Public institutions for cleantech commercialization in the United States

Abstract

The United States has been building public institutions to promote cleantech commercialization since the 1970s oil crisis. The ascent of new industrial policy has accelerated this process substantially since 2020, resulting in a doubling of the total number of institutions by 2024. Introducing a dataset of 122 institutions, we show how institutions perform five functions: goal setting, coordination, derisking, imposing discipline, and external engagement. Further, we demonstrate how post-2020 institutions extend and diverge from historical trends, highlighting the recent buildout of planning capacity, the widespread use of conditionalities, and the pivot toward engagement with local and non-firm actors. We conclude with an analysis of how the second Trump administration is transforming the cleantech commercialization system through retrenching, redesigning, repurposing, and maintaining institutions. We offer a bottom-up, institution-level examination of the emergence and evolution of state capacity for green industrial policy in the United States, its functions, and current developments.