Sixth in solar: San Antonio heats it up

​​​SAN ANTONIO – The Alamo city is now No. 6 in the U.S. for installed solar power, leapfrogging over larger cities in the Midwest and East Coast.

San Antonio​​—which was in eighth place last year—had 161 megawatts of direct current solar power installed at the end of 2017, according to the latest Shining Cities​ report from Environment America.​

The growth is a 37.6 percent increase over the 117 megawatts of solar that San Antonio had installed by the end of 2016.

One megawatt can power between 200 and 300 homes in the winter and 200 homes on a hot summer day in Texas.

In Texas the only other city in the top 20 was Austin, with 39.4 megawatts of installed solar. ​​