The US solar industry is set to expand by a record amount of 32GW in 2023, according to a report commissioned by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).
This installation rate would equate to a 52% growth in the market when compared to 2022, following a 13% market contraction in that year. Total operating solar capacity in the US is predicted to grow from the current 153GW to 375GW by 2028.
According to the report, investment incentives provided under the US Government’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have contributed to this growth. The wide-ranging policy allocates around $370bn to clean energy and climate change efforts including tax incentives for renewables developers.
A surge in domestic manufacturing, as promoted under the IRA, is expected to improve supply conditions over the next few years, according to the report’s authors. If the currently announced factory expansions come to fruition, the report estimates that US solar module manufacturing will be ten times greater by 2026 than it is today.
“The United States is now a dominant player in the global clean energy economy and states such as Florida, Texas, Ohio and Georgia are at the forefront of this job growth and economic prosperity,” said SEIA president Abigail Ross Hopper in a statement.
“The solar and storage industry is delivering abundant clean energy that is generating tens of billions of dollars of private investment, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Utility-scale and residential solar were market leaders for Q3 2023, growing by 3.3GW and 1.8GW respectively. Florida was the leading state, installing 2.5GW of new capacity in the first half of 2023. This was 52% more than the next highest state, California.
The US Government has set a target for 80% of the country’s energy to come from renewable generation by the year 2030. As of 2021, 79% of US energy production came from fossil fuel generation.
In February 2023, the US Energy Information Administration said that it plans to add an additional 54.5GW of new electricity-generating capacity in 2023. More than half of this additional capacity will be powered by solar energy.
