Status and Trends in the U.S. Voluntary Power Market: 2023 Data

Voluntary green power, for this report, refers to renewable energy procurement by retail electricity customers above what is otherwise provided by load-serving entities. This report is part of an annual series of reports synthesizing trends in the U.S. voluntary green power market. In 2023, about 9.7 million retail electricity customers procured about 319 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of voluntary green power (Figure ES-1), representing a 17% increase over sales in 2022. Estimated voluntary green power market sales represented about 44% of non-hydropower renewable energy sales and about 8% of all U.S. retail electricity sales in 2023. Most of the remainder of U.S. renewable energy sales reflects renewable energy procured by load-serving entities to comply with state renewable energy mandates, also known as compliance-based procurement. The U.S. voluntary green power market is undergoing a clear shift toward long-term contracts, driven primarily by increasingly ambitious corporate renewable energy procurement targets. In 2023, we estimate that voluntary RECs procured through long-term contracts likely exceeded RECs procured through near-term transactions for the first time. These trends suggest a clear shift in the market toward procurement through long-term contracts. In this year's report, we explore two other topics of interest that could affect future trends in the U.S. voluntary green power market. The first topic relates to the potential implications of increasing grid energy storage capacity for the voluntary green power market, and how the market could adapt to growing energy storage. Our second topic explores how tax credit reforms in the Inflation Reduction Act could affect the voluntary green power market.