U.S. INSTALLS 6.2 GW OF SOLAR PV IN 2014, UP 30% OVER 2013

March 15, 2015 (Washington D.C.) – The nation is warming up to solar power.

Solar accounted for 32 percent of all new generating capacity in the U.S. in 2014, beating out both wind energy and coal for the second year in a row. Only natural gas had a bigger share of new generating capacity.  That’s according to a new study out from the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research.

The report, titled  U.S. Solar Market Insight 2014 Year in Review [1]  found that new solar photovoltaic capacity grew 30%, last year, reached a record, 6,201 megawatts.  In addition, 767 megawatts of concentrating solar power came online.

In 2014, for the first time in history, each of the three major U.S. market segments – utility, commercial and residential – installed more than a gigawatt (GW) of PV solar. 

The U.S. utility-scale segment broke the GW mark in 2011 and has since grown by nearly 1 GW annually.  In 2014, 3.9 GW of utility-scale PV projects came on-line with another 14 GW of projects currently under contract.

Rhone Resch,  president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, says growth was fueled by the solar investment tax credit.   Today the U.S. solar industry has more employees than tech giants Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter combined. Since the ITC was passed in 2006, more than 150,000 solar jobs have been created in America, and $66 billion has been invested in solar installations nationwide.

Nationwide, there’s now 20 gigawatts of solar capacity installed – enough to power 4 million U.S. homes and reduce harmful carbon emissions by 20 million metric tons a year.

 GTM Research forecasts the U.S. PV market to grow 31 percent in 2015. The utility segment is expected to account for 59 percent of the forecasted 8.1 GW of PV.

For more information, visit http://www.seia.org/research-resources/us-solar-market-insight/about[2] .