report notes, “turning [announced projects] into operational facilities will require a stable investment climate and efficient permitting and interconnection processes.” The coming months, it adds, will be key as to “whether the U.S. cleantech manufacturing boom picks up pace or stalls.”
