Utility-Scale Battery-Storage Plants & Other Green Projects Enjoying Lucrative Tax Credits

The utility-scale power generating projects often eligible for the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) lucrative 30% federal tax credit may soon take center stage in the energy market if the Trump Administration actually rescinds unspent IRA funds, as Trump said on the campaign trail.

Electric utilities and other developers of generating plants powered by solar, wind and other green technologies have enjoyed the boost from the federal IRA incentives. But it’s been rumored that unspent funds earmarked for these tax credits may be frozen by the incoming Trump Administration. 
Judging from the number of these projects in the Energy Information Administration (EIA) annual database of these facilities now operating, proposed or under construction (www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia860), there’s  been a surge of interest in new utility-scale solar and wind facilities, as well as energy-efficient natural gas plants utilizing natural gas-fired combined cycle technology.

But what really stood out to EM’s editors in EIA’s latest 860 database was the number of battery energy storage systems on the drawing boards or under construction. By our count, there were 137 of these projects proposed or underway, including at least 69 with a nameplate capacity of 100 megawatts (MW) or larger. Many of these projects will be in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada and Texas, and will be built as part of large solar farms to store the energy the PV panels  produce.

A Reuters article says Texas is expected to install 6.5 gigawatts (GW) of utility scale batteries this year, according to EIA information. And according to a Jan. 2024 EIA post, “Developers expect to bring more than 300 utility-scale battery storage projects on line in the United States by 2025, and around 50% of the planned capacity installations will be in Texas.”

Reuters said that the size of these BESS projects is growing and that five years ago a 50MW project was considered a “large utility-scale asset.” Judging from the EIA database downloadable by clicking on the file below, there’s at least 99 projects in the pipeline of 50MW or larger.

The largest BESS project in the EIA database is the Robinson Solar Project by CG Northwestern Solar in White Pine County, NV,  about 15 miles west of Ely, NV. It’s now in the approval process. The batteries would store power produced by a 1,000MW photovoltaic solar electric generating facility.