Including nuclear power, over ten gigawatts of new power capacity went online in the second quarter of 2024 and most of this capacity was renewable. Excluding the nuclear outlier, 80 percent of new capacity was from solar generation, with 5.9 gigawatts of large-scale solar and 1.6 gigawatts of distributed solar. Wind energy buildout contributed 1.4 gigawatts, while fossil gas grew by 512 megawatts.
In the chart below, we illustrate the past two years of electric power capacity additions in the U.S., disaggregated by energy source on a quarterly basis.
Key takeaways:
- 80 percent of all generation capacity installed in the second quarter of 2024 was solar; 63 percent from utility-scale solar farms and 17 percent from small solar installations (residential, commercial, and community solar).
- Distributed solar buildout slowed again in the second quarter of 2024 following a record-high fourth quarter of 2023. Fallout from the decision by California regulators to slash rooftop solar compensation is likely to blame.
- Only 512 megawatts of new gas-fired power generation capacity came online in the second quarter; the first half of 2024 added just 22 percent of the gas capacity that was added in the second half of 2023.
- Developers installed three gigawatts of utility-scale energy storage in the second quarter of 2024.
For more on the advancement of clean, distributed energy, see these recent ILSR resources:
- Community Solar Tracker
- Community Leaders on the Benefits of Locally Owned Clean Energy
- What the Monopoly Utility Model Really Costs Us
- The 2024 Community Power Scorecard
- The State(s) of Distributed Solar — 2023 Update
- Solar Help Desk Offers Agenda-Free Consumer Assistance — Episode 220 of Local Energy Rules
Interested in earlier trends and analysis of new power plant capacity? Check out our archive, illustrating how electricity generation has changed in previous quarters and years.
This article originally posted at ilsr.org. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter, subscribe to the Energy Democracy weekly update, and check out the Local Energy Rules podcast.
Featured Photo Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture via Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)