CLEANPOWER’s Top 5 Solar Energy Trends: Utility-Scale Sunrises

The annual CLEEPOWER conference and exhibition brings together a broad cross-section of the large-scale renewable energy industry, including solar, wind and green hydrogen. The event, hosted by the American Clean Power Association (ACP), will take place May 6-9 at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minnesota, and attracts more than 8,300 participants from all corners of the world.

I was there to learn the latest news and trends in large-scale solar energy development. I will report more in detail in the coming months, but here are my overall takeaways from the conference.

Big changes: DOE broadcast permitting rules

The main topic of the conference was the construction of new transmission lines to connect clean energy projects to the grid.

On May 8, I participated in a panel titled “Beyond Just Lines on a Map: Moving Transmission Forward,” moderated by Kelly Speakes-Backman, Executive Vice President of Public Affairs at Invenergy, and featuring, among others: Jayni Hein, legal counsel and co-chair of carbon management and climate change mitigation at Covington & Burling; Al Vickers, chief operating officer of Grid United; Samuel Walsh, general counsel at the U.S. Department of Energy.

The discussion focused on the April 25 news that DOE had published a final transmission authorization rule that established the Coordinated Interagency Transmission Permits and Permits Program (CITAP). The CITAP program is intended to improve federal environmental review and permitting processes for eligible transmission projects.

Walsh explained that over the past 10 years, the DOE has increased its focus on power transmission, explaining that “the DOE currently sets environmental permitting schedules.”

Under the program, DOE works with other federal agencies to expedite environmental reviews and permitting within a standard two-year schedule.

Additionally, Walsh discussed the Biden-Harris administration committing up to $331 million to add more than 2,000 MW of additional grid capacity in the western United States.

Vickers noted that “the transmission seems to have gained more momentum,” describing a “chicken or egg” scenario when it comes to project approvals and stakeholder engagement (i.e. it’s hard to have one without the other, but which comes first? ), but changes within the DOE allowed the project to move forward.

“What has changed is that DOE now has a set of tools to overcome the chicken-and-egg scenario, which has been really helpful,” Vickers said.

Big Gains: Utility Scale Shines in Q1

On May 7, ACP staff held a press conference to share ACP’s new quarterly clean energy market report | Q1 2024 The report shows an impressive start to the year in the US, with the US solar, wind and utility-scale storage sectors adding a total of 5,585 MW of new capacity in Q1 2024, an increase of 28% compared to installations in the same period a year ago.

Leading utility-scale solar has reached a milestone, exceeding 100 GW of operational capacity for the first time. John Hensley, ACP’s vice president of markets and policy analysis, said it took 18 years to build the first 50 GW of solar capacity in the U.S., but it took just four years to double that capacity.

A whopping 4,557 MW of new solar capacity was added in the first quarter of 2024, contributing to more than 100,547 MW of installed utility-scale solar capacity in the U.S., with nearly 40% of this newly installed capacity going online in Florida.

“The first quarter of 2024 set the pace for the year, highlighting both an industry that continues to break barriers and the growing demand for clean energy solutions,” Hensley said. “Exceeding the 100 GW solar threshold, the launch of groundbreaking projects like South Fork Wind, and the record pace of new clean energy contracts are clear indicators of society’s demand to strengthen the grid with national, reliable and affordable clean energy.”

Another highlight was a 52% increase in clean energy orders over the first quarter of 2023, with 7,773 MW of new power purchase agreements (PPAs) as utilities and corporate buyers turn to renewables energy sources to power their businesses.

Additionally, AKP reported that the clean energy pipeline has grown to almost 175 GW, the highest figure ever. Most of this expansion can be attributed to battery storage and solar, which have grown at an average of 11% and 4% per quarter since Q2 2022.

While energy storage deployments remained flat compared to the same period last year, the number of new storage projects increased by 61% year-over-year to 31.6 GW in the near term, indicating strong future growth.

Addressing concerns around the 2024 presidential election and potential market uncertainty, Hensley said key clean energy market fundamentals are strong.

“There is strong demand from corporate buyers,” he said. “We are seeing investment in all 50 states, which helps make the market sustainable.”

Big market: data centers for AI

A common theme I’ve heard from many sources at CLEANPOWER is the development of solar farms powering data centers to facilitate artificial intelligence. It turns out that ChatGPT, DALL-E and deepfake programs require a huge amount of energy to perform their computational services.

Hanson Wood, director of onshore renewables development at RWE, explained that large companies such as Microsoft and Google are looking to power larger and larger data centers but still have environmental responsibility goals. To get the power needed to support AI facilities, Wood added that hybrid renewable projects could be the answer.

“The computing power needed to run AI is truly unlike anything we’ve ever seen in terms of the demand needed to support and develop it,” he said. “There are two features. We see that data centers will be larger than before. And the products that customers are looking for include 24/7 renewable energy, which necessarily has to include combinations of multiple technologies, so solar, storage and wind.”

Big question: green hydrogen

On May 7, the conference held a session devoted to the ecological hydrogen market. ACP General Counsel Gene Grace moderated the “Calling in the Age of Green Hydrogen” panel, which included Jeremy Holland, PE, chief market officer at Mortenson; Ben Gerber, president and CEO of Midwest Renewable Energy Tracking System (M-RETS); Devraj Banerjee, vice president of renewables and structuring at Ambient Fuels LLC; and Ritu Bromley, chief strategy officer at Invenergy.

Banerjee and Bromley explained how the industrial and chemical industries are a major supporter of the interest in green hydrogen to decarbonize manufacturing and manufacturing plants, such as steel mills, and serve as a feedstock for chemical products.

One enduring challenge is turning green hydrogen into a sustainable reality.

“There is a saying that hydrogen is the fuel of the future and always will be,” Gerber said.

Another challenge for investors is the uncertainty surrounding 45V Investment Tax Credits (ITC) along with issues around hourly matching and Renewable Energy Credits (REC).

Panelists discussed how green hydrogen could be linked to clean energy nodes or hybrid facilities that combine green hydrogen, solar, wind and green hydrogen production.

In a separate conversation with EDP Renewables CEO Sandhya Ganapathy, I learned that the green hydrogen market is further developed in Europe. She explained how EDP Renewables has been successful in locating green hydrogen plants using wind and solar energy, similar to the clean energy centers mentioned above.

“From a location perspective, these are all industrial nodes, so we naturally updated (the network), she said. “As for the US, I started looking at it. The challenge in the US is obviously we need some clarity on the final results, but I think that the biggest challenge we have is that the United States is such a large country, so in terms of transportation, how do we actually transport green hydrogen from where you are, where you produce it to where you actually use it?”

A little fun: Live painting

While walking around the exhibit hall during CLEANPOWER, I noticed several tarps surrounding these teardrop benches. As I got closer, I noticed a woman with a paintbrush adding decoration to the otherwise bland fixtures.

It was good entertainment and it was nice to see art presented among all the business.

Two interesting facts: As seen in CLEANPOWER

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