Axios Pro Exclusive Content

Renewable PPAs are spiking 30% from last year

Alan Neuhauser
Illustration of a lightning bolt with a price tag with an extra dollar sign added.

Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios

Eye-watering inflation and the Commerce Department's anti-dumping investigation sparked a 30% jump in power-purchase agreement prices for wind and solar in Q2 compared to last year, per a new report from LevelTen Energy.

Why it matters: A spike in PPA prices has broad impacts across the industry, and the latest figures show that the investigation is inflicting a particular amount of pain on the solar sector — even with President Biden's surprise two-year reprieve.

Details: For the second consecutive quarter, solar prices rose across all seven markets surveyed in the report.

What they're saying: “It’s unclear when prices will stabilize or decline because demand for PPAs continues to grow faster than supply," said Gia Clark, a senior director at LevelTen.

  • “Developers aren’t raising prices to boost profits. They are just trying to cover the added cost and uncertainty."

Of note: The report technically measures offer prices, because actual transacted PPA prices are "closely guarded by developers," a LevelTen spokesperson tells Axios.

  • To create a proxy for transacted prices, the report narrowly focuses on the 25% percentile of offers, "since those are the 25% most competitive prices," the company says.
Go deeper