The Coming Wave of U.S. Renewable Mega Project

Highlights:

• EnerWrap analyzed EIA data on operating and planned power projects across solar, wind and battery technologies from the EIA-860M

• Across the board, projects are getting larger. 84% of the top-25 operating or planned solar projects are in the planning stages. For battery storage 76% of the largest project are in the planning stages and 48% for wind.

• For comparison no planned natural gas generation capacity would make the top-25 gas generation list.

• Scale helps reduce costs but also highlights momentum in the clean energy industry.

   

The average size of solar projects is growing dramatically, from 38 MW in 2023 (506 projects) to 207 MW in 2027 (53 projects). The number of projects in the planned category slips off after 2027 but the trend remains the same.

Top-25 operating or planned solar projects.

The story is the same in battery storage with the average project increasing from 55 MW in 2023 (119) to 130 MW in 2026 (46).

Top-25 operating or planned battery storage projects.

Similar growth is seen in wind projects with the average project growing from 171 MW in 2023 (38) to 367 MW in 2026 (23). Only one large project is planned for 2027 skewing the chart below.

Large offshore wind projects will contribute to this trend continuing.

Top-25 operating or planned wind projects.

We expect the larger project trend to continue in renewables as the clean energy build-out gains momentum on the heels of the Inflation Reduction Act. Further, datacenter power demand will require large generation sources to power the increasing load from that segment of the market. We would not be surprised to see a large ‘macro-grid’ built for a massive datacenter load in the not to distant future.