Whether you’re for the environment or the economy — or both — the data is clear: clean energy is a great investment. A report released at the Georgia Clean Energy Summit on Thursday in Atlanta highlights the high return on investment for Georgia in the clean energy industry. Much of the advancement of the clean energy and EV industry has come from the billions poured into Georgia from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the legislation signed into law in 2022 which set aside billions and is the single-largest federal investment in green initiatives in the country’s history.
The report, produced for Environmental Entrepreneurs, or E2 for short, and titled “Georgia Clean Economy: Opportunity Rising,” describes economic analysis and predictive models by BW Research that predicted “403,000 new jobs — 100,000 permanent — $156 billion added to U.S. GDP, $111 billion in new wages for workers and more than $32 billion generated in tax revenue for federal, state and local governments.”
Researchers tracked 19 projects in Georgia that were launched between August 2022, when the IRA was signed, and August 2023. The report predicted 38,600 jobs for a five-year period during the construction for the projects, and an additional 6800 jobs each year after the construction phases for these projects.
The report also predicted $13.9 billion added to Georgia’s GSP during the construction phase and $926.5 million added to Georgia’s GSP — the state version of GDP — annually during the operational life of projects. The economic impact was measured with direct, indirect and induced effects. A full list of predicted models can be found in the report.
Bob Keefe, executive director of E2, said that the clean energy economy has been steadily growing, but in the last few years it has really taken off like never before.
“Never before like it has since the passing of the IRA and these other policies 18 months ago,” Keefe said. “So this is a huge inflection point.”
The major categories of investment were broken into solar, wind, electric vehicles (EVs), electric transmission & distribution, battery storage and clean fuels. EVs took the lionshare of capital investments with 49 percent going towards it, followed by battery storage with 27 percent and solar at 24 percent. The other three categories were negligible on this scale.
Stuart Countess, president and CEO of Kia Georgia, was the keynote speaker for the Georgia Clean Energy Summit and spoke about the latest entry into the state’s EV market, the Kia EV9. He said he hopes to have the vehicle hitting the road by summer of this year, and noted that the car will be built here in Georgia.
Keefe said that this time feels different for the bolstering sector of the economy because this time around, the economics have made clean & green energy more feasible and not just the aspirations of environmentalists.
“It’s different in a lot of ways. The technology, frankly, is here — that we didn’t have a decade or two ago. The technology has caught up with the problem,” Keefe said. “There’s absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t be moving as fast as we can to deploy these climate solutions — and, by the way, these tremendous economic opportunities.”
The economic opportunity, Keefe copes, is what will convince leaders to continue in this direction which will follow E2’s motto: Good for the economy. Good for the environment.
“I don’t know if you care about polar bears, or icebergs melting, or birds or butterflies; you should, those are all important things. I don’t care if you even believe in climate science; you should, because it’s telling us what’s happening,” Keefe said. “But either way you should care about jobs that are being created in your backyard. You should care about the economic benefits and economic opportunities that are being created by these policies.”
These policies, however, are not a guarantee. New administrations, new agendas and new policies — or rollbacks on existing ones — can all affect the direction and opportunities in the clean energy industry.
“The only thing that I think can kill this is politics, unfortunately,” Keefe said. “It used to be that creating jobs, driving economic growth, attracting investments, keeping America competitive on the global marketplace were bipartisan goals. That’s the way we are looking at this, and if you can’t get behind that in a place like Georgia, that’s really unfortunate.”
With an estimated $14 billion added to the state’s GSP during the construction phase of the 19 projects and nearly a billion during the opertail phase, along with a $2.6 billion estimated tax revenue in the construction phase, the potential economic impact on the state with a $36 billion budget this year cannot be understated.
E2 has been around for 23 years and uses, according to Keefe, conservative models and estimates when projecting economic impacts. So while nothing is guaranteed, he’s optimistic that if partisan politics don’t interfere, this economic opportunity will continue to flourish in the coming decade and beyond.
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