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WASHINGTON, DC, US, 2003-12-10 (Refocus Weekly) The installed base of solar photovoltaic in the United States remains “frustratingly small,” and a report outlines measures to “move solar energy beyond a small, niche market into a thriving industry able to contribute significantly to America’s energy and national security needs.”
“This report illuminates what the current industry players think it will take to sustain or double current total cumulative installation projections by 2025, as well as outlining a far more ambitious path of capturing 10% of total U.S. electricity production by 2025,” says Alisa Gravitz of the Solar Catalyst Group, which produced the ‘Solar Opportunity Assessment Report’ with the research consulting firm Clean Edge. The report examines what is needed to incrementally grow the U.S. solar industry into a “thriving industry” through “bold audacious measures that could dramatically accelerate the transition to a clean-energy future.”
Interviews with 30 PV manufacturers and industry officials identified key challenges in the solar marketplace to include its small production scale which keeps quantities low and prices high, the on-again off-again government funding of solar research, a dearth of financing solutions which prices solar out of reach of most users, and a lack of standardized plug-and-play systems that would greatly reduce the complexity and cost of designing and installing a solar-energy system.
New installations of solar PV have experienced a compounded annual growth rate of 24% over the past decade in the U.S., but the report suggests various strategies to double projected installations from 35 GW to 70 GW by 2025, while its SHINE (Solar High-Impact National Energy) proposal calls for 290 GW of cumulative installed PV in the U.S. by 2025, providing 10% of total U.S. electricity.
The industry needs “breakthrough” improvements in technology, “not just incremental ones,” to dramatically reduce the cost of solar and improve its efficiency and reliability, the report notes, and there is a “wealth of untapped opportunities that could significantly improve solar’s appeal,” such as improving economies of scale by building larger plants, improving the ‘balance of system’ components of a solar installation, and better integrating components so solar can be more cost-effective.
“Despite growing investments by some of the larger players, decreased government
funding and relatively meagre venture capital investments in the earliest-stage solar
start-ups undercut the chances that the market will see a technological breakthrough
in the near term,” it explains. “PV technology will continue to improve and steadily drop in cost, but it will be an incremental evolution” and a major government-sponsored R&D push could greatly accelerate the process.
“To rapidly bring solar to scale requires a simultaneous, coordinated ramping up of both supply and demand,” it explains, to overcome the “chicken-and-egg problem of high prices depressing demand, which keeps prices high.” Large corporate and institutional purchases from the federal government and military are needed, along with national incentive programs, manufacturer incentives, utility cooperation and changes in local building codes.
“There is much work to be done,” and the report outlines three pathways of current growth, accelerated growth and hypergrowth which “represent critical, strategic choices to be made by the solar industry, political leaders and citizens alike.”
Among the companies surveyed were BP Solar, Evergreen Solar, PowerLight, Sharp and Shell Solar.
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