Installed utility-scale solar, wind and storage capacity grew by 7.4 GW in the first quarter of 2025, the American Clean Power Association said. 

ACP said in a report released May 29 that this was the second-strongest start to a year ever recorded in the United States and brought the total to 320.86 GW installed nationwide. 

The pipeline of announced plans also showed strong growth, despite the threat of federal policy changes that would make renewable energy development more costly and risky than it was during the Biden administration. The pipeline reached 184.4 GW in March, up 12% over the same period in 2024. It represents a potential investment of $328 billion if everything were built as planned. 

But the projects completed in the first quarter had the benefit of policy and financial support under President Biden. Projects that are still on the drawing board have a tougher path ahead. 

ACP President Jason Grumet used the numbers as a springboard to reinforce the message he and countless others in the renewables sector have been offering since Donald Trump won election on a pro-fossil, anti-renewable platform: The clean energy sector is an important part of the nation’s economy and its energy needs. 

“We have the technology, investment capital and workforce required to build the $300+ billion of clean energy projects in our development pipeline,” he said in a news release. “With unprecedented demand growth for electricity, we must send consistent investment signals across the energy sector. … The greatest threat to a reliable energy system is an unreliable political system.” 

Already there are signs of pullback. Also on May 29, E2 released a report showing the cancellation of $14.5 billion in clean energy, transportation and manufacturing investment plans in the first four months of 2025. (See related story, More Green Projects Halted amid Policy Changes.) 

ACP’s report offers broad details of the first quarter of 2025: 

• • The 7.39 GW of newly commissioned clean energy broke down to 4.46 GW of utility-scale solar, 1.6 GW of storage and 1.33 GW of wind. 
  • Battery energy storage systems totaling 1.6 GW were added, pushing total installed storage capacity above 30 GW. 
  • Texas led the nation in clean power installations by a wide margin; this brought it to 80.66 GW — an increase of more than 20% in a single year’s time. 
  • Storage and wind accounted for all of the increase in projects in the advanced development or construction phases — the utility-scale solar pipeline shrank 3% year over year. 
  • Onshore wind has the largest total installed capacity (155.56 GW), but utility-scale solar reached 134.44 GW and could surpass wind by the end of 2025. The pipeline of wind projects is larger than it was a year ago but still much smaller than the solar pipeline. 
  • Offshore wind continues to plod along — five projects from Virginia to Massachusetts are in some stage of construction, but the prospects for those and many others in development are unclear under the Trump administration.