The Phoenix Sun

PV America event (Courtesy of PV America)

Even before Japan’s nuclear nightmare began, the solar power market in the U.S. and abroad were set for another year of remarkable growth, according to several analysts and industry leaders.

One such individual suggested recently that the only close analogy to the coming surge in solar photovoltaic panels (PV) is Apple, Inc.’s performance last year after the iPad took off.

Excitement over solar’s continuing growth-spurt served as background music for a PV industry gathering that ended in Philadelphia last night.

“The solar industry is the fastest growing industry in America!” Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), told some 3,000 conference-goers. “We are growing faster than wind energy, faster than telecommunications, and, thank goodness, we are even growing faster than the mortgage foreclosure industry!”

Bob Gibson, VP for market intelligence at the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA), pointed to one large source of growth for the industry: utilities expanding their energy mix to include solar.

“In very real and growing ways,” said Gibson, “electric utilities … across the country are part of the renewable energy industry, and in particular, the business of building and providing solar power.”

The Numbers

Figure 1. Top 10 States for PV installtions, 2010. (The Phoenix Sun)

And there are a lot of data to support such enthusiasm.

While the U.S. GDP grew just 2.8% in 2010, the domestic solar market jumped by 67% last year, according to GTM Research.

The GTM/SEIA U.S. Solar Market Insight, 2010 Year in Review holds a lot more good new for the solar sector. For example, grid-connected PV installations rose to 878 MW (megawatts) last year, a 102% increase over 2009.

While the pattern of growth was widespread, ten states account for over 60% of all new installations (see the breakdown in figure 1).

Notice that California grabbed the lion’s share, at 35% of the total. And that was before the state legislature passed a bill (on March 30) mandating that utilities obtain one-third of their electricity from renewable energy sources, including solar power, by the end of 2020.

(To be fair, former CA Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, had issued an executive order calling for the same goal, in 2009. That EO, however, could have been overturned by another governor and so didn’t provide the level of predictability utilities need to make significant investments in solar- a stability they now have.)

Other positive indicators cited in the GTM report:

• A marked increase in U.S. PV component manufacturing: 97% for wafers, 81% for silicon cells, and 62% for PV modules.
• The largest Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant built in two decades went online. (Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center, 75-MW, in southeastern Florida.
• The installation of nearly 29,500 solar pool heating systems and 35,500 hot water systems.

You can read the entire article, complete with more images and at no charge, at Forbes.com.

Solar California

If you live in California — or know someone who does — this message is for you.

States have been called the laboratories of democracy. Programs that might be great often need to prove themselves locally, before being adopted on a national level. They need a track record. For decades, California has frequently been the nation’s environmental laboratory. The Clean Air Act, to name just one example, was born in LA.

Solar California

The Golden State has been a pioneer in developing solar policies to power the nation with clean, renewable energy. One of the most successful programs to speed adoption of solar in California is net metering. It’s a simple, but potent, idea. It allows people with solar systems to be credited for the excess electricity they produce and send back to the grid.

But there’s a catch: net metering has a cap. Once net metered customers supply 2.5% of utility peak load, new solar systems owners aren’t compensated for excess electricity.

AB 510: Raising the cap

Now, there’s a bill pending in the California Senate to raise the cap on net metering to 5% and help keep solar growing: AB 510.

The California-based Vote Solar Initiative has created a Web page that makes it easy for California residents to sign a petition online and have it sent immediately to their Senator.

If you’re a California resident, it only takes two minutes to support clean, renewable energy. All you have to do, is go here and sign in.

Please do it right away. Don’t let the sun set on solar power and the green jobs that come from it.

If work goes according to plan, 338 new wind turbines will be producing as much 845 MW of electricity in north-central Oregon by 2012. The “Shepherds Flat” wind farm will be spread across 30 square miles in north-central Oregon, approximately 120 miles due west of Portland.

This is the first time the GE-made 2.5xl turbines will be used in the US, but 100 of the large turbines (rotor blades are 100 meters long — about 330 feet) have already logged over a million hours of energy production in in Europe and Asia. The wind farm will be owned by New York-based Caithness Energy with the power generated supplying electricity to Southern California Energy customers.

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