Clean Investment in 2023: Assessing Progress in Electricity and Transport

[Think. Again.]

In new joint analysis with Energy Innovation and the REPEAT Project, we compare on-the-ground investment progress with projections of the IRA's impact.

February 21, 2024
Full Article: https://www.cleaninvestmentmonitor.org/reports/clean-electricity-and-transport-2023

Download full report: https://assets-global.website-files.com/64e31ae6c5fd44b10ff405a7/65d568670df0b04daed42371_Clean%20Investment%20in%202023%20-%20Assessing%20Progress%20in%20Electricity%20and%20Transport.pdf

A year and a half has passed since the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law, and more than two years since the enactment of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. These two pieces of legislation represent the largest public investment in clean energy and transportation in US history, designed to incentivize far larger private investment. The Clean Investment Monitor (CIM), launched in September 2023, tracks public and private investment in technologies covered by those bills on a quarterly basis, to provide policymakers and stakeholders with timely information on the state of clean energy and transportation manufacturing and deployment in the United States.

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Transportation

Over the past several months, there have been a number of news stories suggesting the US is experiencing a slow-down in electric vehicle sales, but sales in 2023 came in at the top end of the range of post-IRA projections. Based on preliminary 2023 CIM data, we estimate that 1.43 million ZEVs were sold in the US in 2023, the vast majority of which were battery electric vehicles. These sales account for 9.2% of total light-duty vehicle sales last year, up from 6.8% in 2022 and 2.2% in 2020 (Figure 1). Post-IRA analysis from EI, REPEAT, and Rhodium projected an 8.1% to 9.4% ZEV sales share in 2023. While actual sales came in at the top end of the range of post-IRA projections, they dramatically exceeded projections from a few years ago. In 2020, for example, the Energy Information Administration projected 580,000 ZEV sales in 2023—a little more than one-third of the actual total last year.

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Electricity

While ZEV sales exceeded post-IRA projections in 2023,utility-scale clean electricity expansion is falling short. There was a record 32.3GW of zero-carbon electricity generation and storage capacity added to the grid in 2023, up 32% from 2022 and topping the previous high of 31.6 GW in 2021 (Figure 3). The majority of new capacity was solar PV at 18.4 GW, followed by battery storage at 6.4 GW and wind at 6.3 GW.

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Conclusions

A year and a half after the passage of the IRA, progress in two key areas of clean energy and transportation deployment—electric vehicles and clean electricity—is mixed. For electric vehicles, sales came in at the top of the range of post-IRA projections last year. ZEV deployment can remain on a track consistent with the IRA’s 40% emissions reduction objective, even if annual sales growth slows in 2024 —provided it stays in the 30-40% range. On the other hand, even though investment in utility-scale clean electricity generation and storage capacity reached record levels in 2023, it is at risk of falling behind post-IRA projections. The IRA has made renewable electricity cost-competitive with coal and natural gas (short-term cost inflation in 2022/2023 and a lag in issuing guidance on some tax credit provisions notwithstanding). The biggest barriers to deployment between now and 2030 are non-cost in nature—like siting and permitting delays, backlogged grid interconnect queues, and supply chain challenges. Tackling these non-cost barriers will be critical for the IRA to achieve its full clean energy deployment and emissions reduction potential.

Full Article: https://www.cleaninvestmentmonitor.org/reports/clean-electricity-and-transport-2023

Full Report: https://assets-global.website-files.com/64e31ae6c5fd44b10ff405a7/65d568670df0b04daed42371_Clean%20Investment%20in%202023%20-%20Assessing%20Progress%20in%20Electricity%20and%20Transport.pdf

[NNadir]

1. All the delusinal bullshit and spin do not change the CO2 numbers at Mauna Loa.

This rah rah crap has left the planet in flames, not that fossil fuel bots and salespeople are interested in anything other the greenwashing the status quo.

Again, the planet is in flames: It's the result of 50 tears of technically absurd cheering for the indefensible.

The bait and switch fossil fuel sales team here and elsewhere lack a sense of decency, and buying into their crap has a 50 year history of making things worse and worse by the hour.

The laws of thermodynamics are not subject to being changed by slick disingenuous marketing, "green hydrogen, electric cars blah, blah, blah" and all the other bullshit being sold here and elsewhere.

We saw concentrations of CO2 of over 425 ppm in 2024 already, and what we will see in April or May will be far worse.

There is a reason for this, and it involves the laws of physics, the very thing fossil fuel salespeople and salesbots work to obscure.

[Think. Again.]

2. You're absolutely correct...

If we have any hope at all of decreasing CO2 emissions, we're going to have build a LOT more solar, wind, and nuclear MUCH faster than the OP report shows that we did last year!

A LOT more, MUCH faster.