Since the Inflation Reduction Act, US$270 billion of US clean energy investment has been announced while downstream projects in development have hit 185GW – 80% and 92% higher than four months ago.
That is according to trade body the American Clean Power Association (ACP), and the figures include both downstream projects deploying wind, solar, storage and other clean technologies as well as upstream manufacturing and mineral production facilities.
A total of US$270 billion in investments for clean energy projects and manufacturing have been announced in the US since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed one year ago. That is an 80% increase on the US$150 billion that the ACP said had been announced by April this year, covered by Energy-Storage.news at the time, nine months after the Act was passed.
On the downstream side, ACP said that 184,850MW of clean energy projects have been announced since the Act passed. In April, the ACP’s figure was around 96,000MW, meaning it has nearly doubled in just four months.
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The past year has seen 83 new or expanded utility-scale manufacturing facilities announced, of which 52 are solar, 14 utility-scale energy storage, 11 wind power and six offshore wind power.
The 14 energy storage facilities listed range from facilities producing lithium-ion battery cells or proprietary energy storage technology gigafactories like those of EnerVenue or Form Energy, Powin Energy’s contracted manufacturing facility with Jabil for battery storage systems through to lithium hydroxide production from Albemarle.
States in the South have seen the most projects announced, with Georgia (7), Tennessee (6), South Carolina (6) and Texas (5 – joint with Colarado) seeing the most.
The two main drivers for these significant figures from the Inflation Reduction Act are generous tax credit incentives for manufacturing, which will be paid directly to companies, as well as the expansion and increase in investment tax credits (ITCs) for investment in downstream projects.
Turkish company Pomega gave financial details on exactly how much it would accrue from the tax credits for manufacturing from its gigafactory (included in the ACP’s figures) last year while Energy-Storage.news discussed the Act’s new investment tax credit mechanisms at length in an interview with a Shearman & Sterling lawyer recently (Premium access).
Read all our coverage of gigafactory projects here.
Our publisher Solar Media is hosting the 10th Solar and Storage Finance USA conference, 7-8 November 2023 at the New Yorker Hotel, New York. Topics ranging from the Inflation Reduction Act to optimising asset revenues, the financing landscape in 2023 and much more will be discussed. See the official site for more details.
