Utility-Scale Solar

Berkeley Lab’s “Utility-Scale Solar, 2024 Edition” presents analysis of empirical plant-level data from the U.S. fleet of ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV), PV+battery, and concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) plants with capacities exceeding 5 MW_AC (PV plants of 5 MW_AC or less, including residential rooftop systems, are covered separately in Berkeley Lab’s companion annual report, Tracking the Sun). While focused on key developments in 2023, this report explores trends in deployment, technology, capital and operating costs, capacity factors, the levelized cost of solar energy (LCOE), power purchase agreement (PPA) prices, wholesale market value, health and climate benefits, and interconnection queues.

Key findings from this year’s report include:

• 18.5 GW_AC of new utility-scale PV capacity came online in 2023, bringing cumulative installed capacity to more than 80.2 GW_AC across 47 states.
• Installed costs continued to fall in 2023. Relative to 2022, capacity-weighted averages decreased by 8% to $1.43/W_AC (or $1.08/W_DC). Costs, based on a 7.1 GW_AC sample of 76 plants completed in 2023, have fallen by 75% (averaging 10% annually) since 2010.
• Plant-level capacity factors vary widely, from 7% to 35% (on an AC basis), with a sample median of 24%.
• Levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of new 2023 projects increased slightly to $46/MWh prior to the application of tax credits but continued to fall to $31/MWh when accounting for federal incentives.
• PPA prices have largely followed the decline in solar’s LCOE over time, but newly signed longer-term PPA prices have increased since 2021, to an average of $35/MWh (levelized, in 2023 dollars).
• Solar’s average energy and capacity value (i.e., ability to offset costs of other power generation sources) across the U.S. was $45/MWh in 2023. Solar’s average market value was lowest in CAISO ($27/MWh), the market with the greatest solar generation share, and highest in ERCOT ($67/MWh).
• Newer solar projects had greater market value in 2023 than their generation costs, yielding $1.1 billion in benefits. Projects built in 2022 delivered on average $15/MWh more market value than their costs in 2023.
• Solar’s combined value from wholesale electricity markets, public health and climate damage reduction were greater than generation costs and incentives, yielding $13.7 billion in net benefits in 2023. We estimate U.S. health benefits of $24/MWh and reduced global climate damages of $101/MWh.
• Adding battery storage is one way to increase the value of solar. Deployment of 52 new PV+battery hybrid plants set a record with 5.3 GW installed in 2023. Our public data file tracks metadata and PPA prices from more than 100 PV+battery hybrid projects that are already online or that have secured offtake arrangements.
• Looking ahead, a massive pipeline of at least 1,085 GW of solar capacity dominates the nation’s interconnection queues at the end of 2023. Nearly 571 GW, or 53%, of that total was paired with a battery – in CAISO it was a staggering 98%. Historically only 10% of the requested solar capacity is built.

The report, published in slide-deck format, is accompanied by an executive summary, a public data file, and interactive data visualizations. All four products are accessible via the menu bar below. In addition, plant-level hourly generation and annual value estimates are available for download at the Open Energy Data Initiative (OEDI) at https://data.openei.org/submissions/6200.

We want to hear from you. If you have specific questions about the report or data or requests for related analytical support from LBNL staff, you can submit those comments through a separate form here, or contact Jo Seel and Julie Kemp.