Trump’s Escalation of Clean-Energy Fight Is Creating More Pain for Producers

The US president’s latest move against renewables is to pull funding for transmission lines to carry wind power.

US President Donald Trump’s negative impact on clean energy has been intense this year, but this week he took it to a new level.

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His administration on Wednesday canceled $4.9 billion in federal financing for the Grain Belt Express, a transmission project that’s faced backlash from Republicans over ties to wind energy.

The same day, NextEra Energy Inc., one of the world’s biggest suppliers of wind and solar power, saw its shares tumble 7% as analysts worried Trump’s elimination of clean-energy tax credits would hurt the company.

And Tesla Inc., once the apple of Trump’s eye, warned of difficult times ahead after losing electric-vehicle incentives.

Go back a bit further for another prime example. The administration halted construction of a $5 billion wind farm off New York’s coast, then reversed the decision after reaching a deal with the governor that could allow new natural gas pipelines in the state.

Source: BloombergNEF, Grain Belt Express project website.
Note: Route is approximate and for illustrative purposes only.

That one really hurt: The farm’s developer, Equinor ASA, this week took a $955 million writedown on its offshore wind projects in the US and said it was unlikely to develop the second stage of Empire Wind.

Meanwhile, companies that profit off fossil fuels are doing great. Shares in the big independent power producers that own gas plants rose after an auction to ensure electricity supplies on the largest US power grid set record-high prices.

GE Vernova Inc., whose shares almost quadrupled on the strength of gas turbine sales, saw the stock climb further after saying its turbine backlog had grown by 10%.

There doesn’t seem to be a limit to how far Trump will carry his war on clean energy.

As analysts from ClearView Energy Partners wrote in a note about the cancellation of the Grain Belt Express financing: “Could the White House be expanding its ‘green new scam’ battlefield into transmission?”

–Josh Saul, Bloomberg News