The current US government’s energy strategy is nothing short of nightmarish for anyone that cares about a sustainable future.
But the country’s transition toward clean energy continues to gain momentum despite policy hindrances: New data shows that a record $378 billion was invested into the clean energy transition in the US last year.
The figure – a 3.5% uplift on 2024 – was revealed in the latest iteration of BloombergNEF’s annual Energy Transition Investment Trends report which incorporates data from a range of sources including thousands of energy transition deals and projects.
Investment into US grid infrastructure and electrified transport led the charge and more than made up for the decrease in funding for clean energy generation and storage.
The increased investment during the first year of the current administration’s tenure is especially encouraging when compared to the 7.6% drop in US energy transition investments in 2017, when Trump’s first term in the White House began.
It demonstrates that energy transition companies and technologies are more mature and more resilient to political uncertainty than they were a decade ago. Experts continue to stress that things must move even more quickly but this resilience is, nevertheless, cause for cautious optimism:
“We are in a world where the underlying technological forces and the economic forces point in one and only one direction,” said Columbia Business School economist Gernot Wagner in comments to Inside Climate News.
“While the political pendulum swings back and forth, especially in this country, there is very little doubt that we are, in fact, racing in the right direction at an increasing speed.”
The report noted upward trends worldwide in four key indicators it focuses on: spending to deploy clean technologies, investment in clean energy supply chains, equity investment in climate tech companies, and debt issuance to fund energy transition projects.
Global investments in energy transition in 2025 were also up 8% year-on-year, hitting a record $2.3 trillion. The increase was largely driven by the electrified transportation sector which attracted $893 billion in investments in 2025, representing a 21% increase on the previous year.
