Installed clean power capacity drops in third quarter, ACP reports
Approximately 3.4 gigawatts (GW) of new utility-scale clean power capacity were installed in the third quarter, according to the Clean Power Quarterly Market Report, produced by American Clean Power (ACP).
That third quarter capacity brings the total of installations year-to-date to 14.2 GW. Installations were down 22 percent compared to the third quarter of 2021, and they are down 18 percent year-to-date compared to the previous year. Specifically, quarterly wind installations fell 78 percent, while solar installations dropped 23 percent. Only battery storage, which commissioned 1.2 GW this quarter, increased installations compared to the third quarter of 2021. In fact, this is the best year ever for energy storage installations, which are almost even with total 2021 volumes already.
The problem has been project delays, as developers have struggled to procure solar panels, faced supply chain challenges, and confronted longer interconnection queues to connect projects to the grid. Overall, 14 GW of clean power capacity was delayed this quarter, adding to the 36 GW backlog. Of that backlog, 63 percent are solar projects.
“The solar market has faced repeated delays as companies struggle to obtain panels as a result of an opaque and slow-moving process at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Policy uncertainty around tax incentives constrained wind development, underscoring the near-term need for clear guidance from the Treasury Department so the industry can deliver on the promise of the IRA. Storage was the one bright spot for the industry and had its second-best quarter on record,” said JC Sandberg, interim CEO and chief advocacy officer at ACP. “The aggressive deployment of storage continues to drive down consumer energy costs and enhance grid reliability.”
In the third quarter, Texas and California had the biggest clean power deployments, including large-scale wind, solar, and battery hybrid developments and standalone storage. Amazon was the largest purchaser this past quarter. The 350-megawatt (MW) Azure Sky Wind Project in Texas, owned by Enel, was the largest wind project to achieve operations this quarter. The largest hybrid project commissioned this quarter was NextEra’s California-based Arlington (Riverside County Solar) Solar + Storage project, with 231 MW of solar capacity.
Sandberg added that the organization is hopeful that the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will give the industry the tools it needs to triple annual installations of wind, solar, and battery storage by the end of the decade.
“We expect the IRA to deliver 550 GW of new capacity by 2030, representing $600 billion in capital investment and growing the clean power workforce to nearly a million strong by 2030. We continue to work with relevant government decision-makers to quickly resolve remaining tax guidance, supply chain, and trade challenges to realize the IRA’s full potential. This is essential to set the nation on a path to achieve its clean energy goals,” Sandberg said.
