Following its biggest ever year in 2016, the cumulative US solar market is expected to nearly triple in size over the next five years, according to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) latest report.

As PV Tech previously reported, the US solar market nearly doubled its previous record last year, installing more than 14GW of solar PV.

For the first time ever, solar ranked as the number one source of new electric generating capacity brought online on an annual basis, representing 39%. On average, a new megawatt of solar PV came online every 36 minutes in 2016 and this momentum is set to continue.

Despite a slight dip expected in installed capacity this year, the market is still forecast to install an impressive 13.2GW of solar PV in 2017, a 10% drop from last year, but still 75% more than was installed in 2015. The dip will solely occur in the utility-scale segment; in response to an unprecedented number of utility-scale projects coming online in the latter half of 2016 in the aftermath of the ITC extension rush. This segment is expected to rebound by 2019 however, with year-over-year growth across the board.

“Though utility PV will reset from an origination perspective starting in 2017-2018, distributed solar is largely expected to continue to grow over the next few years due to rapid system cost declines and a growing number of states reaching grid parity," said Cory Honeyman, associate director of GTM Research. "That said, ongoing NEM and rate design battles - in conjunction with a declining incentive environment for non-residential PV - will continue to present risks to distributed solar growth."