The US government has directed unprecedented sums of money at green energy projects
Signed into law by President Biden in August 2022, the IRA, along with the so-called Bipartisan Infrastructure Law enacted in November 2021, are intended, amongst other things, to funnel billions of federal dollars into developing clean energy.
The aim is to lower greenhouse gas emissions, and incentivise private investment, to encourage the growth of green industries and jobs: a new foundation for the US economy.
Rhodium, together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, runs the Clean Investment Monitor to track US clean technology investments.
The extent to which the policy instruments are so far spurring not just announcements - of which there are plenty - but real extra private investment is harder to know: clean energy investment has been on a general upward trend anyway and the IRA hasn't been around long.
Total clean energy investment in the US in the 2023 calendar year including from both private and government sources reached a record $239bn, up 38% from 2022 according to the CIM data.
Clean energy investment in the US, as a share of total private investment, rose from 3.7% in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 5% in the fourth quarter of 2023.The IRA has had two main positive effects thus far, says Mr Houser.
The IRA is failing to reach some parts of the green economy: so far it hasn't lifted investment in more mature technologies which have been falling like wind and heat pumps, though Mr Houser notes things may have fallen further without the IRA.On the industry's mind is the fate of the laws, particularly the longer-to-run IRA, should there be a change of government in the US November elections.
Some European clean energy manufacturing companies are now building facilities in the US to take advantage of the tax credits that otherwise would have been built in Europe including solar panel maker Meyer Burger and electrolyser manufacturers Nel and John Cockerill.
"The US wasn't a market for some of these companies in the past because Europe was more active," says Brandon Hurlbut, of Boundary Stone Partners, a clean energy advisory firm.
The Labour party recently scrapped its $28bn green investment plan seen as a stab at leaning into an IRA style policy.