American Clean Power Association reports positive energy storage growth as clean energy industry bumps policy restrictions
The fourth quarter of 2022 brought 9.6 GW of total wind, solar, and battery storage installations to the United States, according to the latest report from the American Clean Power Association (ACP).
This brought the total installation figures for 2022 to 25 GW, leading to clean energy capacity capable of powering 61 million American homes. Battery storage capacity had a particularly good year, increasing by 80 percent to reach 9 GW overall. Still, despite the fourth quarter being the best of 2022, it was the lowest fourth quarter showing for utility-scale clean energy project installations since 2019 due to a mix of policy and market issues, including supply chain constraints, delays connecting projects to the grid, uncertain trade restrictions and issues of permitting and how to implement the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The results: progress well short of initial predictions.
“Affordable, American clean energy is on the rise, reducing both electric bills and pollution,” Jason Grumet, ACP CEO, said. “But outdated regulations and unduly cumbersome permitting processes are slowing down the clean energy transition. These challenges are undermining progress across all energy technologies and must be addressed to create an energy system that is modern, reliable, clean, and secure.”
Some good news for the industry is that the development pipeline has reached a new high, as bolstered by market reactions to the IRA, even though policy headwinds held back industry potential. Development queues rose to 13 percent more capacity since Q4 2021. Still, annual installations fell below both 2021 and 2020 levels, and the industry ended the year with the lowest fourth quarter since 2019, down 21 percent from 2021.
Solar grew installation capacity by 4.7 GW in the last three months of the year, bringing total installations to 12.6 GW, well short of the 30 percent growth expected. Wind saw its strongest quarter of the year, with 4 GW of new projects commissioned. Still, at 8.5 GW installed for the whole year, the wind industry saw a 37 percent year-over-year drop, likely due to the declining value of an associated Production Tax Credit.
Storage was unique among these entries, though, for a record-breaking year. It topped the previous record set last year by a gigawatt and helped battery storage projects reach 12 percent of the development pipeline.
There is now 227 GW of operating clean power capacity in the U.S. Texas and California continue to lead the country in this area, with Texas deploying 9.2 GW last year, followed by 4.7 GW in California. Texas also remains the state with the most clean energy in development.
