Solar News Roundup April 2024
With spring in full swing, the solar industry continued heating up last month. We saw more and more announcements of major utility-scale projects and continued optimism from solar contracting leading residential and commercial installations. California first led the charge 2 decades ago in kickstarting solar adoption and Texas is rapidly accelerating. Countless other states are continuing to announce projects and policies to drive their solar adoption forwards
The solar industry went through a few speed bumps at the start of the year as everyone was re-evaluating the aggressive growth forecast after California’s NEM 3.0 changes that slowed demand for residential solar. However, with summer approaching, last month was a promising one filled with announcements and positive trends across the country. Dive in below and let us know what you think!
Solar Installers are Confident of Growth in New Survey
EnerySage surveyed hundreds of contractors across the country and businesses are very optimistic about the future of solar. 80%+ of contractors expect solar installations to continue to increase over the next three years. The majority of contracts who expect some bumps in growth are all based in California, which is still affected by the regulatory NEM 3.0 changes last year.
One of the largest hurdles cited is the current economic climate of higher interest rates, making it challenging for some consumers to justify upfront loans to invest in solar installations. The other, as we've highlighted before, is that 83% of solar contractors are struggling to find employees to hire based on the lastest survey.
What this means is clear - expect to see more jobs growth and wage growth as employers ramp up hiring to match their expected forecasts for the coming years. Check out our job board for the latest solar openings.
Texas Solar > Texas Coal
Believe it or not, Texas utility-scale solar energy generation officially surpassed coal energy generation in March of this year. You can see how quickly solar has grown since 2020 to meet Texas’ energy needs.
California simplifies interconnection with DER Schedules
CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission) made an important decision that will minimize grid disruptions. The decision enables DERs (Distributed Energy Resources), allowing solar and energy storage to operate flexibly through “export scheduling.” This allows the energy grid to take into account conditions at a project site to minimize expensive grid upgrades. The IREC worked with regulators to reach this decision and has an extensive post with the details if you are interested in learning more.
Relatedly, California passed 10 GW of energy storage in April 2024, a massive milestone for the state, which has 10x-ed storage in the past 5 years
Supreme Courts Siding with Solar
The New Mexico Supreme court threw out an appeal made by Xcel Energy made to slow down the state’s community solar programs. However, the court found that the appeal had 0 merit and projects could continue as planned. While legacy incumbents in oil & natural gas may attempt to slow down renewable projects, they are finding it increasingly difficult to appeal any decisions. As precedent builds across the country, solar projects will face fewer and fewer hurdles to development.
Grid Scale Storage rapidly accelerates to meet demand
2023 was a record year for installing grid-scale storage to support the growing supply of renewable energy. In Q4 of 2023, storage deployments increased a whopping 100% from Q3, adding over 4,200 MW of capacity. Energy storage was on a path to becoming a clear bottleneck for solar adoption, especially in states such as California which has excess solar power during the middle of the day. However, the industry is rapidly growing to meet the demand in the renewables transition.
Dominion Energy in Virginia plans ~750 megawatts of Solar
Dominion energy announced multiple utility-scale projects that will add more than 750 megawatts to the state’s solar capacity, enough to power 200,000 households. These projects are expected to add more than 1,600 jobs and create $570 million of economic benefits to the state of Virginia. Many of these projects are still in their permitting phases, so expect to see Dominion Energy’s job postings ramp up in the coming quarters as they target completion by 2026.
Illinois replacing former coal plant with solar energy hub
Vistra Corporation announced a 405 MW utility-scale project on the site of an old coal plant in Pulaski county. The coal plant shuttered operations in 2012, leaving a gap in the local economy. The new proposal is expected to invest $650 million into the county and create over 1,300 jobs and $57 million in property taxes for local governments. This project is a fantastic example of win for all parties involved to reignite a local community with clean energy.
Iberdrola invests $45 billion into US Power Grid
Iberdrola, a Spanish power company with massive international presence, announced that they are going to invest $45 billion into the US power grid. This will include large utility scale projects, modernization of the energy grid, grid expansion, and investments in microgrids across the country. The US energy grid is in a drastic need of modernization in order to support the complexity of energy supply and demand. Iberdrola owns and operates 800,000 miles of power lines in the US today.
Microsoft invests $10B in renewable data centers
The demand for Artificial Intelligence is likely going to dramatically accelerate the need for computing infrastructure across the country. You may have seen headlines over the past few months highlighting the climate concerns stemming from this demand (beyond the many headlines about the doomsday scenario of “AI” taking over the world…). However, companies are investing in building renewable capacity to meet this demand.
Microsoft just announced a $10 billion deal with Brookfield Asset Management to build this capacity in the coming years.
Pennsylvania Schools Adopt Solar
Pennsylvania schools are rapidly adopting solar energy across the state as highlighted in a report last month. Schools, which often have available land for solar panels, are great sites for smaller-scale solar projects. Pennsylvania has more than doubled their schools’ solar capacity in the past 2 years to 38 MW, enough to power 6,500 households.
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