The American Clean Power Association (ACP) has released its Clean Power Annual Market Report, highlighting a significant year for US clean energy in 2023. The report shows that a record-breaking capacity was installed, with 33.8GW of new utility-scale clean energy projects added, surpassing the previous annual installation record set in 2021 by 12.5%. Solar and storage projects led this growth, with clean power dominating the new capacity additions.
The USA now has 262 GW of clean energy powering its grid, enough to supply electricity to approximately 69 million American households, making up 16% of the nation's electricity generation from wind and solar sources. Clean energy infrastructure is now present in 93% of congressional districts and across all 50 states.
However, the land-based and offshore wind sectors faced challenges in 2023, with only 6.4 GW of new wind power capacity installed—the slowest year in a decade. This slowdown can be attributed to factors such as policy uncertainties, high capital costs, lengthy permitting processes, siting obstacles, and difficulties in building new transmission infrastructure.
Corporate buyers, notably Amazon, Meta, and Google, played a significant role in driving clean energy demand by procuring clean power for their operations. Meta emerged as the leading buyer of operational clean power, while Amazon secured the most contracted clean power capacity.
Despite these challenges, the clean power industry remains optimistic about the future, particularly with the initiation of construction on 41 GW of new projects in the latter months of 2023, resulting in a clean power pipeline of 170 GW.
