Texas now national leader in solar farms

Texas has been experiencing an enormous buildout of solar energy and was expected to pass California sometime this spring for the most installed capacity of utility-scale solar in the nation. We’ve now hit that benchmark.

According to BloombergNEF reporter Nat Bullard, Texas has 16.8 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale solar, while California has 16.42 GW. Both states are far ahead of any other state in the U.S.

So…California's latest renewables report is from March 8. Texas' latest is from April 8. But unless California is building solar at a 10 gigawatt annual run rate (it is not)…

Texas now has more utility-scale solar than California. pic.twitter.com/7sShxyCx48

— Nat Bullard (@NatBullard) April 10, 2023

California still leads in total solar. The Golden State has 12 GW of rooftop and other “distributed” solar, while Texas only has less than 2 GW of rooftop solar.