A sudden electricity crunch in the US, driven by artificial intelligence, is colliding headlong with the Trump administration’s attacks on wind and solar. President Donald Trump has presented his anti-renewable stance as a way to cut energy costs — but a new analysis suggests limiting energy development at a time of high demand will result in Americans paying even more for power.
The new report from clean energy think tank Energy Innovation suggests higher energy bills will continue for the next decade, tied directly to Trump’s policies. It comes as energy affordability is emerging as a key issue in this year’s midterm elections.
A year ago, Republicans in Congress killed a clean energy law that had contained billions in subsidies for renewables, electric vehicles, rooftop solar and household batteries. The administration has made it harder to permit clean energy projects and has tipped the scales in favor of more expensive coal-fired power. And Trump’s government has waged a largely successful onslaught against the budding electric vehicle market in the US.
Energy Sec. Chris Wright said he was “thrilled” to celebrate the anniversary of Trump ending the clean energy tax credits last week, calling renewable energy “low-value.” In a statement, Department of Energy spokesperson Ben Dietderich described the Biden administration’s policies as “energy subtraction” that made energy more expensive and the grid less reliable. Dietderich added the Trump administration was “working relentlessly” to reverse those policies.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to cut electricity bills in half in his first year in office. But the collective impact of the administration’s actions will raise costs on American households by more than half a trillion dollars by 2040, Energy Innovation found. On average, individual households will pay $460 more for their energy costs by 2035, and up to $490 more per household by 2040.
“It’s no surprise that Energy Innovation — an organization that received over $20 million in direct funding from one of the largest progressive dark money groups — wrote a fraudulent analysis on President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill,” Rogers said in a statement. “The reality is the Working Families Tax Cuts ended Biden’s costly Green New Scam, rolled back burdensome regulations, and bolstered US energy production to lower prices for American families.”
Trump and congressional Republicans are making it tougher “to build these sources of electricity right when we need to add all this generation to meet growing demand,” said Robbie Orvis, Energy Innovation’s senior director of modeling and analysis. “There’s just a direct line from that set of policies to increasing energy bills.”Trump’s tax bill “will help lower electricity costs by allowing market forces dictate what new electricity generation gets built,” Dietderich told CNN in a statement.
But clean energy analysts say Trump policy is driving cost increases. “It is materially impacting Americans’ pocketbooks in a negative sense,” said Sam Ricketts, co-founder of clean energy consulting firm S2 Strategies. “We cannot overlook that it is the wrong direction. We need to change course.”
The loss of those credits, combined with the administration’s repeal of tailpipe emissions rules, will significantly slow EV uptake in the US, Energy Innovation projects. While previous projections suggested that EVs would make up 68% of new car and SUV sales in 2035, Energy Innovation now estimates that EVs will only be 23% of that market.
“I wouldn’t say that EVs are cratering, but new EV sales are stalling out,” said Adrian Deveny, founder of consulting firm Climate Vision and a former top Senate Democratic staffer. “That’s a really disappointing trend. Across the rest of the world, the rate of new EV sales is accelerating rapidly.”
Fewer EVs on the road will eventually raise costs for drivers of gas vehicles, because there will be increased demand for gasoline, and more people will be driving less efficient vehicles for longer, Orvis said.
It’s not all bad news for EVs, however. The used EV market in the US has been surprisingly strong, as a wave of previously leased vehicles starts to flood the market. And there is also renewed interest from customers, driven in part by expensive gas prices and the fact that many used EVs are now cheaper than their gas-powered counterparts.
Read the full article by Ella Nilsen / CNN
