Georgia clean energy jobs surge, but policy shifts slow growth

Despite national and state policy, the clean energy sector in Georgia still shows some promise.

Zach Amittay, the Southeast advocate for E2, said their latest data from 2024 shows that Georgia has more than 83,000 clean energy jobs across the state and ranks 15th nationwide.

“So Georgia is by most accounts a leader in clean energy jobs nationally, and in 2024, the number of clean jobs in Georgia grew five times faster than jobs in Georgia’s overall economy,” he said. “So not only are these a meaningful amount of jobs, but they’re growing at a rate much higher than the overall economy, which means that clean energy jobs are sort of a workhorse for the workforce for Georgia.”

E2 is a national network of business voices, executives, investors and other members of the business community that advocate for policies to accelerate the transition to clean energy, and the group conducts research on the clean energy economy across the country.

Amittay said it’s important that the public and policymakers understand that clean energy contributes to a lot of economic and job growth in the state. Clean energy jobs represent seven times more jobs than fossil energy jobs in the state.

E2 also tracks major clean energy projects, such as a solar manufacturing facility or an electric vehicle manufacturing facility. Georgia has had 38 major clean energy projects announced from 2022 to 2024 making it the number one state for clean energy projects nationwide for those years. That’s more than $13.3 billion in private sector investment with more than 18,000 new clean energy jobs.

“That paints overall an incredibly rosy and optimistic picture as well,” he said.

However, over the past year, four projects have announced cancellations while only six new projects have been announced, Amittay said.

“So it’s almost 50-50 between cancellations and projects over the past roughly year, year and a half now, and that’s just an indication of the way that the market is turning,” he said.

Amittay said they attribute the shift to the policy environment at the federal level with many clean energy incentives being rolled back by the Trump administration.

“We are seeing the brakes are being pumped in a serious way by the private sector when it comes to investment in clean energy projects, and we’re, of course, going to start seeing impacts on the workforce in the clean energy space as a result of that,” he said. “We believe very strongly in clean energy as a driver of economic growth and job growth in Georgia for the long-term, but we’re certainly going through a choppy period right now and a downturn in the market driven by a lot of market uncertainty and policy backsliding.”