U.S. Solar Market Has Biggest Year Ever; Poised to Triple in Next 5 Years

The U.S. solar market installed nearly 15 gigawatts of new solar capacity in 2016, nearly doubling the previous year’s capacity installations and becoming the leading source of new electric generating capacity in the U.S.  Moreover, analysts are expecting the market to triple in size over the next five years. 

According to the latest figures published this week by GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the U.S. solar market installed a total of 14,762 megawatts (MW) of solar PV in 2016, up from 7,501 MW installed in 2015. The new U.S. Solar Market Insight 2016 Year-in-Review report shows that the 2016 growth was driven primarily by the sector’s utility PV segment, which installed more capacity in 2016 than the entire sector installed in 2015, with 10,593 MW.
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For the first time ever, solar represented the largest new source of electricity generating capacity brought online in 2016, with 39% of the total share of new capacity.