SEPA announce utility solar rankings for US
The Solar Electric Power Association's (SEPA) sixth annual Utility Solar Rankings report analyzes the amount of new solar power interconnected by U.S. electric utilities in 2012. It covers more than 260 of the most solar-active utilities, representing more than 96 percent of the national U.S. solar electric power market.
Annual solar capacity surpassed 2 gigawatts for the first time in 2012. Utilities integrated almost 2.4 gigawatts (GW-ac) or 2,384 megawatts (MW-ac) of solar electric capacity in 2012. This is equivalent to the construction of 8 natural gas combined cycle power plants. The U.S. now has more than 300,000 solar projects and almost 6.1 GW-ac installed across the country.
Utilities purchased more than 1 gigawatt of large-scale solar. The market share for large-scale solar projects (> 5 MW) was 1,106 MW or 46 percent of all annual solar capacity, a growth of almost 250 percent over 2011. This wholesale market segment encompassed more than 70 photovoltaic (PV) projects, including Pacific Gas and Electric's purchase of the largest solar PV project in the world, the 250 MW Agua Caliente project. Utilities owned 12 percent and purchased the remaining 88 percent through power purchase agreements. No concentrating solar power (CSP) projects were completed in 2012, but at least six projects totaling 750 megawatts are anticipated in 2013. The large solar segment has grown into a key part of the market in only a few years, and will continue growing in 2013.
Customer-sited solar remains a large part of the solar market. Net metered projects, effectively the customer-facing part of the market, accounted for more than 99 percent of the number of installed systems in 2012. Utilities interconnected nearly 90,000 net metered projects totaling 1,151 MW-ac last year, representing a 46 percent growth over 2011. There are currently about 3.5 GW of net metered projects in the country, 80 percent of which are concentrated in five states "“ California, New Jersey, Arizona, Hawaii and Massachusetts.
The annual report also revealed the national utility solar rankings. The Top 10 annual rankings measure U.S. utilities' newly integrated solar power, and include PV and CSP projects that were
interconnected during 2012. There are two rankings categories: Solar Megawatts, which measure a utility's total solar capacity, and Solar Watts-per-Customer, which standardizes the capacity using each utility's total number of electric customers.
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) ranked first nationally and installed more than 800 MW in 2012, an 80 percent increase over 2011 and more than what was installed in the entire country as recently as 2010. Its portfolio included nearly 630 MW of large-scale projects, of which 50 MW were utility-owned. PG&E also interconnected more than 17,500 net metered systems in 2012. Southern California Edison (SCE) ranked second with more than 190 MW of new solar generation and was driven primarily by 15,000 residential and non-residential projects, which accounted for more than 150 MW. Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G) rounded out the top three utilities and along with Jersey Central Power & Light and Progress Carolinas, was one of three utilities from the east coast in the Top 10.
The top ten were
1 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (CA) 805.6 MW
2 Southern California Edison (CA) 194.6 MW
3 Public Service Electric & Gas Co. (NJ) 144.5 MW
4 Arizona Public Service (AZ) 123.5 MW
5 NV Energy (NV) 102.3 MW
6 Jersey Central Power & Light (NJ) 98.1 MW
7 Tucson Electric Power Co. (AZ) 73.3 MW
8 NR Progress Carolinas (NC) 69.5 MW
9 Sacramento Municipal Utility District (CA) 65.9 MW
10 Hawaiian Electric Co. (HI) 65.2 MW
Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) was the only municipal utility to make this year's Top 10 MW list, taking the ninth spot with nearly 70 MW. SMUD's portfolio was driven by the utility's procurement of more than 50 MW of large-scale PV projects through the build-out of their 2010 RFP solicitation process.
In 2012, it took a minimum of 65 MW to make the MW rankings list, as compared to 45 MW in 2011 and just 20 MW in 2010. Utilities in the megawatt category were generally large, with a median of 1.1 million customers, compared to the median size of 300,000 for the top 100 utilities that took the survey.
