{"id":7,"date":"2013-03-28T10:11:35","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T14:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/us-installed-33-gigawatts-of-solar-in-2012-on-target.html"},"modified":"2013-03-28T10:11:35","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T14:11:35","slug":"us-installed-33-gigawatts-of-solar-in-2012-on-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/us-installed-33-gigawatts-of-solar-in-2012-on-target.html","title":{"rendered":"U.S. installed 3.3 Gigawatts of solar in 2012, on target"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nMoore&#8217;s law continues to drive solar costs down and installations up.<br \/>\nAccording to SEIA,<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.seia.org\/research-resources\/solar-industry-data\"><br \/>\nU.S. Market Installs 3,300 Megawatts in 2012; Driven by Record Fourth Quarter<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\n2012 was a historic year for the U.S. solar industry. There were<br \/>\n3,313 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) capacity installed<br \/>\nthroughout the year, which represents 76% growth over 2011&#8217;s record<br \/>\ndeployment totals. The fourth quarter of 2012 was also the largest<br \/>\nquarter on record as 1,300 MW came online, driven in part by<br \/>\nunprecedented installation levels in the residential and utility<br \/>\nmarkets. SEIA and GTM Research forecast that the market will<br \/>\ncontinue to grow at a steady clip with over 4,200 MW of PV and 940<br \/>\nMW of concentrating solar power (CSP) expected to come online in<br \/>\n2013. (All data from SEIA\/GTM Research &ldquo;U.S. Solar Market<br \/>\nInsight 2012 Year-In-Review&rdquo; unless otherwise noted.)\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.seia.org\/research-resources\/solar-industry-data\"><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none;\"  width=\"500\" height=\"420\" src=\"http:\/\/www.seia.org\/sites\/default\/files\/smi_figure_21.jpg\"><\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAnd those new installations are driven by solar PV prices continually falling in<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2012\/12\/2012-solar-deployments-driven-by-moores-law-price-reductions.html\"><br \/>\nMoore&#8217;s Law for solar<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n<H3>Falling Costs Make Solar More Affordable Than Ever<\/H3><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.seia.org\/research-resources\/solar-industry-data\"><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   width=\"222\" height=\"188\" src=\"http:\/\/www.seia.org\/sites\/default\/files\/smi_figures_26.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\nThe average cost of a completed PV system dropped by 27 percent over the past year.<\/p>\n<li>\nThe average price of a<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.seia.org\/policy\/solar-technology\/photovoltaic-solar-electric\"><br \/>\nsolar panel<\/a> has declined by 60 percent since the beginning of 2011.<\/p>\n<li>\nWhile these price drops are beneficial for solar consumers, the sharp fall in prices, due in part by a global oversupply, has put a serious strain on<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.seia.org\/policy\/manufacturing-trade\/solar-manufacturing-incentives\"><br \/>\nsolar manufacturers<\/a> worldwide.\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nSo we&#8217;ll see a shakeout in numbers of solar companies, as has<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/chartporn.org\/2012\/02\/29\/genealogy-of-car-companies\/\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/chartporn.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/image71.png\"><\/a><br \/>\nalready started to happen with<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/chiefio.wordpress.com\/2013\/03\/21\/stp-suntech-power-solar-bankrupt\/\"><br \/>\nSTP in China going bankrupt<\/a>.<br \/>\nThis is normal in a new industry.<br \/>\nThere used to be dozens of car companies, too, but<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/chiefio.wordpress.com\/2013\/03\/21\/stp-suntech-power-solar-bankrupt\/\"><br \/>\nhttp:\/\/www.historyshots.com\/automobiles\/&#8221;><br \/>\nOlds, Buick, Cadillac, Rainier, Welch, Elmore, Oakland, Cartercar,<br \/>\nChrvrolet, Scripps-Both, and many more merged into General Motors<\/a><br \/>\nand similarly a few other big car companies emerged from the pack.<br \/>\nThe same thing will happen with solar companies.<br \/>\nThe shakeout will take years, as usual,<br \/>\nand meanwhile solar sales will continue to go up, just like<br \/>\nautomobile sales did.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2013\/01\/power-source-growth-rates-like-compound-interest.html\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8226\/8421700685_a46c93cf27_n.jpg\"><\/a><br \/>\nAnd if solar continues to be deployed at a compound growth rate<br \/>\nlike we&#8217;ve seen for the past decade or more?<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2013\/01\/power-source-growth-rates-like-compound-interest.html\"><br \/>\nsolar and wind win over all other power sources in about a decade<\/a>.<br \/>\nGeorgia can lag behind the pack and<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/07\/google-says-delaying-solar-will-cost-us-millions-of-jobs.html\"><br \/>\nlose lots of benefits<\/a>,<br \/>\nor it can get on with solar and lead the country in solar power,<br \/>\nfor jobs, profit, and energy independence, and for clean air and water.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Moore&#8217;s law continues to drive solar costs down and installations up. According to SEIA, U.S. Market Installs 3,300 Megawatts in 2012; Driven by Record Fourth Quarter, 2012 was a historic year for the U.S. solar industry. There were 3,313 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) capacity installed throughout the year, which represents 76% growth over 2011&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,2,19,21,22,32,23,24],"tags":[31,28,8704,8706,8701,8699,8709,8702,12,27,25,8711,8712,8715,29,8713,26,30,8714],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-government","category-history","category-planning","category-politics","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","tag-automobile","tag-cost","tag-economy","tag-environment","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-megawatts","tag-moores-law","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-pollution","tag-price","tag-renewable-energy","tag-seia","tag-shakeout","tag-solar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}