The U.S. solar industry’s federal incentive ecosystem has been drastically reshaped by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). With subsidies passing or in the rearview, the solar industry has shifted its messaging to tout photovoltaics’ speed to the grid compared to other energy sources, namely gas turbines.
As the demand for new power-hungry AI data centers rises, so does the need for quick-to-grid generation sources. The number of announced gas projects has grown over the last year, but it still takes nearly five years to get a new turbine ordered. Utility-scale solar projects can be physically built much more quickly, but there are still delays in the interconnection process. As it stands today, solar projects beat new gas generation to the grid, despite interconnection delays. Here’s how it all works and what solar is doing to become even faster.
A nation of fossil fuels in a renewable transition
Similar to wind turbines, gas turbines produce electricity through rotational energy by burning natural gas. According to the National Energy Technology Laboratory, 894 gas turbine plants produced 277.46 GW in the United States in 2024, excluding legacy gas plants installed before 1999. As of 2023, natural gas-powered plants produced 43.1% of the country’s total energy output, according to the Energy Information Administration.
People inspect a gas turbine at GE Vernova’s assembly plant in Greenville, South Carolina. GE Vernova
“Interestingly enough, for the past several years here in the U.S., gas turbines have been the primary source of generated electricity,” said Bobby Noble, senior program manager of gas turbine R&D at the Electric Power Research Institute.
Solar is closing in on gas turbine’s market share and accounted for 266.2 GW of energy capacity on the U.S. grid through 2024.
Large-scale gas turbines come in two primary models: Simple and combined cycle. A simple cycle unit is composed of a gas turbine with a generator. A combined cycle unit has a gas turbine, a bottoming cycle, a heat recovery steam generator, a steam turbine and corresponding generators. A Siemens 9000HL 50 Hz gas turbine operating as a simple cycle can generate almost 600 MW, and in a combined cycle can generate more than 900 MW.
Compared to a solar project of a similar size, a gas turbine occupies significantly less acreage. However, these plants are primarily powered by natural gas, with backup fuel options in diesel and hydrogen.
The lead time to get a new large-scale gas turbine is five or more years, Noble said. Smaller gas turbines — with power ratings of about 30 MW — have lead times of two to three years.
“The manufacturers, all of them have made commitments and are working toward expanding their production capabilities, so those lead times are anticipated to start shortening,” Noble said. “But right now, most people are being told, ‘If you’re wanting a gas turbine by 2030, you’re probably too late in the process.’”
Gas turbine project development takes between two to four years, and construction is another one to two years.
“It’s going to heavily depend upon what type of gas turbine that you’re ordering,” Noble said.
Solar development timelines
A solar installer stands next to an assembled single-axis solar tracker row. SOLV Energy
When solar project development technically begins is debatable. Silicon Ranch, a national solar developer, considers development started when assessing site locations. Developers are responsible for arranging contracts and agreements to de-risk a project from a financial perspective — agreements regarding revenue, interconnection, the project’s EPC and possibly land purchase.
Therefore, the development process for utility-scale solar projects can take years, and it’s back-ended by interconnection queues of varying lengths. This is especially the case as projects scale into the range of hundreds of megawatts.
“We are now in early ’26, and there are projects that are being discussed that, from an interconnection timeline perspective, you’re post-2030,” said Boris Schubert, chief operating officer at Silicon Ranch. “It used to be two to three years, depending on the region, depending on the market.”
However, solar project development times have still shortened in the last decade, he said. And unlike gas turbines, large-scale solar projects can be developed and installed modularly. For example, a 300-MW solar project can be completed in three phases of 100 MW to shorten development and construction times while bringing new power to the grid.
“With your grid operator, they can build this up incrementally as well,” Schubert said. “And I think that is just the beauty of this technology.”
Solar construction lengths
The project EPC takes over when development is completed and a full notice to proceed is issued. SOLV Energy, a large-scale solar + storage EPC, provided the expected timeline for an under-construction 355-MWAC solar project in Texas. Construction times can vary significantly by region.
Nick Edgmon, VP, operations manager at SOLV, said the Southwest is ideal for solar construction, because the weather is predictable there and the land is often more open.
Sheep graze between solar module rows at a Silicon Ranch project site. Silicon Ranch
“If you’re doing a solar project in the Midwest, where you’re going to get a lot of weather, you’re going to get a lot of mud, there’s going to be days you can’t work,” he said. “Because it rains and takes three or four days to dry out, or freezes and there’s ice. We still work through all these conditions, it just is going to slow you down a lot more, compared to a job in Texas or Arizona. You can just fly.”
This Texas project is expected to reach mechanical completion, where the array is built but not interconnected, in about one year. Then it will likely take four more months for the utility to interconnect the array.
“Now, this is an accelerated schedule. It’ll be one of the fastest ones that we’ve done, but it’s where the industry is trending, and that’s the norm that our clients are expecting us to build,” Edgmon said.
Conversely, a 120-MWAC project SOLV worked on in Illinois was completed in about 16 months.
Project timelines can be shortened by having all materials on the site at the start of construction. EPCs can be responsible for procuring most project components, except for modules. Having an established domestic supply chain with factories serving specific regions has shortened procurement lead times, as well.
Edgmon said that solar construction timelines have been cut in half in the last decade alone, thanks largely to the growing efficiency of solar modules themselves.
“They’re bigger and they’re heavier, so they’re a little slower to install, but you’re installing far less total quantity of material — units, piles, racking, modules — to get to 300 MWAC,” Edgmon said. “Whereas 300 MWAC 10 years ago would have taken a lot more land, a lot more piles, a lot more modules.”
EPCs are trying to shorten project timelines through automation. SOLV has deployed robots on certain projects to pre-assemble and drive tracker rows out into the field for installers to place.
Solar project timelines are still shortening, but U.S. federal policy is favoring gas turbines with lengthening lead times. Either technology still requires years to build at scale, but solar does have the edge in terms of speed to grid.