Solar Leads All U.S. Power Sectors for September Kickoffs

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Written by Jesse Broehl, Editor-in-Chief, Breaking Energy News (BEN), IIR Intelligence, (Sugar Land, Texas)

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Summary

Solar takes first place among the power plant types this month, in both total investment value and total megawatts of nameplate capacity to be added to the grid. Seventeen solar PV projects are scheduled to break ground across the U.S. in September, representing $4.4 billion in combined investment and 3,330 MW of capacity.

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Solar Leads All Power Sectors in Planned September Starts

Sixty power-generation projects in the U.S. are scheduled to break ground this September, representing a combined $16.8 billion in total investment value (TIV) and roughly 18,083 megawatts (MW) of capacity across 10 fuel-type categories, according to IIR Energy's latest analysis of power-market projects. Solar takes first place among the power plant types this month for both total investment level and total megawatts of nameplate capacity to be added to the grid.

Seventeen solar PV projects are scheduled to break ground across the U.S. in September, representing $4.4 billion in combined investment and 3,330 MW of capacity. This is the single largest category of scheduled construction kickoff by power plants fuel or type.

Natural gas took second place, and that sector for September planned kickoffs is covered this accompanying IIR Energy gas market article.

For the big picture looking at all generation types of plants kicking off, see this news story by IIR Energy. See this data compilation for the full list of all projects, all generation sources for September.

The stand-alone solar projects are shown in the bolded market share slices in map below.

Seventeen Solar Projects, 3,330 MW of Capacity

Some of the states hosting the most solar are Illinois, New York, Michigan, New Mexico and Kentucky, which each host two to three projects. Each of the remaining five states (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio and Indiana), along with the U.S. island territory of Guam, have one.

Every one of the 17 projects are greenfield construction, with no refurbishment, uprating or life extension projects (as seen with September's coal, nuclear and hydro projects kicking off), although some projects are greenfield unit additions to existing sites (see Pride of the Prairie project highlight below). Solar has been around for a long time, but only in the past decade have many large-scale projects been built at levels rivaling traditional power plants. Therefore, there are few large solar PV plants needing age-related major refurbishment.

By contrast to the gas industry, where roughly half of projects are led by large investor-owned utilities (IOUs), the development and ownership of the solar projects with planned construction starts in September are almost entirely by nonutility / Independent Power Producers (IPPs). The lone exception is Kentucky's $80 million Cooperative PV Solar Farm Three, built by East Kentucky Power Cooperative.

Notable Project Examples:

Manhattan Pride of the Prairie PV Solar (Manhattan, IL) -- At 600 MW and $720 million, this is the largest solar project in the September pipeline by both dollar value and capacity. The project is owned by Lincoln Solar LLC. Its owner, Earthrise Energy, is systematically pairing new solar with its existing gas peaker plants, instead of building solar plants on greenfield sites from scratch. Earthrise built the solar PV plant next to the 656-MW Lincoln Generating Facility it acquired in 2022. This allowed the developer to speed up the solar plant development by using the gas-fired plant's existing grid interconnection agreement.

Claude Armstrong Phase I PV Solar (Claude, TX) -- This 250-MW, $437.5 million project from Armstrong Solar I LLC is Texas's only pure-solar entry this month. Notably, this project sits in Claude, Armstrong County, which is also the site of a major AI data center. The Crusoe Energy AI data center campus has Google as an anchor client. Although there is no publicly known power purchase agreement between the solar plant and Google, the solar plant's location overlaps where there is a certain and large need for electricity.

The following charts show all 17 projects in two charts, ranked by TIV value and by MW installed capacity. See this data compilation for the full list of all projects, all generation sources.

Source: IIR Energy, (Data Link to Projects)

Key Takeaways

• Solar takes first place among the power plant types this month for both total investment level and total megawatts of nameplate capacity being added to the grid.
• Solar represents $4.4 billion in combined investment and 3,330 MW of capacity within the larger $16.8 billion and 18,083 MW of capacity across 10 fuel-type categories with September planned kick-off.
• Some of the states hosting the most solar are Illinois, New York, Michigan, New Mexico, and Kentucky, which each host two to three projects.
• From an ownership perspective, planned construction starts in September are almost entirely by nonutility / Independent Power Producers (IPPs).

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