26 New Clean Energy Projects Announced in Jan., At Least 105 Since IRA Passed

CA, GA, NY, and TX led with most announcements

U.S. businesses announced funding and plans for at least 26 clean energy projects, expansions, and renewed production across at least 16 states in January, according to a new monthly review from the national nonpartisan business group E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs). Developments range from new electric vehicle (EV) charging and manufacturing facilities for solar, batteries, and wind to a clean energy transmission line in northern New Mexico. The projects add to a running total of 105 projects that E2 has tracked since the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law last August.

The Clean Economy Works – January 2023 review comes days after reports of Europe unveiling its $270 billion response to the U.S.’s Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) and other clean energy investments and China investing $546 billion in clean energy in 2022 alone.

Based on publicly available information, 12 of the projects represent about $9.5 billion in private sector investments. Additionally, an estimated 10,500 jobs would be created by 9 projects with employment estimates. A full list of the projects tracked by E2 in January is available below.

This review of announcements comes ahead of the Labor Department’s January employment report that is expected to find nonfarm payrolls increased by about 185,000 in January, according to a Reuters survey of economists. Thousands will be in clean energy. The sector added 152,000 jobs in 2021 and is already the largest employer in the U.S. energy industry with 3.2 million Americans working across the renewable fuels and generation, energy efficiency, clean vehicles, and storage and grid modernization sectors.

While it will take time for the majority of these clean energy projects to begin hiring, the surge of announcements since IRA and other federal clean energy investments were signed into law indicates clean energy will be increasingly important to U.S. employment growth and the overall economy, and our global competitiveness.

The following is a statement from Sandra Purohit, federal advocacy director at E2:

“Clean energy businesses and investors are emboldened since the Inflation Reduction Act passed. After years of perpetual uncertainty from tax policy, supply chain challenges, trade actions, and legislative inaction we’ve seen a surge of private investment unleashed into clean economy. And we are just getting started.

“A strong clean energy economy supports a strong U.S. economy, especially as the rest of the world doubles-down on clean technologies and competes with American workers for the millions of new jobs and trillions in private sector investment coming.”

The announced projects cover every region in the U.S., with four states (California, Georgia, New York, and Texas) home to three or more projects. EVs led all clean energy sectors with the most announced projects (10) followed by wind and solar manufacturing (8) and wind and solar generation (7).

Detailed below is a list of clean energy announcements tracked by E2 in January. To receive the monthly Clean Economy Works newsletter, sign-up at https://e2.org/sign-up/. A full list of the announcements tracked by E2 since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act will be available in the coming weeks on www.e2.org.

Clean Economy Works Jan. 2023 | projects announced by date

Clean Economy Works Jan. 2023 | project details state-by-state

ARIZONA (Phoenix): Chinese solar panel maker to open Phoenix manufacturing facility; Jan. 11

• Industry: Solar Manufacturing
• Jobs: 600
• Investment: $60 million

CALIFORNIA (Irvine): Storedot expands globally with opening of California innovation hub to accelerate development of semi-solid state batteries; Jan. 10

• Industry: Electric Vehicles

CALIFORNIA (Long Beach): Port of Long Beach proposes to build largest offshore wind turbine assembly hub in U.S.; Jan. 30

• Industry: Wind Manufacturing

CALIFORNIA (Richmond): Raven SR, Chevron and Hyzon Motors collaborate to produce hydrogen from green waste in Northern California; Jan. 9

• Industry: Fuel Cells/Hydrogen
• Capacity: 2,400 metric tons of renewable hydrogen a year

COLORADO (Pueblo): Retired coal sites to host multi-day iron-air batteries; Jan. 31

• Industry: Energy Storage
• Capacity: 10 MW

CONNECTICUT (Shelton): Pune’s Quench chargers set to power American EV industry with new manufacturing facility; Jan. 18

• Industry: Electric Vehicles

GEORGIA (Cartersville): Qcells bringing 2,000 jobs, solar manufacturing campus to Bartow County, part of a $2.5 billion expansion in Northwest Georgia; Jan. 11

• Industry: Solar Manufacturing
• Jobs: 2,000
• Investment: $2.5 billion
• Capacity: 3.3 GW of solar ingots, wafers, cells and finished panels

GEORGIA (Dalton): Qcells bringing 2,000 jobs, solar manufacturing campus to Bartow County, part of a $2.5 billion expansion in Northwest Georgia; Jan. 11

• Industry: Solar Manufacturing
• Jobs: 510

GEORGIA (Register): Longtime Kia and HMG supplier to build manufacturing facility in Bulloch County; Jan. 5

• Industry: Electric Vehicles
• Jobs: 456
• Investment: $205 million

GEORGIA (Roswell): SK Battery America to open U.S. IT center, create 200 high-tech jobs in Roswell; Jan. 26

• Industry: Battery/Storage Manufacturing
• Jobs: 200
• Investment: $19 million

IOWA (Fairfax): Iowa business to open facility in Fairfax to recycle wind turbine blades; Jan. 12

• Industry: Wind Manufacturing

KENTUCKY (Franklin): LioChem to invest more than $104 million, create 141 full-time jobs in Simpson County; Jan. 26

• Industry: Electric Vehicles
• Jobs: 141
• Investment: $104 million

MINNESOTA (Becker): Form Energy will install two 10 MW / 1,000 MWh batteries on the sites of Xcel Energy’s former coal-fired plants.; Jan. 31

• Industry: Energy Storage
• Capacity: 10 MW

MULTIPLE STATES: Mercedes-Benz plans to build U.S. electric car charging network; Jan. 5

• Industry: Charging/Grid

NEVADA (Sparks): Aqua Metals selects Tahoe-Reno for commercial lithium battery recycling campus; Jan. 18

• Industry: Battery/Storage Manufacturing
• Capacity: 20 million pounds annually of lithium battery material

NEVADA (Sparks): Tesla to build $3.6 billion battery, electric semi-truck manufacturing facility in Northern Nevada; Jan. 24

• Industry: Electric Vehicles
• Jobs: 3,000
• Investment: $3.6 billion

NEW MEXICO (San Juan County to Union County): Powerful clean energy line to crisscross New Mexico; Jan. 13

• Industry: Charging/Grid
• Jobs: 3,500
• Investment: $2 billion
• Capacity: 4 GW

NEW YORK (New York): JFK’s new Terminal 1 to host New York City’s largest rooftop solar array; Jan. 26

• Industry: Solar Generation
• Capacity: 7.66 MW

NEW YORK (New York): JFK’s new Terminal 1 to host New York City’s largest rooftop solar array; Jan. 26

• Industry: Fuel Cells/Hydrogen
• Capacity: 3.68 MW

NEW YORK (New York): JFK’s new Terminal 1 to host New York City’s largest rooftop solar array; Jan. 26

• Industry: Fuel Cells/Hydrogen
• Capacity: 2 MW

NEW YORK (Rochester): GM to invest close to $1 billion in four U.S. factories; Jan. 21

• Industry: Electric Vehicles
• Investment: $56 million

OHIO (Defiance): GM to invest close to $1 billion in four U.S. factories; Jan. 21

• Industry: Electric Vehicles
• Investment: $8 million

TENNESSEE (Decherd): Nissan to Invest $250 million in U.S. plant that makes Leaf e-motors; Jan. 23

• Industry: Electric Vehicles
• Investment: $250 million

TEXAS (Austin): Tesla plans to spend $700+ million to expand Austin gigafactory; Jan. 11

• Industry: Electric Vehicles
• Investment: $717 million

TEXAS (Pampa): Cabot Corp. plans to invest in U.S. conductive carbon additives capacity for electric vehicle lithium-ion battery applications; Jan. 26

• Industry: Electric Vehicles
• Jobs: 75
• Investment: $75 million
• Capacity: 15,000 metric tons of conductive carbon

TEXAS (Paris): Ørsted to develop 471 MW Texas PV project paired with biodiversity initiative; Jan. 16

• Industry: Solar Generation
• Capacity: 471 MW

WISCONSIN (Sturgeon Bay): Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding picked to build wind farm service operation vessel for Crowley and ESVAGT; Jan. 18

• Industry: Wind Manufacturing

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Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) is a national, nonpartisan group of business leaders, investors, and professionals from every sector of the economy who advocate for smart policies that are good for the economy and good for the environment. Our members have founded or funded more than 2,500 companies, created more than 600,000 jobs, and manage more than $100 billion in venture and private equity capital. For more information, see www.e2.org or follow us on Twitter at @e2org.