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Excerpt:
The sensational headlines over the past two months regarding the Solyndra bankruptcy could give the false impression that the U.S. solar energy industry is the primary beneficiary of energy-related federal subsidies and tax breaks. This is simply not the case.
Broader perspective is in order. ...
Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals alike have generally supported the development of a diverse energy portfolio because energy security, reliability and economic development are in our nation's best interests.
The facts are clear. For decades, America's petroleum industry has relied on favorable tax, royalty and resource policies specifically designed to encourage oil and gas exploration. Support for the coal industry dates back to the 19th century and helped fuel America's industrial revolution. And without the liability shield afforded by the Price-Anderson Act, nuclear energy would not be providing 20% of our energy production today.
There is no doubt that America's need for energy will grow in the coming years. Advocates for a responsible "all of the above" approach should encourage the continued development and use of all our domestic energy resources. In this regard, solar can make a significant contribution.
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Unlike other energy sources that have received permanent support for decades, the current federal solar tax credit has been in place only since 2006 and is scheduled to expire in 2016. But in this short time, the policy has been an overwhelming success, producing a strong return on investment to the taxpayer and the American economy.
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Here Comes the Sun
New York Times
November 6, 2011
Paul Krugman
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We are, or at least we should be, on the cusp of an energy transformation, driven by the rapidly falling cost of solar power. That’s right, solar power.
If that surprises you, if you still think of solar power as some kind of hippie fantasy, blame our fossilized political system, in which fossil fuel producers have both powerful political allies and a powerful propaganda machine that denigrates alternatives.
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And now for something completely different: the success story you haven’t heard about.
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These days, mention solar power and you’ll probably hear cries of “Solyndra!” Republicans have tried to make the failed solar panel company both a symbol of government waste — although claims of a major scandal are nonsense — and a stick with which to beat renewable energy.
But Solyndra’s failure was actually caused by technological success: the price of solar panels is dropping fast, and Solyndra couldn’t keep up with the competition. In fact, progress in solar panels has been so dramatic and sustained that, as a blog post at Scientific American put it, “there’s now frequent talk of a ‘Moore’s law’ in solar energy,” with prices adjusted for inflation falling around 7 percent a year.
This has already led to rapid growth in solar installations, but even more change may be just around the corner. If the downward trend continues — and if anything it seems to be accelerating — we’re just a few years from the point at which electricity from solar panels becomes cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal.
And if we priced coal-fired power right, taking into account the huge health and other costs it imposes, it’s likely that we would already have passed that tipping point.
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Key Findings:
- Grid-connected PV installations in Q2 2011 grew 69 percent over Q2 2010.
- The U.S. now has over 3,100 MW of installed solar power, enough to power 630,000 homes.
- New Jersey’s commercial PV installations exceeded California’s for the first time.
- The U.S. remains poised to install 1,750 megawatts of PV in 2011, double last year’s total, enough to power 350,000 homes.
The U.S. photovoltaic market will become the largest market for annual PV installations in 2013 - overtaking Germany, Italy and Japan, according to a new report from ABI Research. ...
An estimated 900 MW of installed capacity came online during 2010 in the U.S., and that number is expected to almost double this year. Renewable energy technologies are receiving a strong push in the U.S., with utility, industrial and commercial PV installations expected to drive growth. ...
The U.S. PV market is set to witness explosive growth over the next few years, with a forecast of 5 GW installed during 2013. This is particularly good news for companies such as First Solar, SunPower Corp. and Solar World, ABI Research says.
Reuters
Thu, Jul 21 2011
Setting renewable energy mandates for utilities has been the big policy hammer that forces the use of wind, solar and other sources of cleaner power in the U.S. The pressure has intensified in California now that utilities are required to meet a 33 percent mandate by 2020 and maybe higher.
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By the end of 2010, Southern California Edison achieved 19.4 percent, PG&E 17.7 percent and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) 11.9 percent, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. Not all contracts signed by the utilities before 2010 have become reality. Some developers couldn’t raise the money and had to sell the development rights or go out of the business all together.
Gov. Jerry Brown, elected last November, signed into law the new mandate of 33 percent by 2020 only in April. The move received loud applause from renewable energy advocates, of course, and set down a new race for utilities to buy more renewable energy. ...
According to the most recent issue of the Monthly Energy Review by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), renewable energy has passed a milestone, as domestic production is now greater than that of nuclear power.
Nonprofit research organization SUN DAY Campaign says that during the first quarter of 2011, renewable energy sources provided 2.245 quadrillion Btus of energy, or 11.73% of U.S. energy production. Energy production from renewable energy sources in 2011 was 5.65% more than that from nuclear power, which provided 2.125 quadrillion Btus and has remained largely unchanged in recent years. Energy from renewable sources is now 77.15% of that from domestic crude oil production, with the gap closing rapidly, the organization adds.
Solar power accounted for 1.16% of production. Renewable energy's electrical output increased by 25.82% in the first three months of 2011, compared to the first quarter of 2010. Solar-generated electricity increased by 104.8%, according to EIA data cited by SUN DAY Campaign.
Solar energy remains one of the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy as its photovoltaics produced 66% more power in the first quarter of this year than during the same time last year, the industry reports Thursday.
By the end of March, all grid-connected solar installations generated more than 2.85 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power nearly 600,000 U.S. homes, according to the quarterly report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research.
The two biggest factors driving this growth include reduced equipment costs and a rush to take advantage of federal tax credits that were expected to expire in 2010 but were extended through 2011. While residential installations show steady growth, commercial ones are posting the strongest gains.
"On the whole, the U.S. is currently the PV (photovoltaic) industry's most attractive and stable growth market," Shayle Kann, GTM Research's managing director of solar, said in announcing the findings. He said the U.S. is positioned to nearly double its global market share this year.
The U.S. solar industry is concentrated in a few key states. California remains the largest, but New Jersey -- now second -- is experiencing the quickest growth. Other top states for PV installations, which directly convert solar power to electricity, include: Arizona, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon and Texas.
The U.S. solar power market grew a record 67% last year, making it the fastest-growing energy sector, the industry reports Thursday. Its market share jumped from $3.6 billion in 2009 to $6 billion in 2010, helped by federal tax credits and declining techonology costs, according to a report by the Solar Energy Industrys Association (SEIA) and GTM Research.
Enough solar power was installed last year to power about 200,000 homes, the report says, noting that more than 65,000 homes and businesses added solar water or pool heating systems. In particular, the PV or solar panel part of the market soared most, more than doubling from 2009.
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The solar market diversified last year as 16 states installed more than 10 megawatts of photovoltaics (PV) each last year, up from four states that did so in 2007. The top 10 states for PV installation in 2010 were: California; New Jersey; Nevada; Arizona; Colorado; Pennsylvania; New Mexico; Florida; North Carolina; Texas.
The report says the annual cost of these PV systems fell 8% in the residential market and 11% in the commercial one.
There’s now frequent talk of a "Moore's law" in solar energy. In computing, Moore’s law dictates that the number of components that can be placed on a chip doubles every 18 months. More practically speaking, the amount of computing power you can buy for a dollar has roughly doubled every 18 months, for decades. That’s the reason that the phone in your pocket has thousands of times as much memory and ten times as much processing power as a famed Cray 1 supercomputer, while weighing ounces compared to the Cray’s 10,000 lb bulk, fitting in your pocket rather than a large room, and costing tens or hundreds of dollars rather than tens of millions.
If similar dynamics worked in solar power technology, then we would eventually have the solar equivalent of an iPhone – incredibly cheap, mass distributed energy technology that was many times more effective than the giant and centralized technologies it was born from.
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The cost of solar, in the average location in the U.S., will cross the current average retail electricity price of 12 cents per kilowatt hour in around 2020, or 9 years from now. In fact, given that retail electricity prices are currently rising by a few percent per year, prices will probably cross earlier, around 2018 for the country as a whole, and as early as 2015 for the sunniest parts of America.
10 years later, in 2030, solar electricity is likely to cost half what coal electricity does today. Solar capacity is being built out at an exponential pace already. When the prices become so much more favorable than those of alternate energy sources, that pace will only accelerate.