Solar in the Southeast: Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Issues Seventh Edition

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (“Alliance”) has issued July 2024 the Seventh Edition of its annual report titled:

Solar in the Southeast. (“Report”).

The Alliance describes itself as a nonprofit organization:

...that promotes responsible and equitable energy choices to ensure clean, safe, and healthy community throughout the southeast.

The Report states as its purpose describing the critical role that utilities, policymakers, and customers in growing the solar market in the southeast.

In terms of the Southeast, the following states are covered:

• Alabama
• Florida
• Georgia
• Mississippi
• North Carolina
• South Carolina
• Tennessee

The Report states that it provides a normalized comparison among hundreds of different utilities in the Southeast and ranks them on the basis of solar watts per customer. The stated intent is to illustrate the amount of solar power sourced to a utility or a state relative to the amount of retail customers.

The overall stated purpose of the report is to:

…document current progress and trends at both utility and state levels, as well as identify policies and practices to drive continued solar growth in the Southeast.

The Report addresses the following specific topics:

• Solar growth/even more untapped potential (stating that the Southeast can claim about 22 Gigawatts of solar on a full-year operational basis or an average solar ratio of 665 watts per customer in 2023).
• Utility trends (noting that the utilities in the Southeast have made larger capacity deployments in a shorter timeframe than ever).
• State standouts (Florida expanded its position as the largest contributor to installed solar capacity in the Southeast in reaching 9,217 MW in 2023).
• Sunrisers (referencing Southeast utilities deploying more solar).
• Sun blockers (referencing Southeast utilities whose 4-year forecast remains below last year’s regional average).

A copy of the Report can be downloaded here.