Solar and storage grabbed 91% of all new U.S. grid capacity in the first quarter of 2026 | Clean Energy Briefing — July 23, 2026

TODAY'S LEAD: Solar and storage grabbed 91% of all new U.S. grid capacity in the first quarter of 2026, and solar generation topped coal for the first time in May — now supplying roughly 13% of American electricity. The numbers land as state attorneys general escalate their legal challenge to the Trump administration's freeze on 155-plus onshore wind projects, a dispute that is splitting the country's two largest renewable sectors onto very different trajectories.

KEY DEVELOPMENTS

Solar, Storage Hit 91% of New Q1 Grid Capacity: Solar and battery storage accounted for 91% of all new U.S. generating capacity added in Q1 2026, with solar surpassing coal generation for the first time in May at roughly 13% of national electricity supply, according to. Utility-scale battery deployment is accelerating fastest in California, Texas, and the Midwest. Read More: PV Magazine.
State AGs Escalate Lawsuit Over Wind Farm Freeze: A coalition of Democratic attorneys general joined a legal challenge to the Trump administration's halt of Department of Defense reviews for onshore wind projects, a freeze that has stalled more than 155 projects involving turbines over 200 feet tall, per the. Read More: New Jersey Monitor.
rPlus Energies Commissions 125MW Idaho Solar Farm: rPlus Energies began commercial operations at its 125 MW Pleasant Valley Solar 2 project in Ada County adding utility-scale solar capacity in a state still dominated by hydropower, per. Read More: Idaho, PV Tech.
South Carolina Court Blocks Silfab Solar Factory: A court upheld a York County zoning decision that bars Silfab Solar from building a panel manufacturing facility in a Light Industrial district, a ruling that could complicate domestic manufacturing siting. Read More: South Carolina, PV Tech reports.
SEIA Pushes Cybersecurity, Domestic Inverter Goals: The Solar Energy Industries Association released a report calling for stronger cybersecurity standards and expanded domestic manufacturing, noting U.S. inverter production has nearly tripled since 2024, lifting the country to a tie for second globally, per. Read More: Solar Power World.

Solar & Storage

The headline stat — 91% of new Q1 capacity — cements what developers have felt on the ground for months: solar and batteries are effectively the only technologies getting built at scale in the United States right now. shows utility-scale battery storage accelerating across California, Texas, and the Midwest, regions where grid congestion, high peak prices, and renewable curtailment create the strongest revenue signals. For investors modeling out capacity additions through the end of the decade, the Q1 data suggests solar-plus-storage has crossed from policy-driven to economics-driven in most major markets. Read More: PV Magazine's analysis.

That momentum is still landing project by project. In , rPlus Energies flipped the switch on Pleasant Valley Solar 2, a 125 MW installation in Ada County that adds meaningful solar capacity to a state whose grid has historically leaned on Snake River hydro. The project's completion is notable partly because Idaho has attracted relatively few utility-scale solar developers compared with neighbors like Nevada and Utah — a dynamic that may shift as Idaho Power's load growth from semiconductor fabs and data centers pushes the utility to diversify supply. Read More: Idaho.

Meanwhile, is discovering that becoming a solar state brings political friction. that the state's largest solar farm, which came online in rural Jasper County in early 2025, continues to generate local pushback over farmland conversion and community impacts. The tension in Indiana mirrors fights playing out across the Corn Belt: developers need flat, cheap, grid-connected land, and that description applies to the same acreage that grows corn and soybeans. Counties that welcome tax revenue often clash with neighbors who see their viewsheds and property values at risk — a dynamic that no amount of state-level permitting reform has fully resolved. Read More: Indiana, Canary Media reports.

On the storage side, a $30 million microgrid deal in Maryland, flagged by , points to the growing role of battery systems co-located with data centers. AI-driven load growth is creating a parallel market for behind-the-meter and campus-scale storage that supplements, rather than competes with, grid-scale deployments. Developers who can package solar, storage, and backup power into a single offtake arrangement are finding data center operators willing to sign long-duration contracts — a financing advantage that pure-play solar projects often lack. Read More: Energy Storage News.

Wind Energy

The legal fight over the Trump administration's onshore wind freeze escalated this week as a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general formally joined an existing lawsuit challenging the Department of Defense's decision to halt routine national security reviews for wind turbines taller than 200 feet. The freeze has stalled more than 155 projects across the country, according to the and the. The AGs argue that the reviews had historically been predictable and collaborative, and that the administration's blanket pause lacks statutory authority. Read More: New Jersey Monitor, Michigan Advance.

For wind developers carrying interconnection deposits, land leases, and turbine supply contracts on frozen projects, the lawsuit's outcome is existential. Many of the 155-plus stalled projects sit in Great Plains and Midwestern states where wind resources are strongest and rural counties depend on lease payments and tax revenue. A prolonged freeze could push capital toward solar — which faces no equivalent federal chokepoint — and reshape the generation mix utilities had planned around for the late 2020s. The contrast between solar's record quarter and wind's legal limbo could not be starker.

Policy & Markets

Governor Josh Shapiro's signing of Senate Bill 349, covered in yesterday's briefing and detailed further by , establishes statewide decommissioning standards for utility-scale solar projects. The new law requires developers to file detailed decommissioning plans within 30 days of construction start and update them every five years. For developers, the bipartisan legislation is a double-edged instrument: it adds compliance costs and planning obligations, but it also preempts a patchwork of county-level decommissioning ordinances that had created unpredictable permitting conditions across the state. Pennsylvania is one of the largest Eastern markets for utility-scale solar, and a clear statewide standard could actually accelerate siting by giving rural landowners and township supervisors a framework they trust. Read More: Pennsylvania, Solar Builder.

Domestic manufacturing hit a speed bump in , where a court upheld York County's decision to block Silfab Solar from building a panel factory in a Light Industrial zone. The ruling turns on a narrow zoning classification, but it carries broader implications: companies racing to build or expand U.S. solar manufacturing capacity — spurred by tariff policy and Inflation Reduction Act production credits — still face the same local land-use gauntlet as the projects their panels are designed to supply. Silfab will likely seek an alternative site, but the delay adds cost and uncertainty at a moment when the administration is simultaneously promoting domestic production and restricting the deployment of the generation assets that create demand for those panels. Read More: South Carolina, reported by PV Tech.

SEIA's new cybersecurity and manufacturing report, released Tuesday, attempts to bridge that gap. The trade group notes that U.S. inverter manufacturing has nearly tripled since 2024, vaulting the country into a tie for second place globally. The report calls for stronger cybersecurity protocols — a priority that resonates with both parties on Capitol Hill — and frames domestic supply-chain expansion as a national security imperative rather than a climate initiative. That framing matters in the current political environment, where clean energy programs with a security or industrial-competitiveness rationale tend to attract less opposition than those pitched primarily on emissions reduction.

Separately, newly surfaced documents reported by the suggest major oil companies understood methane's climate impact for decades — a revelation that could strengthen the political case for accelerated methane regulation and, by extension, the economic argument for electrification and renewable gas alternatives. Read More: New York Times.

LOOKING AHEAD

Wind Freeze Litigation Timeline: The state AG coalition's entry into the lawsuit challenging the DoD wind-review freeze could prompt a request for a preliminary injunction; watch for court scheduling in the coming weeks that would signal how fast this moves.
SRP Board Vote on 1,675 MW Marigold Energy Center: Salt River Project's board is expected to consider approval of the massive solar-plus-storage hybrid facility south of Phoenix in September — a decision that would rank among the largest single-site clean energy commitments by a public power utility.
China Ends PV, Battery Tax Breaks: Beijing's decision to scrap its decade-long consumption tax exemption on PV cells and battery products could raise Chinese manufacturers' costs and narrow the price gap with U.S.-made equipment — a shift worth tracking for domestic manufacturers and trade-policy watchers alike.

TODAY'S QUICK ANSWERS

Q: What does the 91% capacity figure mean for developers choosing between solar and wind right now?

A: Solar and storage are absorbing nearly all new capital flowing into U.S. generation, and the wind freeze is widening the gap. Developers with dual pipelines are quietly shifting staff and interconnection priority toward solar-storage projects that face no equivalent federal permitting blockade. If the wind freeze persists through year-end, expect several GW of planned wind capacity to be formally converted to solar-storage in interconnection queues — a shift that could strain panel and battery supply chains heading into 2027.

Q: Why should solar developers care about Pennsylvania's decommissioning law if they already plan to clean up their sites?

A: Because the law replaces dozens of inconsistent county ordinances with a single statewide standard, which reduces the legal risk that a township board will impose retroactive or financially punitive decommissioning requirements after construction. Developers building in Pennsylvania should budget for the 30-day post-construction filing and five-year update cycles, but the tradeoff — predictability across the state's 67 counties — should lower soft costs over a project's lifetime.

Q: What does the South Carolina Silfab ruling signal for the domestic solar manufacturing buildout?

A: It signals that federal incentives for domestic production do not override local zoning authority — a basic point that manufacturers expanding into new communities cannot afford to overlook. Companies scouting factory sites should engage county planning departments earlier in the process and verify that solar manufacturing is an explicitly permitted use, not an assumed one, in their target zoning district.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Solar and storage are running away with the U.S. capacity race at 91% of new Q1 additions, but the wind sector's legal and regulatory paralysis, a zoning loss for domestic manufacturing, and state-by-state land-use battles all show that building the clean energy supply chain remains as much a local permitting fight as a federal policy question.