A record amount of clean power was added to the US grid in the last quarter, with more than 11GW of renewable energy projects coming online.
The figures, contained in a report from the American Clean Power Association (ACP) show that 11,015MW of utility-scale clean power capacity was made available in the US in the three months to the end of June 2024. This represents a 91 percent year-on-year increase compared to the 5,772MW added in Q2 2023.
Clean energy is “answering the call to unleash more American energy,” said said ACP CEO Jason Grumet.
He said: “While all clean energy technologies are expanding their market share, energy storage is scaling at a stunning speed and has surpassed 20GW of operating capacity.”
Indeed, 2.9GW of energy storage was added in the US during the quarter, taking total availability to 21.6GW across the country.
The ACP report also shows that Texas has surpassed California as the nation’s leading state for utility-scale solar capacity. It added 1,656 MW during the quarter, and now boasts of 21,932 MW of operating solar power.
Grumet said that 19GW of clean power has been added to the grid in 2024 so far, and said this trend must continue to meet the nation's energy needs.
“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. ACP is committed to working with all stakeholders and policymakers to accelerate progress toward a secure, reliable, and clean energy future.”
Last year it was reported that US data centers are now using more than 40GW of renewable energy. Since then, many of the biggest companies in the market have continued to sign power purchase agreements and other deals to acquire clean power for their facilities.
In the last month alone, Meta has revealed plans to power its US data centers with geothermal energy, and Google has signed renewable power deals in Illinois and Virginia for its data centers in the two states.
