Renewables provided 90% of new US capacity in 2024 – FERC

Renewable energy – solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, biomass – accounted for more than 90% of total US electrical generating capacity added in 2024, according to data released yesterday by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and reviewed by the SUN DAY campaign.

Solar alone accounted for over 81% of the new capacity. Moreover, December was the 16th month in a row in which solar was the largest source of new capacity.

Renewables made up the lion’s share of new generating capacity in December and in 2024. In its latest monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update” report (with data through December 31, 2024), FERC says 105 “units” of solar totaling 4,369 megawatts (MW) came online in December, along with two units of wind (324 MW) and two units of biomass (45 MW). Combined, they accounted for 86.9% of all new generating capacity added during the month. Natural gas provided the balance: 717 MW.

During the full 2024 calendar year, solar and wind added 30,816 MW and 3,128 MW, respectively. Combined with 213 MW of hydropower, 51 MW of biomass, and 29 MW of geothermal steam, renewables accounted for 90.5% of added capacity. The balance consisted of the 1,100 Vogtle-4 nuclear reactor in Georgia, plus 2,428 MW of natural gas, 13 MW of coal, 11 MW of oil, and 28 MW of “other.”

Solar was 80.1% of new capacity in December and 81.5% during 2024. Solar accounted for 81.5% of all new generating capacity placed into service in 2024 – 50% more than the solar capacity added in 2023.

In December alone, solar comprised 80.1% of all new capacity added.

New solar capacity added in 2024 is almost nine times that added by natural gas and nuclear power combined.

Solar has now been the largest source of new generating capacity added each month for 16 months straight, from September 2023 – December 2024.

Adjusting for the differences in capacity factors among solar, nuclear, and natural gas, the new solar capacity added in 2024 is likely to generate seven times as much electricity as the new nuclear capacity and about five times as much as might be expected from the new natural gas capacity.

Solar + wind are now almost 22% of US utility-scale generating capacity. New wind accounted for much of the balance (8.3%) of capacity additions, which is more than either the new natural gas capacity (6.4%) or nuclear power capacity (2.9%).

Taken together, the installed capacities of just solar (10.2%) and wind (11.7%) now constitute more than one-fifth (21.9%) of the US’s total available installed utility-scale generating capacity.

However, approximately 30% of US solar capacity is in the form of small-scale (e.g., rooftop) systems that aren’t reflected in FERC’s data. Including that additional solar capacity would bring the share provided by solar + wind closer to a quarter of the US total.

With the inclusion of hydropower (7.7%), biomass (1.1%), and geothermal (0.3%), renewables now claim a 31.0% share of total US utility-scale generating capacity. If small-scale solar capacity is included, renewables are now about one-third of total US generating capacity.

Solar’s share of US generating capacity is now 10x greater than a decade ago. As noted, by the end of 2024, solar and wind accounted for 10.2% and 11.7%, respectively, of all installed utility-scale generating capacity in the US, while the mix of all renewables accounted for 31.0%.

In December 2023, FERC reported that solar and wind were 7.9% and 11.7% of installed capacity while the mix of all renewables provided 29.0%.

Five years ago (December 2019), FERC released data showing solar and wind to be 3.5% and 8.5% of total capacity while all renewables combined were 22.1%.

A decade ago (December 2014), FERC reported that solar and wind were 1.0% and 5.5% of total capacity, while the combination of all renewables accounted for 16.6% of capacity.

Solar will soon become the second-largest source of US generating capacity. FERC reports that net “high probability” additions of solar between January 2025 and December 2027 total 91,558 MW – an amount almost four times the forecast net “high probability” additions for wind (23,601 MW), the second-fastest growing resource. FERC also foresees growth for hydropower (1,345 MW), geothermal (90 MW), and biomass (61 MW).

Taken together, the net new “high probability” capacity additions by all renewable energy sources would total 116,655 MW, with solar comprising over 78% and wind providing another 20%.  

On the other hand, there is no new nuclear capacity in FERC’s three-year forecast, while coal, oil, and natural gas are projected to contract by 23,925 MW, 2,293 MW, and 833 MW, respectively.

If FERC’s current “high probability” additions materialize, by January 1, 2028, solar will account for nearly one-sixth (16.1%) of the US’s installed utility-scale generating capacity. That would be greater than either coal or wind (both 12.6%) and substantially more than either nuclear power or hydropower (both 7.3%).

In fact, assuming current growth rates continue, the installed capacity of utility-scale solar is likely to surpass coal and wind within the next two years, placing solar in second place for installed generating capacity, behind natural gas.

Meanwhile, the mix of all renewables is now adding about two percentage points each year to its share of generating capacity. Thus, by January 1, 2028, renewables would account for 37.3% of the total available installed utility-scale generating capacity – rapidly approaching that of natural gas (40.2%) – with solar and wind constituting more than three-quarters of the installed renewable energy capacity.

All renewables combined are on track to exceed natural gas within three years. As noted, FERC’s data don’t account for the capacity of small-scale solar systems. If that’s factored in, within three years, total US solar capacity could surpass 320 GW. In turn, the mix of all renewables would then exceed 40% of total installed capacity while the share of natural gas share would drop to about 37%.

Moreover, FERC reports that there may actually be as much as 222,443 MW of net new solar additions in the current three-year pipeline in addition to 68,815 MW of new wind, 8,659 MW of new hydropower, 199 MW of new geothermal, and 127 MW of new biomass. By contrast, the net new natural gas capacity potentially in the three-year pipeline totals just 19,438 MW. Thus, the share of renewables share could be even greater by early 2028.

“For more than a decade, renewable energy sources – led by solar – have dominated growth in US generating capacity,” noted the SUN DAY Campaign’s executive director Ken Bossong. “Consequently, efforts by the Trump Administration to reverse this trend are both illogical and likely to fail.” 

Electrek’s Take

FERC’s latest data further illustrates how utterly ridiculous Trump’s “national energy emergency” executive order is. The steady growth of clean energy, which has kept large energy markets like Texas out of trouble during weather events, disproves Trump’s claims that the US clean energy supply is “precariously inadequate and intermittent.”

Further, his refusal to even define solar and wind as “energy” in that executive order isn’t going to stop their progress, and both he and his new secretary of energy, Chris Wright, telling lies about renewables isn’t going to make them any less clean, affordable, or reliable.

Read more: Thanks to wind and solar, Texas has kept the power on and the costs down

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