According to a new report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), 46.1 GW of new utility-scale electric generating capacity will be added to the power grid in 2022.[1] Nearly half of the planned capacity additions will be solar energy, with 21% coming from natural gas and 17% from wind. Developers and power plant owners report the planned additions to the EIA in its annual and monthly surveys. For solar, the EIA expects utility-scale solar to grow by 21.5 GW in 2022, surpassing the roughly 15.5 GW of solar added in 2021. Most planned solar additions in 2022 will be in Texas with 6.1 GW of new capacity (28% of the national total), followed by California with 4 GW of new capacity. In terms of natural gas, the EIA expects 9.6 GW of new natural gas-fired capacity to come online in 2022. Combined-cycle plants account for 8.1 GW of planned additions (over 84%), while combustion-turbine plants account for 1.4 GW. 88% of the planned natural gas capacity is located in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, and Illinois.
A record-high 17.1 GW of wind capacity came online in 2021, and an additional 7.6 GW of wind capacity is expected to come online in 2022. 51% of the new capacity is located in Texas. The 999 MW Traverse Wind Energy Center in Oklahoma, the largest wind project expected to come online this year, is scheduled to begin operations in April 2022. Utility-scale battery storage capacity is expected to grow by 5.1 GW in 2022 due to several factors, including declining costs, deployment with renewable energy, and added value through regional transmission organization (RTO) markets. In addition, 5% of planned electric capacity additions in 2022 will come from two new reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia.