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- Solar installations surpassed gas and wind for first time\r\n
- Record 14.6 gigawatts of solar panels added in 2016, SEIA says\r\n<\/ul>\r\n
\r\nSolar developers installed a record 14.6 gigawatts in the U.S. last\r\nyear, almost double the total from 2015 and enough to make\r\nphotovoltaic panels the largest source of new electric capacity for\r\nthe first time.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n
\r\nSolar panels on rooftops and fields accounted for 39 percent of new\r\ngeneration last year, according to a report Wednesday from GTM\r\nResearch and the Solar Energy Industries Association. That beat the\r\n29 percent contribution from natural gas and 26 percent from wind.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nThe story has some politics, then:\r\n
\r\n\r\nThe solar industry employs 260,000 people and accounted for 2\r\npercent of all new U.S. jobs last year,\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nThe story doesn’t mention that the solar industry as of 2016 employs more people than coal, oil, and natural gas combined,\r\naccording to the U.S. Department of Energy<\/a>.\r\n
\r\nBack to the story:\r\n
\r\nand Republican and\r\nDemocratic governors from 20 states sent the White House a letter\r\nMonday saying that clean energy is an important economic driver.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n“What these numbers tell you is that the solar industry is a\r\nforce to be reckoned with,” Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA’s chief\r\nexecutive officer, said in a statement. “Solar’s economically\r\nwinning hand is generating strong growth across all market\r\nsegments.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nTotal installations surged 95 percent from 2015, led by large fields\r\nof solar arrays, which generally cost less than putting panels on\r\nrooftops. Utility-scale development increased 145 percent last year,\r\nthe most in the industry, as costs became increasingly competitive\r\nwith power produced from gas, according to the report.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nSmaller-scale solar also increased, with residential rooftops up 19\r\npercent and community solar projects exceeding 200 megawatts.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
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\r\nOK, all that’s good, and it’s better than FERC’s figures, which only show\r\n\r\n7.748 MW of industry-scale solar installed in 2016<\/a>.\r\nAdding in rooftop and community solar projects, as SEIA did,\r\nshows solar beat fracked methane for the first time: but far from the last.\r\n
\r\nBut the story misses even bigger points.\r\nSolar power deployment has been doubling every two years (by FERC’s numbers,\r\nwhich are only utility-scale installations).\r\nThat’s exponential growth, never mentioned in the story.\r\n
\r\n\r\nThat growth will continue, with total installed capacity in the U.S.\r\nexpected to reach 105 gigawatts by 2021, up from about 38 gigawatts\r\ntoday, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\n2021 is four years from now.\r\nLet’s look at simply adding every year until then the same amount as in 2016:\r\n38 + 14.6 + 14.6 + 14.6 + 14.6 = 96.4,\r\nso apparently for 105 GW by 2021, Bloomberg New Energy Finance is counting on\r\nlinear growth, which is not what is actually happening.\r\n
\r\nAt the traditional FERC doubling-every-two-years exponential rate,\r\nwe should see more like 38 * 2 * 2 = 152 GW by 2021.\r\nBut that’s just at FERC’s utility-scale numbers.\r\nAdding in rooftop and community solar, as SEIA did,\r\nshows a huge surge last year.\r\nIf that increased rate continues, we’ll see way more than 152 GW of U.S. solar\r\npower by 2021.\r\n
\r\nThe story says even Alabama is showing solar growth.\r\nMaybe SEIA doesn’t know Alabama Power is a Southern Company (SO) subsidiary,\r\nand SO is pushing solar now.\r\n
\r\nThe story concludes:\r\n
\r\n\r\n“We don’t expect to see many years with nearly 100 percent\r\ngrowth that we had in 2016,” Baca said. “But we see a future\r\nwhere lower-level stable growth is achievable.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nYes, some year solar growth will level out and go linear.\r\nBut not this year, and not by 2021.\r\nThere’s way too much room for growth left.\r\nAnd coal is already crashing.\r\nMore on all that in a later post<\/a>.\r\n
\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>\r\n