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Yes. U.S. clean-energy and transportation investment remained substantial in the second quarter of 2026, but that does not mean every part of the industry is growing or that new announcements have all become operating projects. The latest Clean Investment Monitor estimates $75 billion in actual investment for the quarter; manufacturing announcements and cancellations tell a more mixed story.
What the latest investment figures actually measure
The Clean Investment Monitor, produced by Rhodium Group and the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, estimates that $75 billion was invested in U.S. clean energy and transportation in Q2 2026. That was 22% more than Q1 2026 and 4% more than Q2 2025, and the second-highest quarterly total in the Monitor’s record. Clean investment represented 5.2% of U.S. private investment in structures, equipment, and durable consumer goods that quarter. Retail purchases accounted for 56% of the clean investment total. These are estimates of investment, not a tally of proposed project values.
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The Monitor defines investment as real dollars spent on facility construction or retail purchases. For a new greenfield facility, it counts investment once groundbreaking is confirmed. Its categories separate manufacturing, energy and industry, and retail, so the figures below describe different kinds of spending rather than interchangeable measures.
Three segments, not one undifferentiated market
| Segment | Reported investment | Period and scope |
|---|---|---|
| Retail | 56% of the $75 billion total | Q2 2026; includes purchases by households as well as businesses. |
| Energy and industry | $196 billion | Two years through Q2 2026; 31% above the preceding two years. |
| Manufacturing | $81 billion | Two years through Q2 2026; compared with $60 billion in the preceding two years. |
The rolling two-year figures are from the Monitor’s U.S. summary through Q2 2026. Do not add the rows to derive a total: they are separate categories in a broader dataset, while the retail share above is a single-quarter proportion.
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What people and businesses bought or installed
In Q2 2026, $41 billion went to zero-emission vehicles, distributed renewable electricity generation and storage, and heat pumps, according to the Clean Investment Monitor. That group includes household purchases as well as business spending. Distributed generation and storage alone reached nearly $12 billion, more than double its Q1 2026 level; residential battery storage installations made up 75% of that category’s Q2 investment. These figures show demand for climate-related equipment and installations, but they should not be described as business-only purchases.
Why announcements and cancellations tell a different story
An announced project is a commitment or plan, not necessarily money already spent, a completed facility, or a project that will proceed. Cancellations track planned projects that have been abandoned; they do not mean the same amount was previously invested and then pulled out. Keeping these measures separate explains how actual investment can remain high while the pipeline of new manufacturing plans weakens.
Environmental Defense Fund and Atlas Public Policy reported that companies announced $7.9 billion in new U.S. clean-energy manufacturing investment in Q2 2026 and canceled $2.9 billion in previously announced projects. The tracker therefore showed $5 billion in net new announced investment for the quarter. Since the start of 2025, it recorded $39.6 billion in canceled planned manufacturing investments and 53,400 announced manufacturing jobs canceled. These are tracker totals for announcements, cancellations, and associated announced jobs—not a measure of facilities already built or jobs that had been operating.
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New activity is concentrated, not broad-based
EDF and Atlas said Q2 2026 announcements were driven by solar manufacturing, transmission, and grid equipment. One example was Convalt Energy’s planned $5 billion solar manufacturing campus in New Mexico. It is an announced plan, not an operating plant. The same report counted only three clean-energy manufacturing investment announcements above $1 billion in the preceding 18 months, compared with 24 in the 18 months before that. A large headline project can therefore coexist with a thinner pipeline of other large commitments.
The pattern is not new. A Clean Investment Monitor supply-chain analysis of Q1 2025 recorded six canceled announced projects worth $6.9 billion and $9.4 billion in newly announced manufacturing projects. At the time, it described those cancellations as the highest quarterly value on record. That earlier snapshot also pointed to tariff pressure, federal-policy uncertainty, and macroeconomic conditions; its Q1 2025 numbers should not be conflated with the Q2 2026 tracker totals.
Which climate technologies are growing—and which are not?
Investment and capacity trends vary by technology. The Clean Investment Monitor’s supply-chain analysis, updated through Q1 2025, is useful for comparing manufacturing capacity, while its Q2 2026 update gives the newer picture of actual spending. Capacity figures and scenarios below are not equivalent to current output or current investment.
Solar and batteries
In the Q1 2025 supply-chain analysis, battery and solar manufacturing had the strongest post-Inflation Reduction Act investment and capacity growth among the areas studied. Domestic battery cell and module capacity exceeded then-current deployment levels, while solar module production was on par with deployment. The report projected that U.S. solar module production could supply roughly 55% of projected annual capacity additions by 2035 under a rapid-decarbonization scenario. That is a scenario-dependent projection, not an achieved share or a guarantee of future output.
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Zero-emission vehicles
The Q1 2025 supply-chain report said U.S. zero-emission vehicle manufacturing capacity already exceeded 2024 sales. It estimated that, if all announced and under-construction plants entered operation, U.S. production capacity could reach 6.84 million vehicles in 2035—equivalent to 60% to 67% of projected annual zero-emission vehicle sales from 2030 through 2035. Both the plant-completion condition and the sales projection matter: this does not mean those facilities are all operating now, or that their output will necessarily match the forecast.
The Clean Investment Monitor’s rolling two-year manufacturing figures through Q2 2026 identify the electric-vehicle supply chain as the dominant driver of manufacturing spending. Over that two-year period, actual manufacturing investment was $81 billion, up from $60 billion in the preceding two years, even as new manufacturing project announcements fell. Actual spending and the prospective project pipeline can move in different directions.
Wind and emerging technologies
The Q1 2025 supply-chain analysis found wind manufacturing lagging: investment was declining, new announcements were few, and capacity expansion was limited. That finding cautions against treating growth in solar, batteries, or vehicles as evidence that every clean-energy industry is booming.
Over the two years through Q2 2026, the Clean Investment Monitor counted $6 billion for emerging climate technologies, including clean hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuels, carbon management, and industrial decarbonization approaches. This is a subset of activity, not the size of the total climate-technology market. The Clean Air Task Force’s Q4 2025 analysis also noted steady solar and wind investment in that quarter and identified battery storage colocated with data centers as an emerging market emphasis—a period-specific observation, not proof of a lasting trend.
What changed after the Inflation Reduction Act—and what that history can show
Historical comparisons show a substantial increase in actual investment after the Inflation Reduction Act, but those totals cover earlier periods and should not be presented as current annual spending. Rhodium Group and MIT CEEPR’s 2024 two-year review counted $493 billion in actual business and consumer clean-technology investment from the second half of 2022 through the first half of 2024, 71% more than in the preceding two years. It represented 4.5% of U.S. private investment in structures, equipment, and durable consumer goods over that period, versus 2.6% in the prior two years.
Within that 2024 review, clean-energy and transportation manufacturing investment totaled $89 billion over the two-year post-law period, compared with $22 billion in the prior two years. The report also counted $161 billion in clean-energy production and industrial decarbonization investment and $242 billion in purchases and installations of zero-emission vehicles, heat pumps, distributed renewables, fuel cells, and storage. These are historical category totals, not additions to make on top of the newer Q2 2026 figures.
A separate Clean Investment Monitor supply-chain measure found $115 billion invested in U.S.-based clean-energy and transportation manufacturing from Q3 2022 through Q1 2025, compared with $21 billion in the equivalent pre-law period. Its window and manufacturing scope differ from the 2024 economy-wide business-and-consumer total, so the two figures cannot be combined.
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Federal policy matters because rules and public decisions can change the expected returns, financing assumptions, approval schedules, and compliance costs for long-lived projects. In its Q4 2025 analysis, Clean Air Task Force described federal policy as a direct influence that can either hinder or catalyze private investment. It identified narrowed tax-credit eligibility under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, delays in federal approvals and guidance, funding cuts, permitting changes, and compliance requirements as factors affecting projects.
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The same analysis noted that some project economics depend on federal credits and that evolving Treasury and IRS guidance, including foreign-entity restrictions affecting certain credits, can change project bankability and timing. The relevance varies by technology and project. These are descriptions of policy conditions and analysis for Q4 2025, not individualized tax advice; eligibility rules can change, so businesses considering a credit should verify current requirements with official guidance and qualified advisers.
Policy is not the only force in the investment figures. The EDF and Atlas cancellation tracker and the earlier Clean Investment Monitor supply-chain analysis point to uncertainty alongside factors such as tariffs and broader economic pressures. The available figures do not isolate how much of an investment increase or decline was caused by federal policy rather than costs, demand, interest rates, grid constraints, or other conditions. They support a narrower conclusion: policy can materially affect project economics and timing, but the data do not establish it as the sole cause of business investment trends.
What the evidence says about business motives
Aggregate spending, project announcements, and cancellations show that investment is continuing unevenly; they do not reveal why a particular company made a specific decision. The latest retail total includes households, while manufacturing and deployment measures cover different activities. Neither the Clean Investment Monitor nor the cited announcement trackers establish individual executives’ reasons for investing or canceling. It is therefore more accurate to describe observed activity and the conditions that can affect it than to assign a universal motive to “businesses.”
Quick Recap
How to read the next climate-investment headline
- Check the measure: actual spending, a project announcement, a cancellation, announced jobs, operating capacity, and projected capacity are distinct things.
- Check the period: a quarterly figure, a rolling two-year total, and a post-law historical comparison answer different questions.
- Check who is included: retail investment may combine household and business purchases; do not recast it as corporate spending alone.
- Check the technology: solar, batteries, vehicles, wind, and emerging technologies do not share one investment trajectory.
- Check the attribution: institutional monitors and policy or advocacy analyses use defined methods and perspectives; their estimates are not audited government totals.
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