The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) has published the September Electric Power Monthly, with data through July 2024.
Solar energy generation has increased by almost 26% year on year, with a 1% increase in electricity consumption in July 2024 compared to July 2023 and a 4.5% increase in electricity generation from January to July 2024, while electricity prices for homes increased by 4.6%.
Nationally, solar energy has seen a steady increase and is now responsible for 6.22% of all electricity generated in the last twelve months, as shown PV Intel’s National Summary of Solar Data. This represents a 20% increase from the previous year, when solar energy accounted for 5.16% of all electricity.
The EIA reports that small-scale solar energy generation has grown from 7.7 TWh in July 2023 to 8.8 TWh in July 2024, an increase of 13.9%. Utility-scale solar grew by 23.3%, from 26.2 TWh to 32.3 TWh. While solid, these gains are lower than year-to-date increases of 16.8% for small-scale and 29.7% for utility-scale solar, contributing to an overall 25% increase in solar production .8%.
Electricity generation increased by 1% in July compared to last year, while generation increased by 4.5% since the beginning of the year, adding 109 TWh. This growth exceeded the increase of 36 TWh on solar energy.
Normally June and July are the peak months for solar energy in absolute terms. However, in percentage terms, solar energy generation peaked at 8.53% of total generation in May 2024. The same month also saw the highest percentage of emission-free electricity generation of the year at 47.94%.
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