51% of New US Electricity Capacity In Q1 From Solar Energy

If you love solar, you’re going to love electricity capacity trends in the US. In the first quarter of 2014, over 51% of new electricity generation capacity came from solar (51% excludes small and medium rooftop solar projects), and renewable energy on the whole contributed 92.1%.

This follows a year (2013) when solar was the #2 source of new electricity capacity, adding 21% of all new electricity generation capacity (again, not including rooftop solar projects).

This is all better visualized in charts and tables, so below are several of those. Above is a chart of new electricity generation capacity in the 1st quarter of 2014, and here is a table on that split:

Here is a chart on the 2013 new electricity generation capacity split, and then a table on that:

And here is a chart and then a table on total electricity generation capacity in the US at the end of March 2014:

Thanks to the SUN DAY Campaign for sending me this FERC update. As a representative from the campaign aptly noted to me, “Renewable energy sources, including hydropower, now account for 16.3% of total installed U.S. operating generating capacity: water – 8.58%, wind – 5.27%, biomass – 1.37%, solar – 0.75%, and geothermal steam – 0.33%. This is more than nuclear (9.25%) and oil (4.04%) combined.” Nice.

We still have a long way to go, but at least we are now making very strong progress.

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