The Last FERC and EIA Reports of 2023 Confirm Solar Was the Fastest Growing Source of Electricity and Largest Source of New Generating Capacity

A review by the SUN DAY Campaign of four reports released in December by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reveals that solar has grown faster in electrical generation than all other energy sources as well as outpaced them in new U.S. generating capacity added during the first ten months of 2023. However, to meet climate change goals, there remains a need for much faster growth by solar and all other renewable energy sources.

Highlights of FERC’s “Energy Infrastructure Update”:

In its latest monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update” report (with data through October 31, 2023), FERC says solar provided 10,937 megawatts (MW) of new domestic generating capacity to date in 2023 or 42.1% of the total. Moreover, solar capacity additions during the first ten months of this year were over a third (34.4%) larger than for the same period last year.

The new solar capacity additions surpassed the 9,794-MW of new natural gas (37.7%) and were almost ten times greater than that provided by the new 1,100-MW Vogtle-3 nuclear reactor (4.2%) in Georgia as well as by oil (54-MW) and waste heat (31-MW).

Other renewable energy sources have also experienced growth this year. Wind provided an additional 3,748-MW (14.4%). With the inclusion of hydropower (228-MW), geothermal (44-MW), and biomass (32-MW), the mix of renewable energy sources has accounted for the majority (57.7%) of new capacity added since last January.

In October alone, 33 new “units” of solar, totaling 976-MW, came on-line. These additions brought utility-scale (i.e., >1-MW) solar’s share of total available installed generating capacity in the U.S. up to 7.3%, from 6.2% a year earlier. [1]

While solar’s share of total installed U.S. generating capacity still trails wind (11.6%) it is rapidly closing in on that of hydropower (7.9%). Taken together, the installed capacity of all renewable sources, including biomass (1.2%) and geothermal (0.3%), was 28.4% of the nation’s total at the end of the first ten months of 2023 – up from 27.0% a year earlier.

Solar’s strong growth seems likely to continue. FERC reports that “high probability” additions of solar between November 2023 and October 2026 total 87,733-MW – an amount over four times more than the forecast net “high probability” additions for wind (19,952-MW) and nearly 40 times greater than those projected for natural gas (2,213-MW).

And the numbers for solar may prove to be conservative. FERC’s three-year forecast for solar increases with each new monthly “Infrastructure” report. Moreover, FERC reports that there may actually be as much as 211,192-MW of new solar additions in the three-year pipeline.

If just the “high probability” additions materialize, by mid-autumn 2026, solar will account for more than one-eighth (13.3%) of the nation’s installed generating capacity. That would be more than either wind (12.4%) or hydropower (7.5%). Solar’s installed generating capacity by October 2026 would also surpass of oil (2.6%) and nuclear power (7.5%) combined as well as nearly match that of coal (13.8%). [2]

In three years, natural gas would still comprise the largest share of installed generating capacity (41.5%) but the mix of all renewable sources (i.e., solar plus wind, hydropower, geothermal, and biomass) would total 34.5% and continue to further narrow natural gas’ lead.

Highlights of EIA’s “Electric Power Monthly”:

The latest issue of EIA’s “Electric Power Monthly” report (with data through October 31, 2023) reveals that in the first ten months of this year, electrical generation by the mix of renewables (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) accounted for 22.8% of U.S. electrical generation. That share is up slightly from the 22.5% reported for the same period in 2022.

Solar (including small-scale distributed systems) grew by 14.7%, compared to the first ten months of 2022 – more than any other energy source. This was driven in large part by growth in “estimated” small-scale (e.g., rooftop) solar PV whose output increased by 20.0% and accounted for nearly a third (30.7%) of total solar production. For the ten-month period, solar was 5.9% of total U.S. electrical generation. A year earlier, solar’s share was 5.1%.

Moreover, solar’s year-to-date electrical generation exceeded that of hydropower by 3.2%. In addition, the estimated electrical generation by just small-scale distributed solar systems comfortably exceeded that produced by geothermal, wood and other biomass combined.

From January to October, solar combined with wind accounted for 15.6% of the nation’s electrical generation – up from 14.9% for the same period a year earlier. For the ten-month period, solar plus wind nearly equaled coal’s share (15.9%) as electrical generation by the latter plummeted by 19.1%.

Further, electrical generation by the mix of all renewables exceeded by more than a quarter (26.4%) that provided by nuclear power, whose output rose by only 0.6% notwithstanding the commissioning of the Vogtle-3 reactor. 

Highlights of EIA’s “Short-Term Energy Outlook”:

In its most recent “Short-Term Energy Outlook” report (issued in mid-December), EIA confirms that solar is “the fastest growing source of U.S. electric power generation” and projects that 23 gigawatts (GW) of new solar generating will come online in 2023 (a 33% increase from 2022). EIA also forecasts that 37-GW will come online in 2024 (up 39% from 2023). This means that U.S. solar generation will grow by 15% in 2023 and by 39% in 2024.

In addition, EIA expects “solar and wind generation together in 2024 [will] overtake electric power generation from coal for the first year ever, exceeding coal by nearly 90 billion kilowatthours (kWh). … Coal-fired power plants will generate less in 2024 (599 billion kWh) than the combined generation from solar and wind (688 billion kWh).”

Highlights of EIA’s “Monthly Energy Review”:

The latest issue of EIA’s “Monthly Energy Review” report (with data through September 30, 2023) offers a possibly more sobering snapshot of the share of total U.S. energy production and consumption provided by solar, wind, and other renewable energy resources.  

Renewable energy (i.e., biofuels, biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) accounted for only 8.3% of U.S. energy production during the first nine months of 2023. For the same period a year earlier, renewables’ share was 8.5%.

Solar’s share alone of total energy production during the first three-quarters of 2023 was just 0.9%. Wind’s share was 1.4%. Combined, solar plus wind contributed only 2.3% of the nation’s energy production.

Compared to January-September 2022, renewable energy production was up marginally – by less than 0.6%. However, fossil fuel production was up – by 4.8% – and accounted for 83.8% of all domestic energy production. Nuclear power generation increased by 0.2%

On the consumption side, renewables were 8.9% of energy use during the first nine months of 2023. Renewables were 8.6% of energy consumption during the same time period a year earlier.

Among just renewable energy sources, biofuels accounted for 31.7% of production, followed by wood and other forms of biomass (29.1%), wind (16.9%), solar (11.0%), hydropower (10.0%), and geothermal (1.4%).

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Sources:  

FERC’s 8-page “Energy Infrastructure Update for October 2023” was released on December 13, 2023, and can be found at: https://cms.ferc.gov/media/energy-infrastructure-update-october-2023. For the information cited in this update, see the tables entitled “New Generation In-Service (New Build and Expansion),” “Total Available Installed Generating Capacity,” and “Generation Capacity Additions and Retirements.”

FERC’s 6-page “Energy Infrastructure Update for October 2022” can be found at: https://cms.ferc.gov/media/energy-infrastructure-update-october-2022 

EIA’s latest “Electric Power Monthly” report was released on December 21, 2023. For the data cited in this news release, see Table ES1.A “Total Electric Power Industry Summary Statistics 2023 and 2022” and Table ES1.B “Total Electric Power Industry Summary Statistics, Year-to-Date 2023 and 2022”at: 

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=table_es…

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=table_es1b

EIA’s latest “Short-Term Energy Outlook” report was released on December 12, 2023. For the data and analyses cited in this news release, see the “Forecast Overview” and the forecast for “Electricity, Coal, and Renewables” at:

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/index.php

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/elec_coal_renew.php

EIA’s latest “Monthly Energy Review” report was released on December 21, 2023. For the data cited in this news release, see Table 1.1 “Primary Energy Overview,” Table 1.2 “Primary Energy Production by Source,” and Table 10.1 “Renewable Energy Production and Consumption by Source” at:

https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_3.pdf

https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_5.pdf

https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec10_3.pdf

Notes:   

[1] FERC generally only reports data for utility-scale facilities (i.e., those rated 1-MW or greater) and therefore its data do not reflect the capacity of distributed renewables, notably rooftop solar PV which – according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) – accounted for approximately 31% of the nation’s electrical generation by solar during the first ten months of 2023. That would imply that the total of distributed and utility-scale solar capacity combined is significantly more than the solar capacity of 7.34% reported by FERC at the end of the first ten months of 2023 and is perhaps closer to 10.0%. 

[2] Generating capacity is not the same as actual generation. Fossil fuels and nuclear power generally have higher “capacity factors” than do wind and solar. For example, EIA reports capacity factors in 2022 for nuclear power and natural gas were 92.6% and 56.7% respectively while those for wind and solar were 36.1% and 24.8%.