According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) May 2024 Energy Infrastructure Update report, 251 new solar "units" came into operation in the United States from January to May of this year, with a total installed capacity of 10,669MW.

The new additions are well ahead of wind power, which is in second place with 13 new "units" with a total installed capacity of 2,095MW, followed by natural gas (23 units with a new installed capacity of 348MW).

In the first five months of 2024, the United States added 14,435MW of installed capacity, meaning that new solar capacity accounted for about 74% of the total installed capacity.

In May, 50 new solar projects came online with a total capacity of 2,517MW, ahead of wind (277MW, 2 units), hydro (211MW, 2 units) and gas (184MW, 9 units). Solar accounted for 79 percent of new capacity installed in the United States that month.

Compared to the same period last year, solar capacity installed in the United States between January and May 2023 increased by 118 percent, from 4,885 MW in the same period in 2023 to 10,669 MW in the same period in 2024.

PV Tech reports that according to trade body the American Council on Clean Energy (ACP), the United States added 4,557MW of solar capacity in the first quarter of 2024, bringing the total installed capacity to more than 100GW.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie, U.S. solar installed capacity in 2023 was 32.4GWdc, a 51% year-over-year increase, with every segment setting installation records except community solar.

According to FERC, the largest solar project added in the first five months of the year was the 325MW AEUG Union solar project in Ohio. The state is also home to another large solar PV project that came online during the same period - the 300MW Highland Solar PV Plant. From the perspective of installed capacity, the large power plant photovoltaic projects in the US market are also gradually getting breakthroughs and getting bigger.

By the end of May 2024, the installed solar capacity in the United States reached 113.84GW, accounting for 8.78% of the total power generation capacity of 1,296.08 GW. Solar is the second largest source of renewable energy generation in the United States, behind wind (152.6GW, or 11.77% of total generation).

Additions and decommissioning between 2024 and 2027

In the same update,951 solar projects are expected to become "high probability additions" between June 2024 and May 2027, with a total capacity of 89,951MW.

This will account for 69.8 percent of new installed capacity in the United States and will far exceed the combined additions of wind (23,532MW) and natural gas (14,127MW).

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects U.S. project developers to add 36.4GW of solar power capacity through 2024, accounting for 58% of all new installations in the U.S. electric power sector.

The study also looked at decommissioning of power generation resources. By June 2027, 99MW of capacity from nine solar projects is expected to be retired, representing only 0.27% of the installed capacity retired between June 2024 and May 2027.

PV Tech Premium has previously studied the decommissioning of solar PV projects. Currently, 80% of solar PV projects in the United States have been installed in the last seven years. These projects are much younger than the older power stations in Europe.

What's more, because the solar PV industry is still relatively young, there are few decommissioning cases to learn from best practices so far.jinko solar panels