French utility giant Engie could consider reallocating capital away from the United States if it doesn’t see soon clarity in U.S. tariff and clean energy policies, Engie’s chief executive Catherine MacGregor told the Financial Times.
Since taking office a month ago, U.S. President Donald Trump has moved to freeze billions of U.S. dollars in incentives and loans to clean energy projects in the United States.
Reports have it that the Trump Administration is looking into ways to cancel federal loans granted by the Department of Energy for transition projects from a $400-billion fund.
The Trump Administration has already started undoing some of Biden’s climate regulations and President Trump is looking to defund incentives for renewable energy and scrapping electric vehicle mandates.
President Trump also has Biden’s flagship legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), in his crosshairs, although it is not certain how many and which portions of the Act he would be able to repeal with Congress approval.
France’s utility giant Engie, which just said today it is “ideally positioned to become the best energy transition utility”, sees uncertainties over many regulations and incentives, as well as on tariffs, as potential hurdles to its investments in projects in the United States.
“You need to know the rules and it’s very difficult to invest if you don’t have the rules,” Engie’s MacGregor told FT.
“We are able in the relatively short term to reallocate some of our capital to different parts of the world,” the executive added.
“If we don’t have clarity for a long time, we may do that,” MacGregor told FT, referring to the U.S. policies.
Uncertainties under Trump, especially for renewable and low-carbon energy projects, have stalled development plans of other companies, too.
Pennsylvania-based Air Products earlier this week said it would exit three projects in the U.S.— a Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) expansion project in California, a facility to produce green liquid hydrogen in Massena, New York, and a carbon monoxide project in Texas.