U.S. green banks put about $1.4 billion of their own capital, alongside $11 billion in additional private capital, into more than 40,000 projects across 2024 and 2025, according to the inaugural impact report from the U.S. Green Bank 50, released in September and drawing on data from 48 green banks nationwide.

The deployment happened despite the Trump administration's clawbacks of federal climate funding, which forced the banks to scale down Biden-era plans. The report includes summaries of roughly 70 case studies of green-bank-financed work.

"We've continued to move capital in very challenging times," said Dan Adler, executive director of the U.S. Green Bank 50, a coalition of 56 green banks and other organizations. To fill the gaps, members have turned to commercial banks, credit unions, corporate and philanthropic funders. "We're making a virtue out of a necessity," he said.

What did the federal freeze take away?

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, provided $20 billion in green bank grants and another $7 billion in Solar for All grants before the Trump administration terminated both programs last year.

Inclusive Prosperity Capital, a nonprofit green bank that won $249 million from the program, is among those making do without the promised grants. CEO Kerry O'Neill said: "We had projects with financial commitments, training courses for developers and lenders, a predevelopment mentorship program, staff hired and trained, and more. We hope recent court decisions will result in our return to this important work."

In August, a federal judge ruled the administration's freeze of the $20 billion unlawful, and this month two separate federal judges ruled the Solar for All termination illegal. The administration has yet to release the funds and is expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Climate United Fund, a partnership awarded $7 billion but with its funds frozen, has been unable to follow through on plans to finance U.S.-built electric trucks, energy-efficiency and clean energy upgrades, and loans to Native American–led clean energy projects.

The 48 surveyed green banks have about $6.8 billion in their funding pipelines. Adler conceded the loss of federal money has put worthy projects out of reach. "When money is coming down from the sky at basically 0% [interest], you can do very interesting projects — and we're prepared to do that again," he said. "But now we have to focus on tight discipline with private capital as our key partner. You can't do the higher-risk projects, so you work on what's addressable."

Which projects did green banks still finance?

Case studies in the report range from community solar to all-electric affordable housing:

• A $10 million community solar array on land owned by the Sisters of the Holy Family in New Orleans, committed to providing up to 350 low-income households with reduced utility bills. Loans came from Inclusive Prosperity Capital, the United Church of Christ Cornerstone Fund, and Pelican Community Capital, Louisiana's state green bank.
• A 396-unit, all-electric affordable housing project in Salt Lake City, supported by the New York City Energy Efficiency Corp., a 16-year-old green bank, together with Utah nonprofit SustainEnergyFinance. The partners set up a $4.5 predevelopment loan so the developer could move into the next construction phases.
• A $4 million initiative launched by Montgomery County Green Bank in Maryland in March 2026, offering households low-interest loans for rooftop solar, heat pumps and other projects. Qualifying homeowners can access solar loans at a subsidized 2.99% rate for the first 15 years, said Rokas Beresniovas, the green bank's head of partnerships and business development.

How are green banks managing risk without federal funds?

One method is bundling funds from multiple lenders to reduce an individual lender's exposure — the structure behind both the New Orleans solar array and the Salt Lake City housing deal.

Green banks are also sharing technical resources. The Solar and Energy Loan Fund, a Florida-based green bank that has financed nearly $80 million in home energy-efficiency, solar and storm-hardening projects, developed a platform now used by 13 other green banks and similar lenders nationwide, said David Graber, the green bank's chief of staff. It standardizes much of the underwriting and loan-processing expertise the organization built over the past decade.

"We provide the back office and the capital. Partners bring the local trust and the projects," Graber said. The fund estimates each lending partner on the platform avoids hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in costs it would otherwise incur running a full lending operation alone.

Adler said the technologies green banks finance are not inherently risky; the customer classes — affordable housing providers, solar developers in low-income communities — can be. "Whether they've been redlined out of the traditional capital markets, or the deals are not as big as traditional lenders are motivated to engage in, we're taking on the credit risks and the deal structure and size risks," he explained.

The first green banks, formed in Connecticut and New York state in the 2010s, have become significant drivers of private-sector lending for building energy efficiency, electrification, and solar for schools and municipalities. The model's goal, Adler said, is to finance projects considered too risky for private lenders a few times over, "then private capital can take over."

The report also flags a structural constraint: many green banks operate on budgets of less than $2 million per year. "We could do a lot more," Adler said. "But we're looking at what we're able to finance."

What happens next turns on the courts: whether the administration releases the frozen $27 billion in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and Solar for All money, or prevails on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.