Investing in Energy: Where’s the Money Going Under Trump 2.0?

One of the areas that we have focused on in The Fusion Report is where investments are going to develop fusion energy. As you probably know, the investment in fusion energy to date is over $7.1 billion, according to the Fusion Industry Association. While this has slowed since its high point in 2021, it would be incorrect to assume that this is because of a diminished interest in fusion energy. Rather, the funding profile, particularly in 2021, was largely driven by an intersection of funding needed from fusion companies (particularly Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which raised $1.8 billion in 2021) with the money that was available for investment.

Investment In Energy Is Growing, but the “Where” Hasn’t Changed A Lot

So where is investment in energy going today? On a worldwide basis, investment in clean energy is clearly outpacing investment in fossil fuel-based energy, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). To quantify this, the IEA’s expectation is that worldwide investment in “clean tech” will exceed $2.2 trillion (USD), twice the investment in fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) of $1.1 trillion (USD). This is in spite of the fact that worldwide demand for fossil fuels, especially coal and natural gas, are growing rapidly worldwide (both China and India expect to see a 4% increase in coal demand in 2025). Of the “clean” or “renewable” investments, solar is by far the biggest beneficiary, with investment of over $500 billion worldwide.

Side Benefits of Increased Investment in Renewables

One of the benefits of the increased investment in renewable energy sources is the increase in investment in the grid itself, and in energy storage. Worldwide, grid spending increased from a recent low point of slightly over $300 billion in 2020 to roughly $450 billion in 2024, a 50% increase. Moreover in the US, where grid investment has been relatively flat for a long time, the grid investment will grow nearly 2X from $67 billion in 2017 to $124 billion in 2024, a number that is expected to only grow faster during the rest of this decade, especially as electricity demand from data centers increases.

Similarly, investments in battery storage technology for the grid is also increasing. The US Energy Information Administration (US-EIA) expects the US battery energy storage footprint to grow to nearly 65 GW by the end of 2026, a doubling of the 28 GW footprint at the end of Q1 2025. Further accelerating this trend, in April 2025 the American Clean Power Association (ACP), a consortium of companies involved in the creation and transmission of green power, announced a commitment to invest $100 billion into building and buying American-made grid batteries. This is expected to drive the creation of roughly 350,00 jobs in the US. Most of this investment is in Texas and California, which in 2024 accounted for 82% of new US battery storage capacity.

Improving the Grid’s Backbone – Connecting ISOs

Finally, all these investments, whether fusion, solar, batteries, nuclear fission, or fossil fuels, doesn’t help if you can’t get the power to where it is needed. This is especially true given the growth in electricity demand from datacenters and for seasonal electricity consumption drivers such as residential and commercial cooling. Which is why transmission system investment is so critical to the US energy sector.

While much of this investment started under the Biden Administration, funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the push for increased transmission infrastructure investment is also a priority under Secretary of Energy Chris Wright as a part of his February 2025 Secretarial Order. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a non-profit corporation founded by US utilities to ensure bulk power system reliability, has called for the investment in an additional 35 GW of transmission capacity between US ISO regions. The purpose of this investment is to provide the ability to transfer power between regions, especially during extreme weather events, to improve grid reliability.

Summary: Grid Improvements Benefit All Energy Production Sources, Including Fusion

While The Fusion Report has primarily focused on the commercialization of fusion energy, it is critical (as pointed out in our previous article) that fusion energy does not live in a bubble, and that it must integrate seamlessly with other energy sources and with the larger electricity grid. Ensuring that the grid can support new energy sources such as fusion energy is becoming a larger concern as demand increases, and an investment that is complementary to those in fusion energy.