So much solar: Digging into the list of every US power plant that went online this year
So much solar: Digging into the list of every US power plant that went online this year
太阳能大爆发：深入盘点今年美国投产的每一座发电厂
It’s been a wild first half of the year in the US power sector, with announcements of gigantic natural gas power plants and some long-awaited renewable energy projects coming online. At times of rapid change, forecasting is difficult. So I feel a measure of comfort focusing on something concrete like the list of 368 utility-scale plants that began operation from January to June, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration.
今年上半年，美国电力行业经历了剧烈的波动，既有巨型天然气发电厂的公告，也有一些期待已久的再生能源项目正式投产。在快速变化的时期，预测未来变得十分困难。因此，我更倾向于关注一些具体的事实，例如根据美国能源信息署（EIA）的数据，从1月到6月期间投入运营的368座公用事业规模发电厂名单。
The group is dominated by utility-scale solar. This is a top-heavy list, led by SunZia Wind South and SunZia Wind North in New Mexico, which went online this spring and are the largest wind farms in the country, with a combined generating capacity of 3,650 megawatts. SunZia has been in the works for about a decade and arrives at a time when US onshore wind power development has dwindled for a host of reasons related to regulations and public opinion. In other words, the SunZia is not indicative of an onshore wind-energy boom. It is more like an echo from a past boom.
该名单以公用事业规模的太阳能项目为主。这份名单呈现“头重脚轻”的特点，位居榜首的是新墨西哥州的 SunZia Wind South 和 SunZia Wind North。这两个项目于今年春季投产，是全美最大的风电场，总装机容量达 3,650 兆瓦。SunZia 项目筹备了约十年之久，而它的落成正值美国陆上风电发展因监管和舆论等多种原因而萎缩之际。换句话说，SunZia 并不代表陆上风能的繁荣，它更像是过去繁荣时期的一声回响。
Next is Trumbull Energy Center in Ohio, a 900-megawatt combined-cycle natural gas plant that is part of an expansion of natural gas power in the PJM Interconnection grid region, which covers parts of the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and Middle South. The fourth-largest new power plant—if we’re counting SunZia as two—is Vineyard Wind, the offshore wind project near Massachusetts, which, much like SunZia, has been in development for a long time and whose completion doesn’t reveal much about future trends.
紧随其后的是俄亥俄州的 Trumbull 能源中心，这是一座 900 兆瓦的联合循环天然气发电厂，属于 PJM 互联电网区域天然气发电扩张计划的一部分，该区域覆盖了中大西洋、中西部和南部部分地区。如果将 SunZia 算作两个项目，那么第四大新发电厂是马萨诸塞州附近的 Vineyard Wind 海上风电项目。它与 SunZia 一样，开发周期很长，其完工并不能反映未来的趋势。
It isn’t until the fifth-largest new plant that we see one that is connected to the broader trend in the data: Green River Energy Center in Utah, with 800 megawatts that includes 400 megawatts of solar and 400 megawatts of batteries. Indeed, the story of power plant completions in the first half of 2026 was mainly about utility-scale solar and batteries.
直到第五大新发电厂，我们才看到一个与数据中更广泛趋势相符的项目：犹他州的 Green River 能源中心，装机容量为 800 兆瓦，其中包括 400 兆瓦的太阳能和 400 兆瓦的电池储能。事实上，2026 年上半年发电厂投产的故事，主要围绕着公用事业规模的太阳能和电池储能展开。
Utility-scale solar led in the number of projects coming online, with 207, followed by batteries, with 95. Next were natural gas combustion turbines, with 22, and natural gas internal combustion engines, with 21. Onshore wind had nine projects. Combined-cycle natural gas, despite having massive amounts of announced capacity in development, had just 3 projects that went online. The high tide of new gas plants won’t arrive for another few years.
在投产项目数量方面，公用事业规模的太阳能以 207 个项目领先，其次是电池储能（95 个）。接下来是天然气燃气轮机（22 个）和天然气内燃机（21 个）。陆上风电项目有 9 个。尽管联合循环天然气发电有大量已宣布的在建产能，但仅有 3 个项目投产。天然气发电厂的新一轮建设高潮还需要几年时间才会到来。
If we look at projects in terms of generating capacity, utility-scale solar led with 11,458 megawatts, followed by batteries, 8,207 megawatts, and then onshore wind, mostly because of the SunZia projects, with 5,473 megawatts. The three largest types of natural gas plants added a total of 2,707 megawatts of new capacity. Small-scale solar, including rooftop solar, is not part of this database.
如果从装机容量来看，公用事业规模的太阳能以 11,458 兆瓦领先，其次是电池储能（8,207 兆瓦），然后是陆上风电（主要得益于 SunZia 项目，为 5,473 兆瓦）。三大类天然气发电厂共增加了 2,707 兆瓦的新产能。小型太阳能（包括屋顶太阳能）不在此数据库统计范围内。
A perpetual caveat: Power plant technologies have important differences to keep in mind when comparing generating capacity. The most obvious one is that solar doesn’t produce power at night. Another is that many gas plants only run a few days or weeks per year, when they’re needed to handle peak demand.
一个需要时刻铭记的注意事项：在比较装机容量时，必须考虑到不同发电技术之间的重要差异。最明显的一点是，太阳能无法在夜间发电。另一点是，许多天然气发电厂每年仅在处理高峰需求时运行几天或几周。
What do these numbers tell us? I asked Eric Gimon, a senior fellow at Energy Innovation, a San Francisco-based think tank. Gimon explained that the bulk of new projects are small and mid-size utility-scale solar. They are not attention-grabbing. But they’re almost everywhere. Many of the solar projects are paired with batteries. “These kinds of smaller-size projects are just easier to build, and the site possibilities are much more diverse and easy to find,” he said.
这些数字告诉我们什么？我询问了旧金山智库 Energy Innovation 的高级研究员 Eric Gimon。Gimon 解释说，大部分新项目都是中小型公用事业规模的太阳能项目。它们虽然不引人注目，但几乎无处不在。许多太阳能项目都配备了电池储能。“这类小型项目更容易建设，选址的可能性也更多样化，更容易找到，”他说。
Now, let’s look at the new power plants in terms of where they were built. Three states account for about half of the country’s new generating capacity: Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Texas was the leader, with a power mix that leaned more heavily on batteries and gas than other states. The leading category in Texas was batteries, with 3,067 megawatts, followed by utility-scale solar, with 2,311 megawatts, and then natural gas combustion turbines or natural gas internal combustion engines, with 1,154 megawatts.
现在，让我们看看这些新发电厂的地理分布。三个州贡献了全国约一半的新增装机容量：德克萨斯州、新墨西哥州和亚利桑那州。德克萨斯州处于领先地位，其电力结构比其他州更依赖电池和天然气。德克萨斯州的主要类别是电池储能（3,067 兆瓦），其次是公用事业规模的太阳能（2,311 兆瓦），以及天然气燃气轮机或内燃机（1,154 兆瓦）。
Texas’ policies have prioritized gas and battery plant construction to help bolster the power grid’s reliability at times of high demand. Also, Texas illustrates how challenging the market is for new onshore wind. The state is the national leader in onshore wind, but brought no new projects online in the first half of the year. One of Gimon’s takeaways is that we’re firmly in the era of utility-scale solar, with batteries playing a supporting role. “The real underlying workhorse is solar plus battery,” he said.
德克萨斯州的政策优先考虑天然气和电池发电厂的建设，以帮助在需求高峰期增强电网的可靠性。此外，德克萨斯州的情况也说明了新陆上风电市场面临的挑战。该州是全国陆上风电的领头羊，但上半年却没有新项目投产。Gimon 的结论之一是，我们正稳步进入公用事业规模太阳能时代，而电池则发挥着辅助作用。“真正的核心主力是太阳能加电池，”他说。
Some other observations from this data: Illinois ranked first in the number of new utility-scale solar projects, with 36, ahead of California, with 22, and Texas, with 16. Illinois’ projects tended to be on the small side, which is why it could lead in the number of projects but barely cracked the top 10 in overall generating capacity coming online. This is policy-driven and shows that state laws encouraging small and medium-size solar are leading to completed projects.
从这些数据中还可以观察到其他一些现象：伊利诺伊州以 36 个新公用事业规模太阳能项目位居第一，超过了加利福尼亚州（22 个）和德克萨斯州（16 个）。伊利诺伊州的项目规模往往较小，这就是为什么它在项目数量上领先，但在新增装机容量上却勉强挤进前十的原因。这是政策驱动的结果，表明鼓励中小型太阳能的州法律正在促成项目的落地。
The “other” category of power technologies almost always has something interesting, with some tiny plant that isn’t indicative of anything, but is probably a good story. One that caught my eye is the 4 megawatts of hydropower that went online in Dakota County, Minnesota, which is in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area. The project at the Byllesby Dam is a replacement of hydropower turbines that have operated on the Cannon River since 1910, and got local media coverage when the county government announced the project a few years ago. A 2.8-megawatt biomass power plant went online just a few miles from my house in Ohio, operated by the Columbus city government. It’s fueled by methane captured from…
“其他”类别的发电技术中总有一些有趣的东西，虽然有些小型发电厂并不代表什么趋势，但往往背后有不错的故事。其中一个引起我注意的是明尼苏达州达科他县（位于明尼阿波利斯-圣保罗都会区）投产的 4 兆瓦水电项目。Byllesby 大坝的这个项目是对自 1910 年以来一直在 Cannon 河上运行的水电涡轮机的更换，几年前县政府宣布该项目时曾获得当地媒体报道。在我俄亥俄州的家附近几英里处，一座由哥伦布市政府运营的 2.8 兆瓦生物质发电厂也已投产。它以捕获的甲烷为燃料……