While this sounds like a lot, it's important to remember that the US consumed 4,000 terawatt hours in 2023, so even at 180GW now, and an extra 40GW a year, these numbers are a reason to get angry at why it's taking so long to get serious about solar instead of celebrating a victory. Until we're adding ten+ terawatts per year, numbers that says "it's going to take over ten thousands years for this to even be relevant" are not good numbers.
They're, of course, good numbers for the folks who had been hoping to switch and are now on solar, but they're not good numbers at any scale bigger than that.
And to clarify, because it looks like folks didn't realize this: the target isn't the current consumption rate. It's the rate we need to service everything that comes online "because we now have enough power", from EV-ing the entire US, to GPU mining (or whatever it's fad equivalent becomes), to industries we offshored or outsource because they needed too much electricity and weren't economically viable.
The target is one, and probably two, orders of magnitude more than current consumption.
They're, of course, good numbers for the folks who had been hoping to switch and are now on solar, but they're not good numbers at any scale bigger than that.
And to clarify, because it looks like folks didn't realize this: the target isn't the current consumption rate. It's the rate we need to service everything that comes online "because we now have enough power", from EV-ing the entire US, to GPU mining (or whatever it's fad equivalent becomes), to industries we offshored or outsource because they needed too much electricity and weren't economically viable.
The target is one, and probably two, orders of magnitude more than current consumption.