Wind, solar and battery storage are growing as a share of new electric-generating capacity each year. In 2023, these three technologies account for 82 percent of the new, utility-scale generating capacity that developers plan to bring online in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory.
Utility-scale solar capacity didn’t start ramping up in the United States until 2010. As the cost of solar panels dropped substantially and state and federal policies introduced generous tax incentives, solar capacity boomed. As of January 2023, 73.5 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale solar capacity was operating in the United States, about 6 percent of the U.S. total.
Just over half of