USA Adds Record Amount of Solar Manufacturing in 4th Quarter — Thanks, IRA – CleanTechnica

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Last week, I wrote about the enormous growth in US manufacturing construction investment that has come from Joe Biden’s strong reshoring and new manufacturing policies (see graph above). Solar technology manufacturing is a part of that and the US Solar Market Insight Q4 2024 report released today by the US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) shows that well.

According to the report, a new-record 9.3 gigawatts of solar module manufacturing capacity were added in the country in the 3rd quarter. And here’s the big goal Biden’s policies on the matter were targeting: “At full capacity, US solar module factories can produce enough to meet nearly all demand for solar in the United States.” Okay, we’re not quite at 100% domestic supply, but look at how far we’ve come after offshoring almost all of this previously!

The new report from SEIA and number-crunchers Wood Mackenzie indicated that five solar module factories were added or expanded in four different states: Alabama, Florida, Ohio, and Texas. (Ironically, those are all “red states,” or states that voted for the Republican nominee for president and basically always do, yet Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump are expected to kill key laws and policies supporting this solar technology manufacturing. A story for another day … unfortunately.)

Additionally, the key components of solar modules — solar cells — are being produced in the US again as of last quarter. “Solar cell manufacturing resumed in Q3 as silicon cells were manufactured in the United States for the first time since 2019, marking a pivotal moment for America’s surging solar manufacturing sector,” SEIA writes. It’s amazing what happens when you have policies supporting cleantech manufacturing like other leading economies have, most notably China.

SEIA echoes the same sentiment. “Federal solar policies and increased private investments are strengthening our nation’s energy security and creating thousands of new job opportunities for American workers,” says SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper. “The United States is stepping up to take market share from foreign competitors and making sure that the jobs and economic growth from solar are benefiting American communities.” Indeed.

Now we can get to the normal matters the Solar Market Insight report covers. In addition to all of that manufacturing growth, the US added 8.6 gigawatts (GW) of solar power capacity in the 3rd quarter. That’s the most ever added in a 3rd quarter, and it’s a 21% increase over Q3 2023. The commercial solar market had 44% more capacity installed in the 3rd quarter than in Q3 2023, and the community solar market had 12% more capacity installed in the 3rd quarter than in Q3 2023, but it was the utility-scale solar market that drove most of the growth, adding 6.6 GW of new solar power capacity.

As far as residential solar power goes, SEIA shares that in the past two years, 1.4 million American homes added solar panels to their roofs with help from US solar incentives. In the 3rd quarter alone, nearly 30,000 Floridians installed rooftop solar power systems.

Overall, Florida, The Sunshine State, installed more solar power capacity than all but one other state. The state that installed more was Texas. The biggest “red state” in the country installed 2.6 GW of solar power capacity last quarter, 30% of new capacity, and it installed nearly 25% of new solar power capacity in the first three quarters of 2024. It could end up with 10 GW of new solar power capacity itself this year.

Looking forward, predictions are never perfect or easy, as things can change a lot in a large market like this influenced by big national and state policies. To end, here are a few predictions from SEIA:

• New solar generation capacity will exceed 40 GW in 2024.
• New solar generation capacity will reach at least 43 GW a year for the rest of the 2020s.
• Nearly 450 GW of solar power capacity will be in place by the end of 2029 in the United States.
• Solar power will provide enough electricity for more than 71 million homes a year by 2029.

We’ll dive into more of the US Solar Market Insight Q4 2024 report in coming days, but those highlights seem like a good start.