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How much power does a 1 MW solar farm produce?

Updated

General information, not a substitute for the advice of an attorney.

Short answer: About 2,100 megawatt-hours a year for a typical U.S. site. EIA's final 2025 capacity factor for utility-scale solar photovoltaic is 24.0% (EIA Electric Power Annual, Table 4.08.B); there are 8,760 hours in a year; our arithmetic: 1 MW x 8,760 h x 0.240 = 2,102 MWh. That is energy over a year. The instantaneous power is at most about 1 MW, and only around midday on a clear day.

The arithmetic

  • National 2025: 1 MW x 8,760 h x 24.0% = 2,102 MWh per year (our arithmetic; capacity factor from EIA Table 4.08.B).
  • National 2024: at 23.2%, 2,032 MWh (same method, same table).
  • Sunniest resource class: NREL's ATB gives a 34.0% first-year capacity factor for a one-axis tracking plant in Class 1 (more than 5.75 kWh per square meter per day), which is 2,978 MWh (our arithmetic; class figure from NREL ATB 2024).
  • Least sunny class: 21.4% in Class 10, or 1,875 MWh (same method).

MW versus MWh, and AC versus DC

A megawatt is a rate; a megawatt-hour is a quantity. A plant's nameplate is usually stated in MW, and what it sells over a year is MWh. Two more details change the answer. First, EIA's capacity factors are for utility-scale generators, so a 1 MW rooftop or community array with a different tilt or no tracking will differ; run the site in NREL's PVWatts for a specific estimate (NREL PVWatts). Second, "1 MW" may be DC panel capacity or AC inverter capacity. NREL's reference plant has an inverter loading ratio of 1.34, meaning 100 MWdc of panels feeding 74.6 MWac of inverters (NREL ATB 2024); a 1 MWdc farm therefore produces less than a 1 MWac farm. Capacity factors in EIA's table are on an AC basis.

Texas versus the nation

EIA's annual table reports a national average, not state values, and we did not open a Texas-specific capacity-factor table this session, so we do not state one. Texas sites generally fall in NREL's sunnier resource classes, which the ATB figures above bracket; use PVWatts for a given county.

See how many acres a solar farm needs, the ERCOT queue, grid interconnection by market, and substation versus transmission line.

General information from the sources linked above, not legal, tax, or financial advice.

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