The U.S. solar industry expects to add a record 32 gigawatts (GW) of production capacity this year, up 53% on new capacity in 2022 and helped by investment incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act, a report published on Thursday showed.

The U.S. solar industry expects to add a record 32 gigawatts (GW) of production capacity this year, up 53% on new capacity in 2022 and helped by investment incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act, a report published on Thursday showed.

32 GW is a lot. The average thermal coal generating station in the US is 1GW and these stations have an average capacity of 50%. That means that this colar prodution capacity enables us to displace 64 coal stations during the daytime if consumption does not grow.

  • LetMeEatCake@lemm.ee
    23·
    9 months ago

    The future of renewable energy is very promising. It’s easy to miss how fast it can turn around when growth it grows so much year-to-year but starts at a small place. Keep this kind of growth up and the grid will be clean a lot faster than seems possible.

    Beyond solar I’m also very hopeful about offshore wind efforts in the US.

    • Feirdro@lemmy.world
      7·
      9 months ago

      I think geothermal is the next big thing because oil and gas companies don’t just get to invest in it—they already have the knowledge and tools to make it happen. We could actually see them turn from one fuel to another.

      Plus, there are power storage solutions that involve drilling into bedrock.

  • HidingCat@kbin.social
    11·
    9 months ago

    What’s the total power consumption of the USA? Just want to know how much this makes up.

    For those who’re more familiar with solar, will there be an issue with solar panel farms taking up land (which may cause environmental issues)? Wonder if there’s a balance to be struck there.

  • qyron@sopuli.xyz
    92·
    9 months ago

    European here.

    Great! Now double that yearly, over the next 5 years and keep us posted on how much that impacted the economy and everything else.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    2·
    9 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Sept 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. solar industry expects to add a record 32 gigawatts (GW) of production capacity this year, up 53% on new capacity in 2022 and helped by investment incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act, a report published on Thursday showed.

    The report by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie estimated total operating solar capacity would grow from 153 GW currently to 375 GW by 2028 as supply chain challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictive trade policies abate.

    Increased investment in domestic manufacturing could see U.S. solar module production grow tenfold by 2026 if all new factory plans materialise, Wood Mackenzie said.

    “In the year since its passage, the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) has undoubtedly caused a wave of optimism across the solar industry,” said Michelle Davis, head of global solar at Wood Mackenzie.

    The Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act allocates about $370 billion toward climate change and clean energy efforts, including incentives aimed at promoting solar and wind power.

    The utility-scale and residential solar markets led the way with new capacity additions in the second quarter, mainly as customers in California rushed to install solar before changes to net metering rules took effect, the report said.

    The original article contains 288 words, the summary contains 207 words. Saved 28%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • qyron@sopuli.xyz
      62·
      9 months ago

      I’m a layman in the subject but energy consumption tends to be diminishing on all fronts as technology becomes more efficient.

        • qyron@sopuli.xyz
          3·
          9 months ago

          Again, just a layman, but had a person in a thread tell me they ran an Opteron for some time and they noticed how warm the house was kept with that machine working.

          After being put to rest, replaced by more modern machines, the eletric bill dropped, even when the heating was added in.

          • legios@aussie.zoneEnglish
            2·
            9 months ago

            Was that me?

            If so I moved to low power i5s and run super cool and quiet without any loss of functionality or slowdowns. And my energy bill is much more pleasant now! A few generations of CPUs and it’s worth just replacing old gear if you can, especially enterprise stuff.

            • qyron@sopuli.xyz
              21·
              9 months ago

              Well isn’t the world a small place!

              Only critique I have is: you should have kept to AMD.

              • legios@aussie.zoneEnglish
                1·
                9 months ago

                The mid-range at the time for AMD re: motherboard or CPU wasn’t spectacular, and I wanted dual Intel GBE on the motherboard, otherwise I totally would have (my actual desktop machine is AMD)

                • qyron@sopuli.xyz
                  2·
                  9 months ago

                  Just messing with you. I’m a self confessed AMD fanboy but I respect some will want to try other hardware or have specific wants or needs.

                  Nonetheless: AMD is the best!

        • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
          32·
          9 months ago

          The designs for those have really improved too, also a lot of the stuff the internet has made obsolete was very energy intensive so when just looking at the whole picture numbers there can still be a trend down

    • lntlOP
      1·
      9 months ago

      I don’t think so, this piece says US has ~150 GW installed. Im not sure if that includes the 32GW or not.