The US solar market grew 24.1% in 2020, more than any other electricity generation segment in the country. Though solar accounts for just 3.3% of national electricity supply and 4.1% of electric power installations by rating, it produced the most megawatt-installed in the country in the past year, leaving behind all other electricity generation technologies. Notably, according to EIA data of December 2020, solar PV 24.1% growth outpaced wind which grew 14.1%, geothermal which grew 9.4%, natural gas which grew by 2.0% and hydroelectricity which grew 1.1%; notably nuclear power and coal power generation declined with reductions of 2.4% and 19.8% respectively. Altogether, renewable power sources provided US with 20.6% of the country’s total electrical supply - up from 18.3% in 2019.
From January to October 2020, US added a staggering 8.96 Gigawatts of solar PV, of which 5.43 GW was utility-scale (60.6%), while distributed solar contributed the rest 4.53 GW (39.6%). Hence, by the third quarter of 2020, the US solar market reached 88.9 GW of installed solar PV capacity - the highest capacity from among the OECD countries and the second largest in the world, being second only to China.
Commercial and residential solar integrators - interested to know on Sensorless technology to measure PV performance and integrating it into your solar monitoring/management software or a service application? Fill-in the demo request form to get more details.