Power plant developers installed only a fraction of the solar energy capacity they’d planned for the first half of the year thanks to supply chain challenges and other setbacks, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Some 4.2 gigawatts of new utility-scale solar generating capacity came online between January and June, preliminary data released Thursday show. That’s less than half of the capacity planned for that period, setting developers behind on the 17.8 gigawatts of new capacity planned for the calendar year.
ADVANCED NUCLEAR THREATENED BY RELIANCE ON RUSSIA AS SOLE SOURCE OF NEEDED FUEL
Installations were delayed by an average of 4.4 gigawatts each month for the first half of the year, compared to 2.6 gigawatts over the same six months last year. EIA attributed the delays to things such as supply chain constraints, labor shortages, and high prices of inputs, as well as permitting problems.
EIA’s review reflects some of the limits the solar industry and utilities face as they plan more and more projects, which are designed to shift the electric grid away from traditional generating sources such as coal and natural gas and mitigate climate change.
Project builders have cited difficulties securing inputs, such as solar cells and modules, all year long as responsible for driving prices up and lengthening delay times.
Those delay times are driving some utilities to push back retirements of coal-fired power plants.
Indiana utility NiSource announced in May that it expects to keep two coal units online for at least two years longer than planned because of “uncertainty and delays” relating to its planned rollout of new solar energy capacity.
Project developers have blamed the Commerce Department’s anti-circumvention investigation into solar imports from four Asian countries, from which most cell and module imports originate, for introducing more uncertainties and delays into the market.
Following a monthslong lobbying campaign from these interests, President Joe Biden flexed his emergency trade powers in June to exempt those imports from new duties for two years, a move hailed by solar project developers but opposed by domestic manufacturers, who support tariffs on imports as a playing field-leveling mechanism.
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Although developers and manufacturers disagree on tariffs, they are joining ranks behind the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, which the House of Representatives is gearing up to vote on Friday and would provide billions of dollars in tax incentives to encourage domestic solar manufacturing and project development.
