July 22, 2010 -
Solarbuzz, a market research business focused on solar, released a study recently projecting that solar growth in the U.S. will grow tenfold by 2014. Everyone knows solar is hotter than...well, I'll save the 'sun' puns for later. But tenfold growth? Is that an exaggeration, or could the U.S. really become the world leader in solar power in just a few years?
In 2009, the U.S. solar market grew 36 percent, according to the United States PV Market 2010. However, this didn't come close to the 62 percent growth experienced during 2008. This was due in part to 2009 economic recovery, as well as transformations in the solar industry, including changing roles of utility companies, lower cost PV modules from Asia, and new direct-to-market approaches.
California continues to lead U.S. in solar developments, with 53 percent of U.S. PV on-grid installations. But even with California's golden glow, the U.S. is still third in the global solar market, behind Germany and Italy. In a press teleconference yesterday, Nancy Pfund, Managing Partner for DBL Investors, said that the U.S. solar market will "need to be more patient" before California shines at full brilliance.
"California has the fastest growing distributed solar market in the world. The scale of our effort is going to dwarf other parts of the world," Pfund said.
Within the next five years, Solarbuzz predicts that the market will grow to between 4.5-5.5 GW (about ten times the size of the 2009 market). This adds up to an average annual growth rate of 30 percent. Motivations will be utilties positioning themselves more aggresively to meet the obligations of the Renewable Portfolio Standard, the development of new state markets, and the return of the corporate segment.
At least for 2010, many utilities are motivated by the Treasury Grant Program. This program, initiated in 2009, allows the commercial tax credit to be taken as a cash grant for a limited time. However, this program ends at the end of 2010, so many in the solar industry wish to meet the start-construction deadline by year end.
For more on developments in solar technology, see my story in the upcoming September issue of Power Engineering.
Its no surprise that solar is growing at such a rate- when technology makes this much sense and saves this much money obviously people will jump aboard.
ReplyDeleteI cant wait to land in LA and see a bunch of glistening panels on every roof.
Thanks for sharing, Mackenzie...check out my newest blog for more thoughts on solar costs vs. other forms of power.
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