Cheapest Clean Energy ETF and Low Expense Ratio Clean Energy ETFs

The cheapest clean energy ETF is the iShares Global Clean Energy ETF (ICLN) at 0.38% a year. Fidelity's Clean Energy ETF (FRNW) charges 0.39%, SPDR's S&P Kensho Clean Power ETF (CNRG) 0.45% and ALPS Clean Energy (ACES) 0.55%. First Trust's QCLN costs 0.59%, its wind fund FAN 0.60%, Invesco's PBW 0.63% and Invesco Solar (TAN) 0.70%. Vanguard and Schwab do not sell a clean energy ETF.

The fee gap between these eight funds is about a third of a percentage point. The gap in what they hold is much wider. We sorted every holding by what the company mainly sells, and the share that is actually solar, wind, hydrogen and the developers that own solar and wind farms runs from 27.7% in PBW to 100% in TAN. The rest is utilities, electric vehicle makers, lithium miners, chip companies and, in PBW, electric aircraft and quantum computing stocks. So below, every US clean energy ETF is ranked twice: by expense ratio, and by what it costs for each $100 of clean energy you actually get.

Expense ratios come from each fund's summary prospectus or fund page. Holdings come from the issuers' daily files for QCLN, FAN and CNRG (October 13, 2026) and ACES (October 14, 2026). The iShares, Invesco and Fidelity websites could not be read, so ICLN, PBW, FRNW and TAN holdings are from their latest SEC holdings filings, dated May 31 to July 31, 2026. We make index construction and backtesting software; we do not sell funds or give investment advice.

Cheapest clean energy ETFs ranked by expense ratio

Two of the funds carry fee caps rather than a fixed fee. First Trust caps QCLN at 0.60% through April 30, 2027 and FAN at 0.60% through January 31, 2027, and FAN's total before the cap is 0.61%. The others have no waiver in their fee tables, so the number on the label is the number you pay. Clean energy stocks fell hard this year: QCLN's assets dropped from $837 million at the end of June to $527 million on October 13, so check that a small fund still trades enough for you before you buy it.

Which clean energy ETF has the lowest expense ratio?

ICLN has the lowest expense ratio of any US clean energy ETF at 0.38%, which is $38 a year on $10,000. Fidelity's FRNW is a hair behind at 0.39%, and CNRG is third at 0.45%. For a solar-only fund there is just one choice, TAN at 0.70%, and for a wind-only fund just one, FAN at 0.60%. There is no index fund priced like an S&P 500 fund in this category; the cheapest clean energy ETF still costs four times what SPY charges.

Among the two biggest funds, the price gap is large. ICLN and TAN each held about $2.3 billion in their latest filings, and TAN costs 0.32 percentage points more. On $50,000 that is $160 a year for a fund that holds only solar. Whether that is worth it depends on whether solar is the bet you want, which brings us to the second ranking.

Clean energy ETFs ranked by fee per $100 of real clean energy

A cheap fee on a fund that is half car makers buys something different from a cheap fee on a fund of solar and wind companies. So we divided each fund's expense ratio by the share of it that sits in solar makers and installers, wind turbine makers, fuel cell and hydrogen companies, and renewable developers and yieldcos. Utilities, electric vehicles, batteries, lithium, chips and everything else were left out of the denominator.

ICLN stays first, and the order underneath changes a lot. TAN, the most expensive fund on the label, moves up to third because every dollar in it is solar. CNRG, third on the label, drops to sixth because almost a quarter of it is utilities such as Constellation, NextEra and AES. QCLN and PBW fall to the bottom: per $100 of clean energy you pay three to four times what ICLN charges. One judgment call matters here. We counted GE Vernova, Siemens Energy, Dongfang Electric and Arcosa as grid and power equipment rather than wind, because wind is not most of their revenue. Count them as wind and FRNW falls to $0.53, level with ICLN, FAN to $0.83 and CNRG to $0.86. The rest of the order holds.

Why QCLN and PBW cost more than their label says

QCLN holds only US listings, and the US clean energy companies large enough for its index include many chip makers and car companies. On October 13 its five largest holdings were Bloom Energy at 10.6%, Monolithic Power at 8.6%, ON Semiconductor at 8.6%, Tesla at 8.4% and Rivian at 6.2%. Semiconductors were 30.5% of the fund and electric vehicles, batteries and lithium another 23.2%, so 53.6% of QCLN was in businesses most people would not call clean energy. It held no wind maker. If you already own an S&P 500 fund, 42.9% of QCLN's money was in companies you hold there too.

PBW is wider still. It spreads its money over about 72 mostly small companies, so no stock passed 2.4% in its July 31 filing. Its top ten opened with OPAL Fuels, which produces renewable natural gas, and BETA Technologies, an electric aircraft maker. BETA, Archer and Joby, plus the quantum computing companies D-Wave and IonQ, added up to 7.3% of the fund. Electric vehicles, batteries and lithium were another 31.2%. That spread is a choice, and it gives PBW the most small company risk of the eight. It is not a cheap way to own solar and wind.

Does Vanguard have a clean energy ETF?

No. Vanguard does not sell a clean energy ETF or a renewable energy ETF, and neither does Schwab. A search of SEC fund filings from June 2025 to October 2026 found clean energy ETF filings from iShares, Invesco, First Trust, State Street, ALPS, Fidelity and Virtus, and none from a Vanguard or Schwab trust. Vanguard and Schwab customers can buy any of the eight funds above at no commission, or buy the stocks directly. Vanguard's broad energy fund holds oil and gas companies, so it is not a substitute.

Is the Fidelity Clean Energy ETF (FRNW) a good choice?

On cost, yes. FRNW charges 0.39%, one basis point more than ICLN, and was 67.7% in solar, wind, hydrogen and developers in its June 30 filing. Its index ranks companies by how much of their revenue comes from solar, wind, hydrogen and other renewable sources. The catch is size. FRNW held about $154 million at the end of June against ICLN's $2.3 billion, which usually means a wider spread between the buying and selling price. Fidelity's site could not be read for this comparison, so we cannot show its published spread. It is also very global: 63.2% of FRNW sat outside the US, and its largest holding was GE Vernova at 6.0%, then Vestas, Bloom Energy, EDP and First Solar.

The cheapest clean energy ETF for each kind of exposure

That last row is worth a second look if you are a US investor who wants to avoid foreign exchange exposure. CNRG and QCLN both buy only US-listed shares, but CNRG reaches foreign companies through depositary receipts, so 24.6% of it was still non-US by company. ACES restricts the companies themselves to the US and Canada, and was 87.7% US.

When is owning the stocks cheaper than a clean energy ETF?

Once the balance is large enough, and once you know which slice you want. US listings cover solar well: First Solar, Nextpower (the former Nextracker), Enphase, Array Technologies, Shoals, SolarEdge and Sunrun. Fuel cells and hydrogen are almost all US-listed too, with Bloom Energy, Plug Power and FuelCell Energy, and so are developers such as Brookfield Renewable, Clearway, Ormat and Enlight. Wind is the gap, because Vestas, Nordex, Siemens Energy and Orsted trade in Europe; GE Vernova is the main US-listed wind equipment maker. A basket of 15 to 25 of those names has no expense ratio. At 0.70%, TAN costs $350 a year on $50,000 and $700 on $100,000, every year.

Holding the shares also lets you take tax losses one stock at a time, and clean energy gives more chances than almost any theme. These stocks can drop 30% on a single policy change, tariff ruling or earnings report while the rest of the group holds. Before you add a name like Bloom or Plug, it helps to run a rule-based backtest on a single ticker and see how it behaved through past drawdowns. In your own basket you can sell the one that fell for a loss and keep the rest, which a fund does not let you do. Check the 30 day window with the wash sale calculator before you buy it back.

What you give up is the upkeep, and the European wind makers. You decide the weights, cap the largest names and rebalance them yourself. That is the part worth testing before you put money in. On our build your own clean energy stocks index page you can pick the companies and weights, backtest the basket against ICLN, TAN and the S&P 500 over real market history, and track it daily before you buy anything. If nuclear belongs in your clean energy view, the nuclear energy ETF alternative page sorts those funds into uranium miners and reactor companies, and the same fee-per-exposure method is applied to cloud funds in our cheapest cloud computing ETF ranking.

How we built these numbers

Fees are from the summary prospectuses and fund pages: ICLN August 31, 2026, PBW August 28, 2026, TAN December 19, 2025, FRNW October 29, 2025, QCLN May 1, 2026, FAN February 2, 2026, and the State Street and ALPS fund pages for CNRG and ACES. Holdings are from First Trust's files for QCLN and FAN and State Street's files for CNRG and SPY, all for October 13, 2026, the ALPS file for ACES for October 14, 2026, and SEC Form N-PORT filings for ICLN and PBW (July 31, 2026), FRNW (June 30, 2026) and TAN (May 31, 2026). Those four have moved since, and TAN's filing is the oldest. Every holding was assigned to one group by its main business, and country is the issuer's country in the SEC filings; the full list of judgment calls is in the sources note on the clean energy index page. Holdings and fees change, so confirm them on the fund page before you buy. Indexes is not affiliated with any fund issuer named here, and backtested results are hypothetical.