Utility-Scale Solar Grows Through Headwinds: Costs, Value, and the Storage Shift

Large-scale solar installations exceeded 30 GW for the first time in 2024, are on pace to once again be the largest single source of new capacity in 2025, and dominate the interconnection queue, with over 1 TW seeking access to the bulk power system. LBNL will share the latest industry trends drawn from a detailed dataset covering more than 1,750 solar projects larger than 5 MW. Stand-alone solar costs have risen since 2022 to $1.61/Wac ($1.22/Wdc) in 2024, while significant economies of scale continue to support ever-larger average project sizes (121 MWac). Average levelized costs have increased to $57/MWh (or $38/MWh after accounting for ITC/PTC and Energy Community bonuses), driven in part by higher financing costs. National wholesale energy and capacity market value has declined as average electricity prices have fallen and solar penetration has increased, to just $32/MWh (ranging from $18 in CAISO to nearly $60/MWh in several southeastern regions). To counteract value erosion at higher penetration levels, an increasing share of projects pairs solar with storage, with higher capacity ratios (57%) and longer durations (3.3 h). Batteries built in 2024 cost an average of $464/kWh and added about $1/Wac to PV system costs. To access much of the underlying data visit utilityscalesolar.lbl.gov.