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SAN FRANCISCO, California, US, 2004-10-20 (Refocus Weekly) The solar industry in the United States wants half of all new power generation in that country to come from solar by 2025.
The solar power industry “has delivered strong growth, has reduced costs and has improved products, just as predicted,” explains the Solar Energy Industries Association in ‘Our Solar Future: The U.S. Photovoltaic Industry Roadmap for 2005 & Beyond.’ “However, the nations who are proving that these investments truly do lead to the promised benefits are Germany and Japan, not the United States.”
“Their success, coupled with our failure to make similar investments, has resulted in the loss of our competitive edge,” it warns. “Even our technological advantages through the national laboratories and our R&D investments cannot overcome the amount of capital and experience being generated by the combined strategy of market development and R&D support being advanced by Germany and Japan.”
The roadmap suggests actions that would create 250,000 jobs in the industry, and deliver secure domestic energy with no environmental damage. It calls on the federal government to put the U.S. “back at the forefront of the booming worldwide solar industry” by modelling successful strategies and taking the necessary steps to speed the decline in prices for solar electricity.
“California's leadership and forward-thinking policies have created the largest solar market in the U.S. and the third-largest solar market in the world,” says Chris O'Brien of SEIA. “We need similar leadership and vision on a national level.”
Solar power has both promise and challenge for lawmakers as the domestic industry loses ground to Europe and Asia. The size of the global PV industry has increased ten-fold in the past eight years and prices are down 95% since 1978, but the U.S. experienced its first-ever decline in solar manufacturing last year.
Japan has installed 750 MW of grid-connected PV in the past decade and Germany’s 100,000 rooftop program has resulted in 400 MW of installations, compared to 340 MW in the U.S., with the most rapid growth occurring in the last two years. “Solar electricity has transitioned strongly from the remote applications that once dominated sales to generating high-value peaking power for homes and businesses on the grid,” and this transformation is “driven by strong policies that support the development of solar markets, and by the value that solar electricity delivers to consumers.”
“A recent analysis of policy options for building solar markets shows that by 2025, half of all new U.S. electricity generation could come from the sun,” it notes. “But this bright future will not happen without solid investment now.”
Global shipments of solar PV grew by 32% last year and the industry generated $4.7 billion in revenue, but shipments from U.S. solar manufacturers fell by 10% and the nation’s share of the world market dropped to 14%, the lowest ever. Shipments from Europe grew by 41% and 45% from Japan, and policies on those continents are increasingly driving technology and market development.
“The next ten years are critical for worldwide solar power development,” and actions by industry and government “will determine whether solar power is catapulted to a new level and whether the U.S. will regain its position at the forefront of solar power development.” Investment decisions for research, manufacturing and new markets “will determine where solar power will thrive - and where it will merely survive.”
The goal for 2030 is a solar power system that costs $2.33 per watt, a price of 3.8¢/kWh delivered to the customer, installed solar generating capacity of 200 GW, and direct employment of 260,000 people.
By 2030, the industry is targeting cumulative installed solar capacity of 200 GW, with annual installations of 19 GW, which means “solar power will be a substantial share of U.S. peak generating capacity and a major source of electricity.” Direct employment in the solar industry would reach 260,000 by 2030 and 350,000 by 2050, compared with 59,000 and 95,000 respectively without action,
“For the United States to realize the significant value and economic and employment benefits provided by solar power, we will need vigorous national leadership in market expansion and research and development actions for market expansion,” and the roadmap calls for a residential and commercial tax credit that augments current state and federal support, including a 50% tax credit for the first 10 kW installed and 30% above that. Caps would decline each year to buffer the transition and encourage a steady decline in prices.
It also calls for the establishment of uniform net metering and interconnection standards to give solar power owners “simple, equitable access to the grid and fair compensation,” and an increase in government procurement of solar power to build public-sector markets. It wants support for state public benefit charge programs and other state initiatives to advance solar and an increase in R&D to $250 million per year by 2010 support for “higher-risk longer-term R&D for all system components that can leapfrog beyond today’s technology to new levels of performance and reduce installed system costs” and enhanced funding for centres of excellence to cut the time for development in half.
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