Dive Brief:
- The U.S. energy storage sector marked its second strongest quarter on record in Q2 2024 with 2.9 GW of newly installed capacity, a 62% jump from Q2 2023, the American Clean Power Association said Thursday in its latest clean power quarterly market report.
- Developers installed 11 GW of new utility-scale solar, storage, and wind capacity in the second quarter, up 91% year over year. The U.S. clean power development pipeline expanded by 13% during the same period, ACP said.
- “While all clean energy technologies are expanding their market share, energy storage is scaling at a stunning speed,” ACP CEO Jason Grumet said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
The energy storage sector’s healthy second-quarter growth follows an even larger year-over-year increase last quarter. U.S. utility-scale storage installations increased 84% from Q1 2023 to Q1 2024, according to a June report from ACP and Wood Mackenzie.
Developers commissioned 33 energy storage projects across 10 states in Q2 2024, ACP said in its report.
California added the most capacity of any state, with 1,353 MW/5,397 MWh of newly energized battery storage, and accounts for 46% of installed U.S. storage capacity, ACP said. With 574 MW/1,033 MWh commissioned in the second quarter, Texas added the second most capacity, and Arizona (560 MW/2,240 MWh), Nevada (185 MW/740 MWh) and Hawaii (102 MW/408 MWh) rounded out the top five.
California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Florida are the top five markets for cumulative operating energy storage capacity, according to ACP’s Q2 report. Utility-scale battery storage projects are operational in 43 states, and 12 states have more than 100 MW of operating utility-scale storage capacity as of June 30, ACP said.
Of the 33 storage projects commissioned in the second quarter, 18 were paired with solar or wind generation facilities and 15 were standalone, ACP said.
Developers commissioned about 1.4 GW of onshore wind capacity and 6.7 GW of solar capacity in Q2 2024, marking respective increases of 41% and 124% from Q1 2023, according to the report.
The U.S. onshore wind sector saw a significant uptick in construction activity during the first half of 2024, according to the report. More than 14 GW of onshore wind projects were under construction in the U.S. as of June 30, an increase of 5.5 GW from the same point in 2023, ACP said.
More than 4 GW of offshore wind are now under construction in U.S. waters, the highest amount to date, with a further increase in construction volumes expected in the near future, ACP said.
Total cumulative wind, solar and storage deployments reached 19 GW year-to-date, more than doubling the 5-year average for H1 installations, according to the report. With H2 installations typically much stronger than H1, the industry is on track for its second consecutive record-breaking year in 2024, ACP said.
The brisk pace of renewables and storage deployments belies challenges from expected rapid load growth and the imperative to decarbonize the power sector, ACP’s Grumet said in a statement.
“With rapidly growing demand and the need to make significant strides in decarbonizing our economy, the stakes are high,” he said. “Our recent progress is encouraging, but we are not moving fast enough.”
Project delays continue to hinder clean energy deployments, with more than 63 GW of solar, wind and battery storage projects delayed since 2021, ACP said in the report.
