My notes on "Growing the Solar Market" at this year's Building Energy conference of the Northeast Solar Energy Association:
Larry Sherwood of Interstate Renewable Energy Council gave us a snapshot of the US solar market as of March 2009:
350 MW of PV installed in US in '08, up 80% over '07
CA, NJ, CO, NV, HI installed more than 10 MW of PV in '08
over 18,000 individual installations in '08
average size is 5 kW
2009 prices look to fall up to 30%
rise in Federal solar incentives will stimulate market
due to new silicon refining and manufacturing capacity coming on line
solar hot water was 110 MW (therm) in '07
Hawaii is the leader in solar hot water installs
after '06 Federal incentives, US market, outside Hawaii, quadrupled
pool heating is the largest number of installs of all, even without incentives
CA and FL are nearly 2/3 of the national market
pool heating market dependent upon real estate market and not likely to grow soon
At the same session, Julian Barnes of the NC Solar Center presented the DSIRE (Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency) and other information:
solar tax credit extended to 12/31/2016
credit may offset Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)
$2000 cap for PV and solar hot water (DHW +) removed
19 states have rebates or performance based incentives for PV
28 states have grant programs
77 utilities give rebates
solar electric sector based upon
renewable portfolio standards (RPS)
net metering
interconnections
incentives
Solar IS Civil Defense