Solar Industry Growing Fast, but is Hampered by Aging Grid

The solar energy industry is growing by leaps and bounds as local utilities and companies that operate energy-guzzling data centers seek out renewable energy sources, report Spencer Kimball and Gabriel Cortés for CNBC.

“But renewables face a massive bottleneck to get connected to the grid, and building out transmission lines to support the growth poses a big challenge,” the authors add. Renewable energy sources remain just 3.9 percent of the nation’s power mix in 2023, and the nation’s aging power infrastructure is struggling to keep up with demand, which is growing in part due to the growth of data centers as well as rising temperatures and growing populations. 

While “Nearly 2,500 gigawatts of solar, wind and battery projects were requesting connection in 2023, almost double the entire installed capacity of the current U.S. power plant fleet,” one analyst notes that “The rate by which renewables are deployed would need to at least triple to achieve 90% clean electricity over the next decade.” Plants that came online in 2023 took roughly five years to complete, and just 20 percent of projects with applications submitted between 2000 and 2018 were completed.

But solar is making significant gains, too. “In California, for example, solar energy represented more than 50% of the state's power supply from 7:45 a.m. until 5:25 p.m., peaking at about 18 gigawatts or 64% of supply around 1 p.m., according to Grid Status, which tracks major U.S. grids in real time.”