Despite the flat-earth fossils in the U.S. House and Senate, solar power is growing by leaps and bounds. The U.S. Solar Market Insight report for 2014 shows installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity in the U.S. grew 30% over 2013 levels. The trend is nothing short of inspirational.
The growth in PV was evident at all scales of deployment, from smaller residential installations to massive utility-scale solar farms. Only natural gas accounted for a larger percentage of new generating capacity than solar, but the gap was only 10%.
Here are a few tidbits from the executive summary:
The U.S. installed 6,201 MW of solar PV in 2014, up 30 percent over 2013, making 2014 the largest year ever in terms of PV installations.
Solar provided roughly one-third of all new electric generating capacity in the U.S. in 2014.
More than one-third of all cumulative operating PV capacity in the U.S. came on-line in 2014.
By the end of 2014, 20 states eclipsed the 100 MW mark for cumulative operating solar PV installations, and California alone is home to 8.7 GW.
One other element of the report stands out. The solar Investment Tax Credit has paid remarkable dividends in job creation and renewable energy investment.
“Without question, the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) has helped to fuel our industry’s remarkable growth. Today the U.S. solar industry has more employees than tech giants Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter combined,” said Rhone Resch, SEIA president and CEO. “Since the ITC was passed in 2006, more than 150,000 solar jobs have been created in America, and $66 billion has been invested in solar installations nationwide. We now have 20 gigawatts of installed solar capacity -- enough to power 4 million U.S. homes -- and we’re helping to reduce harmful carbon emissions by 20 million metric tons a year. By any measurement, the ITC has been a huge success for both our economy and environment.”
Unfortunately, the solar ITC is scheduled to
expire at the end of 2016 unless the do-nothing-worthwhile Congress acts to extend it. Clearly, we have to do some serious House cleaning to keep renewable energy on track.
