US adds 17.4 GW of new renewables, storage contracts in 2021 through Q3 – report

U.S. wind, solar and energy storage developers signed power purchase agreements for a combined 17,442 MW through the first three quarters of 2021, 16% more than a year before, according to a new report highlighting strong demand for emissions-free resources despite supply chain woes and rising prices.

"Clean power is affordable, and the market is responding," Heather Zichal, CEO of the American Clean Power Association, or ACP, said in a statement on the trade group's third-quarter report.

Solar accounted for 70% of the new capacity contracted through the first nine months of 2021, while wind pitched in 18% and storage 13%, the report said. Power buyers and project developers reported 9,054 MW of new contracts in the third quarter alone, with Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc., Microsoft Corp. and other corporate clients responsible for 1,761 MW of that.

Developers installed 15,317 MW in the first three quarters, up 23% from the same period of 2020, the ACP said. Of that, 2,443 MW, or 16% of the total, was added at solar-plus-storage facilities, according to the report.

Wind additions slow

Renewable energy and storage additions in the third quarter totaled 3,336 MW, comprising 1,565 MW of solar, 1,551 MW of wind and 220 MW of storage, the ACP said. While that was 2% higher than in the second quarter of 2021, it was nearly 15% below the 3,912 MW of renewables and storage added in the third quarter of 2020, a spokesperson for the group said in an email.

The ACP acknowledged some significant challenges, especially for wind development. As a whole, wind farm developers saw installations decline compared with previous quarters of 2021 and the third quarter of 2020.

"This is due to projects originally planned to be online in the third quarter being pushed to a later date," the report said. "Some developers cited supply chain issues as the reason for this delay."

About half of the third-quarter additions were in the booming Texas market, followed by California with nearly 12%, and Wyoming and Oklahoma with roughly 9% each.

The near-term development pipeline for renewables and energy storage continues to grow significantly, the group said, citing 38,122 MW under construction and 71,474 MW in advanced development. That is up 28% from the first quarter and is 7% higher than the second quarter. Solar accounted for more than half of the capacity under construction or in advanced development, the ACP said.