A new report from SEIA found that the U.S. installed 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of solar PV capacity in Q1 2018 to reach 55.9 gigawatts (GW) of total installed capacity, enough to power 10.7 million American homes. This represents a 13% increase year-over-year. Total installed U.S. PV capacity is expected to more than double over the next five years, and by 2023, over 14 GW of PV capacity will be installed annually.
Click here for the Executive Summary of the report.
Key findings on solar’s performance in Q1:
- The U.S. market installed 2.5 GWdc of solar PV, a 13% year-over-year increase and a 37% quarter-over-quarter decrease.
55% of all new electric generating capacity brought online in the U.S. came from solar – the second consecutive quarter in which solar accounted for the largest share of new capacity additions. - The residential PV sector was essentially flat on both a year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter basis. After four consecutive quarters of year-over-year declines, residential PV shows some signs of improvement over 2017.
- Coming off its largest quarter ever, non-residential PV fell 34% quarter-over-quarter, despite posting 23% year-over-year growth.
- Regulatory demand pull-in from looming policy deadlines in California and the Northeast – in addition to the continued build-out of a robust community solar pipeline in Minnesota – are the leading growth factors.
- While voluntary procurement by utilities is the largest driver of utility-scale PV, corporate procurement/offsite commercial and industrial now accounts for 2.0 GWdc, or 10%, of projects in development.
- GTM Research forecasts growth in 2018 will be flat compared to the 2017 level, with another 10.8 GWdc of new PV installations expected.
- Total installed U.S. PV capacity is expected to more than double over the next five years. By 2023, more than 14 GWdc of PV capacity will be installed annually.