The U.S. voted to return Donald Trump to the White House Tuesday night, and the effects are making themselves felt across the stock market Wednesday morning. While not all votes have yet been tabulated, early Wednesday morning it’s looking entirely likely that not only did Republicans win the popular vote and the Electoral College (with potentially as many as 312 electoral votes), but they now control a majority in the Senate, and potentially in the House of Representatives as well.
So what does this mean for renewable energy stocks?
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Nothing good, it seems, according to investors. As of 9:50 a.m. ET, shares of solar panel producer First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) are down 18.9%, while solar power provider Sunnova Energy International (NYSE: NOVA) crashed a staggering 43%. Liquid hydrogen producer and hydrogen fuel cell manufacturer Plug Power (NASDAQ: PLUG) is suffering as well — off 19.8% at last report.
The reasons renewable energy investors are frightened take multiple forms. Sunnova for example could be a huge loser if new Trump tariffs against solar panels imported from China take hold and strangle its supplies. Conversely, investors might ordinarily favor a company like First Solar, which doesn’t import panels from China at all, but rather manufactures them in Ohio and Alabama. (Albeit, First Solar does manufacture some panels in countries other than China, which could be affected by tariffs.)
Complicating matters further, The Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday detailing “cutthroat competition” and overcapacity concerns at China’s Longi Green Energy Technology. As “one of the biggest makers of solar-power equipment in the world,” you’d expect Longi at least to have benefited from the recent boom in solar demand around the world. Instead, WSJ says the company lost $740 million in the first half of this year.
Tariffs or no tariffs, it seems even when demand for solar power is strong, it’s tough to make a profit in this business. And demand may not be strong going forward — at least not in the U.S.
Reporting last week on what energy investors should expect if Trump or Harris won Tuesday’s election, Reuters highlighted a Trump promise to “rescind all unspent funds” approved by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. As Reuters pointed out, this could deprive companies like First Solar, Sunnova, and Plug Power of “hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for electric vehicles, solar and wind energy, and other clean energy technologies.”
