A storming last quarter has taken the United States to the top of the table for utility-scale solar capacity, according to figures today from market experts wiki-solar.org.[1] The US overtakes China, which grabbed top spot earlier in 2013.
Recent figures from CAISO, California's transmission grid operator, show major new capacity coming online between October and December from several of the world's largest solar power stations. These include three partly-complete First Solar projects: Desert Sunlight being built for GE and others, which now has 470 MW connected out of an eventual 550 MW capacity; Topaz Solar Farm for MidAmerican (237 of 550 MW); and Exelon's Antelope Valley (230 of 250 MW).
The latest figures also include several 100+MW projects now fully connected, including First Solar's 290 MW Agua Caliente, SunPower's 250 MW California Valley for NRG Energy, Sempra's 165 MW Mesquite I, Tenaska's 130 MW Imperial South and GE's 127 MW Arlington Valley.
Coupled with substantial new capacity around the country in mid-size projects between 4 and 92 MW, this raised total US capacity to over 5 GW; more than double the 2.2 GW existing at the start of 2013.
The United States' remarkable track-record in utility-scale solar:
In each of the last five years, the US has installed more GW of new plant
than the cumulative capacity existing at the start of the year
"We've known for some time that America's pipeline of giga-scale projects would take it to the top of the table", says Wiki-Solar's Philip Wolfe. "Thanks to a further 12 GW still in development, it should stay there for some time; though China's progress is also impressive – and they have a habit of springing new capacity on us with little warning."
The figures are all based on the grid output capacity of the stations and the latest definition of utility-scale solar above a threshold of 4 MW AC.
America’s share of the global utility-scale solar market will be confirmed when the 2013 figures are published soon. Experts anticipate that worldwide capacity will then have topped 20 GW.
