Texas tops US states for renewable energy and battery capacity

LITTLETON, Colorado, Jan 10 (Reuters): Texas is dominating the development of renewable energy generation and battery capacity within the United States, and is estimated to have installed nearly 80 per cent more combined solar, wind and battery capacity than the next largest state.
The Lone Star state has 42,000 megawatts (MW) of wind power, 22,000 MW of solar farms and 6,500 MW of utility-scale battery capacity in place as of the end of 2024, data from Cleanview and the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows.
California has the next largest network of renewable generation and battery capacity, while Florida, Arizona and Colorado round out the top 5 list of US states that are deploying renewables and batteries to boost power supplies.
Below is a breakdown of the scale and growth rates of solar, wind and battery storage capacity across the United States.
Texas's emergence as the country's clean energy leader has been fuelled by rapid capacity growth on multiple fronts.
Since 2019, Texas power firms have boosted solar generation capacity by 800 per cent, wind capacity by 50 per cent and battery storage capacity by an eye-popping 5,500 per cent, according to energy data portal Cleanview, using EIA and state-level data.
In absolute terms, Texas has installed around 19,000 MW of solar, 14,000 MW of wind and 6,200 MW of battery capacity within the past five years.
Those installations have resulted in wind and solar farms generating roughly 30 per cent of the state's electricity in 2024, according to Ember, which is up from a combined solar and wind share of around 18 per cent in 2019.
California gets around 40 per cent of its electricity from wind and solar sources, up from around 25 per cent in 2019, thanks mainly to an aggressive climb in solar generation.
Around 9,000 MW of solar capacity has been added to California's power system since 2019, to bring the state's total solar capacity footprint to around 21,500 MW in 2024. Over the same period, California's utility-scale battery network has grown from around 240 MW in 2019 to over 11,000 MW last year - the largest in the country.
California's wind generation footprint has held largely steady at around 6,430 MW in recent years, resulting in a combined solar, wind and battery storage capacity of around 40,000 MW, EIA data shows.
Florida has the third-largest footprint of renewables and battery capacity, but has no wind power capacity and so trails the top states in terms of cumulative solar, wind and battery capacity which is a combined 11,500 MW.
That said, the state has boosted its solar footprint from less than 50 MW in 2019 to over 10,500 MW in 2024, which indicates strong current momentum for renewables output.
Florida's battery capacity is currently around 575 MW, according to EIA, which places the state fifth overall in that category.
However, the US Department of Energy recently announced nearly $30 million in investments in battery storage capacity in the state to boost power sector resilience, which should boost overall battery capacity further.