Again, market economy at its best. Solar capacity installed is doubled while solar panel prices are halved. New installations reached close to 2000 MW in US in 2011. Even though they don't produce electricity 24X7 still energy produced by solar panels is most precious as it comes and supports peak hour load in US which is typically afternoon hours of Summer. Theoretically, this should lead to direct cut in reserve capacity requirements of utilities thus making electricity cheaper for everyone.
Great news and I hope that this trend will continue globally. At the same time, I think very soon it will result in another headache for utilities. Utility's main job will be just to transmit and re-distribute electricity. They will be tasked only to provide emergency and base load. This issue has already started surfacing in requests from utility to charge for solar connectivity charges for homes and businesses who have almost zero electricity bill due to offset from electricity pumped back to grid. As of now, it is simply helping utilities by limiting load growth on their existing setup. However, sooner or later it does need to come into force so that they can start charging connectivity charges if net consumption by customers is less than certain threshold.
On other hand, there is another monster electricity consumer is there at the corner. "All Electric Cars"!! It is already picking up and sooner or later on it will become big enough requiring special attention to its requirements. Assuming people will use electric cars for daily office commute, they will need to charge their cars hopefully during pre-noon to noon time period. Then, they will be needing it late evening/night time to charge back once they are back home. Both the places will need this infrastructure and additional capacities. I hope that it will use off-peak load capacity and will help utilities further smoothen their demand curve thereby making better capacity utilization and provide cheaper electricity.
Here are the details from Mercury News:
2011 record year for solar installations
Industry execs say market share will hit 15% by 2016
By Dana Hull
dhull@mercurynews.com
The amount of photovoltaic solar panels installed in the United States more than doubled from 2010 to 2011, representing a historic year for the American solar industry. A year-in-review report jointly released Wednesday by the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research found that 1,855 megawatts were installed nationwide in 2011, up from 887 megawatts in 2010 — for a growth of 109 percent. “After a record-breaking 2011, the U.S. has proved itself as a viable market for solar on a global scale,” says the executive summary of the report. “In 2011, the U.S. market’s share of global (photovoltaic) installations rose from 5 percent to 7 percent and should continue to grow. We forecast U.S. market share to increase steadily over the next five years, ultimately reaching nearly 15 percent in 2016.” Installation figures for photovoltaic, or PV, solar panels, which convert sunlight directly into electricity, include those on homes and businesses as well as much larger, utility-scale power plants.One megawatt is enough to power about 750 to 1,000 homes. But because the sun doesn’t shine all the time, solar industry experts typically say that 1 megawatt of solar power capacity is sufficient to power about 200 households. California continued to lead the nation, installing 542 megawatts, accounting for 29 percent of all installations in the country. Next came New Jersey, Arizona and New Mexico. More than 61,000 individual solar projects were completed in 2011, including many large installations serving commercial or utility scale clients.
There were 28 projects larger than 10 megawatts each, up from just two in 2009. “We’re seeing an incredible increase in the number of utility-scale projects,” said Rhone Resch, president and CEO of SEIA. “There’s technology acceptance of solar by utilities and companies that traditionally built natural gas power plants. Solar is the next great opportunity.”
The record number of installations was fueled, in part, by a free-fall in solar panel prices, which dropped more than 50 percent in 2011.
But lower prices put enormous pressure on solar manufacturers like Fremont-based Solyndra, which filed for bankruptcy in September.
Solar still counts for less than 1 percent of California’s electricity, most of which comes from natural gas, two nuclear power plants and hydropower.
But advocates, including Gov. Jerry Brown, want solar to play a key role in the state’s energy future, in part because solar projects generate local installation jobs. Brown hopes to add 12,000 megawatts of rooftop solar generation by 2020.
California utilities are also under pressure to meet the state’s aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standard, which calls for 33 percent of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020. In 2011, San Franciscobased PG&E began receiving power from five solar photovoltaic projects built by independent developers, bring 135 megawatts of new capacity online.
Contact Dana Hull at 408-920-2706. Follow her at Twitter.com/danahull.
Great news and I hope that this trend will continue globally. At the same time, I think very soon it will result in another headache for utilities. Utility's main job will be just to transmit and re-distribute electricity. They will be tasked only to provide emergency and base load. This issue has already started surfacing in requests from utility to charge for solar connectivity charges for homes and businesses who have almost zero electricity bill due to offset from electricity pumped back to grid. As of now, it is simply helping utilities by limiting load growth on their existing setup. However, sooner or later it does need to come into force so that they can start charging connectivity charges if net consumption by customers is less than certain threshold.
On other hand, there is another monster electricity consumer is there at the corner. "All Electric Cars"!! It is already picking up and sooner or later on it will become big enough requiring special attention to its requirements. Assuming people will use electric cars for daily office commute, they will need to charge their cars hopefully during pre-noon to noon time period. Then, they will be needing it late evening/night time to charge back once they are back home. Both the places will need this infrastructure and additional capacities. I hope that it will use off-peak load capacity and will help utilities further smoothen their demand curve thereby making better capacity utilization and provide cheaper electricity.
Here are the details from Mercury News:
2011 record year for solar installations
Industry execs say market share will hit 15% by 2016
By Dana Hull
dhull@mercurynews.com
The amount of photovoltaic solar panels installed in the United States more than doubled from 2010 to 2011, representing a historic year for the American solar industry. A year-in-review report jointly released Wednesday by the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research found that 1,855 megawatts were installed nationwide in 2011, up from 887 megawatts in 2010 — for a growth of 109 percent. “After a record-breaking 2011, the U.S. has proved itself as a viable market for solar on a global scale,” says the executive summary of the report. “In 2011, the U.S. market’s share of global (photovoltaic) installations rose from 5 percent to 7 percent and should continue to grow. We forecast U.S. market share to increase steadily over the next five years, ultimately reaching nearly 15 percent in 2016.” Installation figures for photovoltaic, or PV, solar panels, which convert sunlight directly into electricity, include those on homes and businesses as well as much larger, utility-scale power plants.One megawatt is enough to power about 750 to 1,000 homes. But because the sun doesn’t shine all the time, solar industry experts typically say that 1 megawatt of solar power capacity is sufficient to power about 200 households. California continued to lead the nation, installing 542 megawatts, accounting for 29 percent of all installations in the country. Next came New Jersey, Arizona and New Mexico. More than 61,000 individual solar projects were completed in 2011, including many large installations serving commercial or utility scale clients.
There were 28 projects larger than 10 megawatts each, up from just two in 2009. “We’re seeing an incredible increase in the number of utility-scale projects,” said Rhone Resch, president and CEO of SEIA. “There’s technology acceptance of solar by utilities and companies that traditionally built natural gas power plants. Solar is the next great opportunity.”
The record number of installations was fueled, in part, by a free-fall in solar panel prices, which dropped more than 50 percent in 2011.
But lower prices put enormous pressure on solar manufacturers like Fremont-based Solyndra, which filed for bankruptcy in September.
Solar still counts for less than 1 percent of California’s electricity, most of which comes from natural gas, two nuclear power plants and hydropower.
But advocates, including Gov. Jerry Brown, want solar to play a key role in the state’s energy future, in part because solar projects generate local installation jobs. Brown hopes to add 12,000 megawatts of rooftop solar generation by 2020.
California utilities are also under pressure to meet the state’s aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standard, which calls for 33 percent of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020. In 2011, San Franciscobased PG&E began receiving power from five solar photovoltaic projects built by independent developers, bring 135 megawatts of new capacity online.
Contact Dana Hull at 408-920-2706. Follow her at Twitter.com/danahull.
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