Independent research organization Climate Central published a report recently that showed how the national capacity for solar and wind generated power shot up in 2022. The report comes just as the Biden Administration begins rolling out billions of dollars to renewable energy projects as part of its commitment to decarbonizing the grid completely by 2030 and getting the US to net zero emission by 2050.
Here are some of the key points from the report:
- The US generated over 680K of electricity from solar & wind (combined) in 2022, which equates out to about $82 billion of revenue generation.
- Solar & Wind capacity increased by 16% year over year from 2021 - that's enough of an increase to cover the electricity generation needs of approximately 64 million American homes.
- Texas, Oklahoma, and Iowa let the nation in wind production
- A myriad of State incentives helped encourage different states to up production, including a California's mandate on solar panels for new buildings, Iowa's tax credits for wind generation, etc.
- Larger States had more impressive gains than smaller, more densely populated ones. Smaller, more dense areas are less able to take advantage of space for larger scale generation projects - a good example of this is the growth we see in Texas or Iowa versus New England States, which haven't made similar gains despite also having incentives.
We wrote an article for Oil & Energy Magazine that goes further into the points, the holdups to progress on renewables, and what the future looks like it might hold. If you are interested, you can read that article in its entirety here: Solar and Wind Growth Soars in 2022
