Now that it’s summer, it’s time to shine a light on solar progress in the Southeast. In SACE’s latest edition of our “Solar in the Southeast” report series, you can read up on which utilities and states can expect to see solar growth. Overall, the Southeast can now claim about 22 gigawatts (GW) of solar (22,183 megawatts, MW) on a full-year operational equivalent basis, or an average solar ratio of 665 watts per customer in 2023. The Southeast is projected to nearly double the amount of solar in the region to almost 44 GW for 2027.We also detail how key policy developments such as recent utility resource plans and the influx of federal funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to Southeastern states help inform and grow the solar market.
How do we track solar progress for different states and utilities?
We can start by looking at the overall amount of solar measured in megawatts (MW) of capacity that are operating or planned in a state or utility. Solar projects can be categorized as either utility-scale solar or distributed solar. Distributed solar is smaller and is typically installed on the rooftops of residential or commercial customers, while utility-scale solar is larger and is installed in ground-mounted arrays owned by a utility or a developer.
Utility-scale solar capacity figures include both projects that have been reported to federal data collectors, as well as the aggregate capacity of future solar resources in a utility’s integrated resource plan (IRP) that have yet to be sited at a specific location. In both cases, the utilities may purchase power from a solar developer to receive the solar project’s output for a 20–30-year period instead of owning it outright, but the capacity itself is still attributed to the utility for that time period.
Distributed solar is interconnected to the utility in a variety of different program stylings, such as net-metered solar, virtual solar, and tariffed solar, which are included in all of our figures.
Altogether, the Southeast is able to claim more than 22 gigawatts (GW) of solar (22,183 MW) as of 2023. In order to compare hundreds of different utilities in the Southeast, SACE ranks utilities on the basis of solar watts per customer (W/C). This illustrates the overall amount of solar power sourced to a utility or state relative to the number of that specific utility’s retail customers. To use 2023 as an example, the Southeast regional average would equate to an average solar ratio of 665 watts per customer for the region’s 33 million customers served by electric utilities. That measurement is for the entire region, and every utility within the region in turn has its own metric that may be higher or lower than the regional number.
The latest figures show solar growth despite some unrealized potential
Overall, the Southeast is projected to nearly double the amount of solar to almost 44 GW over the next four year, rising to 1,350 watts per customer in 2027. In general, utilities across the Southeast have made larger capacity deployments in shorter time frames than ever. As an example, Florida Power & Light deployed approximately a gigawatt of solar capacity in 2023. This is a trend that can only continue to improve with stronger planning processes for utility resources and transmission.
Yet, there is still some unrealized potential in recent utility resource plans and regulatory approvals. For example, Georgia Power ranks above the regional average in watts per customer (W/C) at 1,168 W/C in 2023 despite its latest resource plan, and not because of it. Georgia Power unexpectedly filed an updated IRP in 2023 outside the regular schedule due to unanticipated load growth, but instead of adding any incremental solar in the near-term, it has instead pushed for more fossil gas. Likewise, even though Alabama Power has received approval to build 2,400 MW of additional renewable energy generation by 2029, a prior approval of 400 MW went largely unused for most of its timeframe before being extended, meaning Alabama Power did not end up siting most of the solar that was approved.
There are also some utilities that are currently undergoing resource planning process, or expected to start soon: Duke’s utilities in the Carolinas filed an update to their resource plan in January 2024 that unfortunately does not allow new incremental solar before 2028; and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was set to release its IRP in March, but that has now been delayed to the fall of 2024. However, both of these resource plans would be unlikely to be reflected in the near-term forecast that is the focus of this report.
This year’s report reflects several SunBlockers: utilities whose four-year forecast remains below last year’s regional average. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) unfortunately fell just short of the benchmark needed to avoid making the this year. And despite a promising increase from new solar capacity expected to provide power to the grid, Alabama Power has yet to make it off the SunBlocker list. The North Carolina Electric Cooperatives, Seminole Electric, and PowerSouth are all at the bottom of the list this year.
However, there is hope for utilities that that are on the SunBlocker list. Many provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are aimed at providing certainty to developers and expanding financing options for non-traditional utilities, such as direct pay of the ITC (Investment Tax Credit) and PTC (Production Tax Credit) as well as the New ERA (Empowering Rural America) funding. So utility resource plans and other solar programs offered by states or utilities still have unrealized potential they should consider cashing in on.
In subsequent blogs we we will unpack the utility rankings and watts per customer forecast for major utility systems further. Additionally, we will explore the SunRisers from this year’s report, the utilities exhibiting the highest total increase in W/C solar ratio between the baseline year (2023) and the four-year forecast (2027). Stay tuned for more!
The post Solar in the Southeast: Seventh Edition Report appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
The substance of the meme here is correct; Florida public schools require comprehensive K-12 instruction on the history and dangers of communism, following a series of legislative moves and curriculum standards. The updated “History of Communism” curriculum is rolling out for the 2026–2027 school year, mandating that students learn about the “brutal realities” and (the catastrophic) global impact of communist regimes.
When I was a schoolboy in the 1960s and early 1970s, we came to learn that all efforts to establish a viable communist nation had failed, but our teachers were not shackled as to what they could teach and how they could teach it. As a result, we came to a variety of helpful viewpoints, and these are what I offered my own kids as they were growing up, e.g.,
- “Men are not angels,” as my sixth-grade social studies teacher explained. Those who do not need to work in order to survive can simply goof off.
- Yet idleness is averse to most people’s psychological needs to be an active and productive person, and member of society.
- Power corrupts, and absolutely power corrupts absolutely. Democracy prevents the accumulation of a pathological amount of power on the part of any one leader. (This was assumed to be true until Donald Trump’s second term.)
- If Lenin (a butcher) hadn’t had Trotsky (a compassionate intellectual) assassinated, the entirety of the USSR would have turned out completely differently.
- If the U.S. hadn’t, through its embargoes, made it impossible for Cuba to offer its people a decent quality of life, their revolution may have succeeded and brought forth a new way of thinking.
- There are examples of smaller scale societies in which the ideals of communism work out very nicely, e.g., the Israeli kibbutz.
- We read and discussed at length a book called “Social Ideals and Ideal Societies” in which these concepts were analyzed fairly and in great depth.
Now, will the typical American schoolchild turn out better if he’s cut off from thinking critically about all this and forced to accept the mantra that “communism = evil?” The typical Florida Republican would say the answer is an obvious yes, but most intelligent people would dispute that.
Producing educated people who can think for themselves is an idea quite opposed to the ongoing control of a population.
To the author of the meme here, I say: It’s safe to say that most folks in Trump’s MAGA base are stupid, though one needs more than a low IQ to fit into this segment.
In particular, we mustn’t omit mean-spiritedness. People who are kind, compassionate, decent and tolerant of others are grossly unqualified to be rank-and-file Trumpers.
Trump appeals to two groups of constituents: a) a small group of billionaires who lavish him with campaign contributions in exchange for huge financial favors, and b) a large number of poorly educated white people who call themselves Christians–the so-called MAGA base.
Trump has little if any appeal to everybody else: honest, fairly well-educated people of a variety of ethnicities and religious affiliations.
For Trump, staying in power means making sure that there is a minimum of leakage away from the MAGA base. That requires barraging these people with messaging to the effect that the president is the only thing standing in the way of communism/socialism, open borders, the invasion of Muslims, godlessness, teaching our little children about LGBTQs, critical race theory, choking environmental regulation, and whatever else may be on the radical left’s agenda.
Maintain this chasm means not letting up on the propaganda for a single minute. No nuance, no critical thinking, no considering what we’ve learned from history–just constant bombardment.
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