US smashes photo voltaic data in 2023 – however 2024 will convey highway bumps [Update]

The US added a record-setting 32.4 gigawatts (GW) of photo voltaic capability in 2023, based on a brand new report, however 2024 will convey challenges to the business.

March 5, 2024: That’s a 37% improve from the earlier file set in 2021 and a 51% improve from 2022.

It’s the primary time in 80 years {that a} renewable electrical energy supply has accounted for over half of annual capability additions to the grid. 

In accordance with the US Photo voltaic Market Perception 2023 12 months-in-Evaluate launched immediately by the Photo voltaic Vitality Industries Affiliation (SEIA) and Wooden Mackenzie, photo voltaic accounts for 53% of all new electrical producing capability added to the grid final 12 months. This marks the primary time in 80 years {that a} renewable electrical energy supply has accounted for over 50% of annual capability additions. 

Each photo voltaic market phase noticed year-over-year progress in 2023, bringing complete put in photo voltaic capability within the US to 177 GW. The utility-scale sector alone added 22.5 GW of recent capability, whereas almost 800,000 Individuals added photo voltaic to their houses. 

SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper mentioned:

The Inflation Discount Act is supercharging photo voltaic deployment and having a cloth influence on our financial system, serving to America’s photo voltaic module manufacturing base develop 89% in 2023.

We should shield and optimize the insurance policies which might be driving these investments and creating jobs, and the stakes within the upcoming election couldn’t be greater.

December 6, 2023: The SEIA and Wooden Mackenzie launched their report, “US Photo voltaic Market Perception This autumn 2023,” wherein they report that third-quarter (Q3) additions of recent photo voltaic totaled 6.5 gigawatts (GW) – a 35% year-over-year improve – as federal clear power insurance policies start to take maintain.

California and Texas led the US for brand spanking new photo voltaic installations in Q3, and Indiana ranked third with 663 megawatts (MW) of recent capability as a number of giant utility-scale initiatives got here on-line. Fourteen states and Puerto Rico put in greater than 100 MW of recent photo voltaic capability in Q3. 

Whereas financial challenges are starting to influence the photo voltaic and storage business, photo voltaic remains to be anticipated to be the most important supply of producing capability on the US grid by 2050.

SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper mentioned:

Photo voltaic stays the fastest-growing power supply in america, and regardless of a troublesome financial atmosphere, this progress is predicted to proceed for years to return.

To take care of this forecasted progress, we should modernize laws and scale back bureaucratic roadblocks to make it simpler for clear power firms to speculate capital and create jobs.

The residential photo voltaic phase put in a file 210,000 programs in Q3. Nonetheless, the California Public Utilities Fee’s disastrous resolution to intestine the state’s rooftop photo voltaic incentives –leading to an 80% drop in installations – and elevated US rates of interest are anticipated to result in a short decline subsequent 12 months earlier than progress resumes in 2025.

Elevated financing prices, transformer shortages, and interconnection bottlenecks are additionally impacting the utility-scale phase, which noticed its lowest stage of recent contracts signed in 1 / 4 since 2018.

Nonetheless, enhancements within the module provide chain have led to a file 12 GW of utility-scale deployment within the first 9 months of 2023.

Photo voltaic accounts for 48% of all new electrical producing capability within the first three quarters of 2023, bringing complete put in photo voltaic capability within the US to 161 GW throughout 4.7 million installations. By 2028, US photo voltaic capability is predicted to succeed in 377 GW – sufficient to energy greater than 65 million houses.

Michelle Davis, head of photo voltaic analysis at Wooden Mackenzie and lead creator of the report, mentioned:

The US photo voltaic business is on a robust progress trajectory, with expectations of 55% progress this 12 months and 10% progress in 2024.  

Progress is predicted to be slower beginning in 2026 as numerous challenges like interconnection constraints grow to be extra acute. It’s vital that the business proceed to innovate to maximise the worth that photo voltaic brings to an more and more complicated grid.

Interconnection reform, regulatory modernization, and rising storage attachment charges will likely be key instruments.

Electrek’s Take

Photo voltaic breaking capability data in 2023 doesn’t shock me – thanks, Inflation Discount Act – but it surely definitely makes me completely satisfied to listen to it from the SEIA. The photo voltaic business remains to be going to develop in 2024, simply not as shortly because it did final 12 months.

There are lots of shifting components on this revolutionary transition to scrub power, and subsequent 12 months, the business and its provide chain goes to should recalibrate on some essential stuff.

There’s nothing it may well do in regards to the rates of interest, and I don’t know the way California goes to type out its mess. However there are revolutionary startups arising with higher methods to calibrate the facility on the grid, and people concepts are being launched commercially. As Davis says, interconnection reform and regulation enhancements are wanted to assist ease the clear power bottlenecks. Hopefully these bottleneck points will likely be improved by authorities sooner quite than later.

Learn extra: Right here’s what the US must do proper now to improve the grid

Photograph: A employee watches the dawn by US Division of Vitality is licensed below CC-CC0 1.0

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