Clean Energy Industry Poised to Capitalize on IRA Passage, but Lingering Policy Issues Lead to Slowest Quarter In Three Years

While the clean energy industry celebrated the August passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest clean energy investment in U.S. history, policy challenges continued to limit clean power growth in the third quarter, according to the Q3 2022 Clean Power Quarterly Market Report.

Developers brought just 3.4 GW of new capacity online, bringing 2022 installations to 14.2 GW. Year-to-date installations are down 18% compared to the same period in 2021, while comparable third quarter additions fell 22%. Quarterly wind installations fell 78%, while solar installations dropped 23%.

Only battery storage, which commissioned 1.2 GW this quarter, increased installations compared to the third quarter of 2021. Storage is having its best year on record, with 2022 installations already nearly even with total 2021 volumes.

Project delays weighed heavily on installation volumes as developers struggled to procure solar panels, faced supply chain challenges, and confronted ever-growing interconnection queues to connect projects to the grid. In total, 14 GW of clean power capacity was delayed this quarter, adding to a growing backlog of delayed projects that totals 36 GW – 63% of which are solar projects.

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Our Clean Power Quarterly provides a snapshot view of the latest U.S. utility wind, solar, and battery storage industry activity and trends. The report includes third quarter installations, projects under construction and in advanced development, new power purchase agreements, OEM market share, project acquisition activity, offshore wind energy activity, and much, much more.

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The free public version of the report, which provides a summary of key takeaways and graphics from the full report, is available for download below.

Interested in the data behind the report? Members can download the appendices here and check out the underlying data in spreadsheet form here.

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