Today, the American Clean Power Association (ACP) released its comprehensive Clean Power Annual Market Report for 2022 and its Clean Power Quarterly Market Report for Q1 2023, finding that combined U.S. wind, utility solar, and energy storage capacity had the third-largest year on record in 2022 with over 25GW of new clean power installed. However, a decline in deployment volume from the previous two years, combined with a historically low Q1 2023, underscore the continued headwinds facing the industry.
After historic clean energy incentives were signed into law in August 2022, clean power has seen record levels of announced activity, with the development pipeline swelling to nearly 140 GW by the end of Q1 2023 – 11% above where it was at the same point last year. However, it is too early to see this activity translate into installations, which have slowed for the first time since 2017.
By the end of 2022, nearly 228 GW of clean energy was online, with 4 GW more added in Q1 2023. These resources provide 15% of the nation’s electricity and clean power dominated new power capacity additions in 2022, comprising nearly 80% of all new grid additions.
In the nearly 140 GW development pipeline, solar accounts for 59% of all clean power capacity. Land-based wind accounts for 15% of the pipeline, battery storage represents 14%, and offshore wind claims the remaining 13%.
Contributing to the slowdown in installations were delays in 2022 that affected over 50 GW of projects in late-stage development, with a total of 63.3 GW experiencing delays by the end of Q1 2023. On average, these projects face delays of six months or longer. Project delays are primarily due to unclear permitting timelines, trade policy uncertainty, transmission shortages, difficulties sourcing solar panels, unresolved IRA implementation, and interconnection queue challenges (with over 1,741 GW waiting in queues at the end of 2022).
