The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) released its latest numbers in December for 2018 corporate solar procurement in the United States, as per pv magazine. This is part of a boom in renewable energy procurement overall, with the 2018 capacity of 6.43 GW (wind and solar) double that of the next-biggest year, 2015. Facebook leads the pack, followed by AT&T, ExxonMobil, Walmart, Microsoft, and Apple.
In their December U.S. Solar Market Insight report, Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association highlights the impact of tariffs imposed in January. Utility Dive notes that a large part of the U.S. solar project pipeline remains on hold. While a loss of project volume is significant and can translate to fewer jobs and less money into the economy, projects are just being delayed, not cancelled.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA), said solar PV electricity generation in 2018, much of it as an artifact of the 2017 growth coming into its own during its first full summer, has grown almost 29% through the first three quarters of 2018. This November pv magazine article shows wind and solar totaled 8.7 percent of all electricity generated during the first 9 months of the year.
Utility-scale U.S. solar pipeline for 2019 – 2020 expands to 23 GW over the last two quarters
If you double the massive growth in utility-scale solar capacity deployed in 2015 and 2016, you will get a taste of what’s coming in the 2019 and 2020 seasons, pv magazine reports. As the Investment Tax Credit begins to drop from 30 to 26 percent in 2020, a November analysis of S&P Global Market Intelligence’s installation data shows the project pipeline has risen to 23 GW.
The core challenge of climate change is that the standard way of doing things — the dirty, carbon-intensive way — is typically cheaper than newer, lower-carbon alternatives, according to this November Vox article. So what exactly drives technological innovation and improvement? A new paper in the journal Energy Policy helps to cut through the fog.
Touting environmental and economic benefits, 216 mayors representing all 50 states signed an updated letter in November calling for more deployment of solar power, according to Utility Dive. The Mayors for Solar Energy effort, organized by Environment America, also includes training and resources for local governments to encourage more solar power. The number of signatories, which includes 25 Republicans, has more than tripled since the original letter was released in December 2017.
Global module prices have fallen 20 – 25 percent through the third quarter of 2018
Average prices of mono- and multicrystalline modules have fallen by 20% and 25% respectively in the first three quarters of this year, pv magazine reports. An October report by EnergyTrend forecasts total PV demand for 2018 will reach just 86 GW, while manufacturing capacity will grow to 150 GW. This overcapacity is expected to lead to global merger deals, capacity reductions and even factory closures.
The eleventh version of its annual report on solar system costs was released by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), pv magazine reports in this September article. The report includes all U.S. rooftop systems and small ground mount installations from 5 kW to 5 MW-AC. Costs continued to decline by 5 to 11 percent in 2017 with additional small reductions in the first half of 2018.
The Trump administration imposes a new round of tariffs on imported solar inverters from China
The long-awaited tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods will hit yet another slice of the solar market: inverters. The Trump administration announced tariffs of 10 percent effective September 24 and rising to 25 percent on January 1, as per this September GTM article. According to Wood Mackenzie, inverters in H1 2018 accounted for $0.21 of the $2.95 per watt installed price of residential PV systems.
The highly anticipated U.S. Solar Market Insight on second quarter 2018 solar deployment from Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) projects a flat 2018 for solar as a whole, as per this September GTM article. Solar installation levels across all sectors fell to 2.3 GW in the second quarter, a 9 percent decrease year-over-year and a 7 percent decline versus the first quarter.
Six months later: Are the Trump tariffs damaging the U.S. solar industry?
Imported solar panel tariffs imposed by the Trump administration six months ago have done little to dampen the booming solar market in the United States, according to this August InsideClimate News report. Company executives and industry analysts say that the much feared tariff effects—higher installation costs, depressed demand, and thousands of job losses—have largely been offset by other factors.
With prices falling an average of 74 percent since 2009, this August GTM Research analysis asks the question “Is there an end to the market’s crazy-low prices?” While none of the recent record-low bid projects below $30 per megawatt-hour will come online until 2019 and 2022, the report predicts that by 2022 awarded prices in the best markets as low as $14 per megawatt-hour will become old news.
This late July report from Reuters provides further evidence that the steep decline in global solar module prices is offsetting the 30 percent tariff imposed on imported silicon solar panels. SunPower CEO Tom Werner noted in an interview, “If you are building a large power plant your pricing has certainly come back at least halfway to what it was pre-tariff if not all the way. It’s muting the impact of tariffs.”
In late June, the Internal Revenue Service published a notice that extends the ITC for solar projects that “begin construction” prior to 2020. This ruling, explains Utility Dive, effectively extends the time a 30% ITC project can be placed in service by years, since the ITC begins to step down in 2020. Solar financiers have explicitly stated these solar power tax benefits are driving their decision-making.
Just a couple of weeks ago in early June, Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicted module prices would decline 34 percent by year end (see article below) due to an oversupply glut. Even in the United States, burdened with 30 percent duties on imported modules, prices have fallen 5-10% just in the last month according to a source quoted in this pv magazine article.
NV Energy has signed a 25-year contract for 2.376¢/kWh for the output of a 300 MW solar power plant, according to this June pv magazine report. This represents a new record for the lowest price for solar power in the United States. Analysts have estimated that Austin Energy may have negotiated a solar agreement as low as 2.1¢/kWh in December, but that contract has not been made public.
What does China’s subsidy pullback mean for U.S. solar?
A flood of cheap imported solar panels is likely to partially offset the effect of the Section 201 duties, according to this June pv magazine article. It may also mean the revival of projects with marginal economics and could lead to module supply contracts being renegotiated. One analyst sees U.S. module prices falling to the high 30-cent per watt range, including the tariff cost, returning prices to the early 2017 level, a year before the tariffs took effect.
Are proposed DOE subsidies opioids for the coal industry?
Solar Reflector contributor Joshua Rhodes likens the latest Department of Energy subsidy proposal to “opioids for the coal industry,” according to this June article in Forbes. Grid operators have already decried the proposal as not in the interest of free markets and it will likely raise power prices for consumers without improving grid reliability. But the potential human costs are even more disturbing.
Following the abrupt withdrawal of government support for the nation’s solar deployment, BNEF predicts multicrystalline solar module prices will fall 34% in China this year due to an oversupply glut. Since China is by far the world’s largest solar market, lower prices are expected to spread globally. This June pv magazine article suggests the impact on the U.S. market is less clear, but lower U.S. module prices would spur additional utility-scale project development, which has been hindered by tariffs on imported modules.
The Energy Information Administration has released its latest Electric Power Monthly Update, which shows solar power generation up 33 percent in Q1 of 2018 over Q1 2017. Since the increase in generation is more than the increase in capacity, pv magazine suggests in this May article that solar projects are generating more electricity per watt of installed capacity due to increased use of single-axis tracking.
California residential solar headed towards $1/W and 2.5¢/kWh on new residential construction
As a result of the state’s new 2019 Building Energy Code requiring solar power to be installed at time of construction on all newly built homes, this May pv magazine article lays out the case for why this move by California can revolutionize residential solar in our country. Compared to a solar retrofit, the mandate can eliminate more than half the cost of a residential system, lowering the cost to $1.12 per watt.
Energy in transition: Solar and wind dominate electric power capacity additions in Q1 2018
Although there can be significant variations in installation levels of any resource from quarter to quarter, 94 percent of new U.S. utility-scale capacity installed in Q1 was wind and solar. This May pv magazine article on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s monthly Energy Infrastructure Update spotlights the U.S. energy transition to renewables, while new natural gas capacity barely made a showing.
U.S. solar tax benefits fell from just over $2 billion in 2013 to just over $1 billion in 2016
In this May article, pv magazine highlights a new report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) showing the cost to incentivize the massive volumes of solar power being installed is falling aggressively. Between 2013 and 2016, installed solar capacity almost tripled while the cost in tax incentives for those projects fell by almost 50 percent.
U.S. community solar capacity more than doubles in 2017
Despite all the buzz around community solar, the development of this segment has been slow. However, an early-May report by the Smart Electric Power Association (SEPA) shows community solar taking off in 2017. During 2017, pv magazine reports that 387 MW of community solar projects were installed, more than doubling the cumulative 36-state capacity deployed to date.
Solar panel imports into the United States crash in January and February of 2018
A late-April report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that after a ramp up in mid-2017, monthly PV module imports crashed in January and February, pv magazine reports. In apparent tariff-induced behavior, the last six months of 2017 averaged more than a gigawatt of imports per month, while January and February averaged just over 500 MW of volume.
First Solar to build the largest plant in the western hemisphere, 1.2 GW, in Ohio
First Solar dropped a bombshell just before its quarterly results call, reporting that it will build a new thin film solar factory in Ohio. The factory and its 500 workers will have the capacity to produce 1.2 GW of the company’s large-format Series 6 modules, according to this April pv magazine article.
The Solar Energy Industries Association’s annual report on corporate adoption of on-site solar, Solar Means Business, shows that Target remains the cumulative on-site PV capacity leader with 43 MW added last year. This April pv magazine article also notes that Swedish retailer IKEA had solar installed on the highest percentage of its U.S. facilities, 90 percent, while no other company had reached 40 percent.
SunPower has agreed to acquire a 100% stake in SolarWorld Americas, based in Hillsboro, Oregon
Three weeks after SunPower CEO Tom Werner told Bloomberg and Reuters that his company was exploring locations to site U.S. manufacturing, the company revealed that this production will actually be the factory of its bitter foe in the Section 201 trade case, SolarWorld. This April pv magazine article says SunPower will inject fresh capital into the factory and make its P-Series shingled solar panels as well as SolarWorld’s legacy products.
Is it time to plan for solar panel recycling in the United States?
In about 30 years, a wave of 35.3 million panels may reach the end of their lifespans, not counting the hundreds of millions of panels that flooded the U.S. market in the last decade that may need to be disposed of sooner. What to do with this future solar waste has been bothering many in the industry, as this April Solar Power World article reports.
An analysis sample of 61% of all U.S. residential solar systems has found that the median income of single-family household PV adopters is $13,000 per year higher than the median of all owner-occupied households ($32,000 higher than all households), but the median income of adopters is on a downward trend. This pv magazine article cites an April NREL study which shows the median income of solar households fell from $100,000 in 2010 to $87,000 in 2016.
Shrugging off tariffs, the U.S. solar industry is looking for a path toward future growth according to analysts at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit in New York. This April Platts article says about two-thirds of the companies queried by online solar marketplace EnergySage said they would “absorb all or most of the tariffs” and it appears there is a stockpile of inventory building up and an oversupply situation could lead to solar panel prices quickly coming down.
Utilities have struggled with stagnant load for years, but EIA says last year’s 2 percent drop in retail sales was due to mild weather. Sales in 2017 were 3,682 billion kWh according to this April Utility Dive article. The agency said energy efficiency played a role, but it stressed most of the decline last year came from weather-related factors and sales were roughly the same as over a decade before.
In contrast to its neighbor to the east, PJM, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) does not see a looming reliability crisis as uneconomic coal and nuclear plants phase-out, the Energy News Network reports in April. MISO has generally been less alarmed about renewables’ impact on grid resiliency than other grid operators, and at least one study appears to support its view.
Solar job census indicates the industry lost just under 10,000 U.S. jobs in 2017 versus 2016
Detailed solar industry employment, now broken down by congressional district, was presented in the Solar Foundation’s annual National Solar Jobs Census for 2017, pv magazine reports in this March article. Although almost 10,000 jobs were lost in 2017, the Solar Foundation projects 2018 will see an increase in solar jobs – replacing all of the positions lost in 2017, plus a few thousand more.
10.6 GW of solar photovoltaics were installed across the U.S. in 2017, down from 15 GW in 2016
Following a strong year in 2016, residential and utility-scale solar installations declined last year for the first time since 2010. The solar industry installed 10.6 GW in 2017, down 30 percent from 15 GW in 2016, according to a March report by GTM Research and the SEIA. Solar installations decreased by 3 percent in Texas in 2017, a much smaller drop than the industry experienced nationally.
U.S. solar PV electricity generation rises 43.4% in 2017 while fossil-fuel generation contracts
Solar power grew to just over 1.9 percent of all electricity generated in the United States in 2017, while total electricity generation fell 1.5 percent versus 2016, as reported by pv magazine in February. No source of power is growing as quickly as solar, according to the Energy Information Administration.
National census reveals 9,800 solar job losses in 2017
This February report from GTM Research on The Solar Foundation’s latest National Solar Jobs Census shows that between 2016 and 2017 the industry lost 9,800 jobs. Marking the first drop ever recorded in the census since it started collecting data in 2010, it projects employment will pick back up in 2018. Detailed job data by county, metro area, and congressional district will be released soon.
U.S. solar installations estimated at 11.8 GW in 2017, a 22% decline from 2016 levels
With nearly 4 GW installed in the fourth quarter, this February pv magazine articles reports that GTM Research estimates 11.8 GW were installed in the full year 2017, reaching 54.5 GW cumulative capacity. Solar prices fell 3-11% from Q3 2016 to Q3 2017, which means the new 30% solar tariff will push prices back 18 months.
Rapid cost declines made wind and solar the cheapest forms of new energy in 2017, despite Trump Administration actions to improve fossil fuel economics and reduce renewable energy competitiveness. This January Forbes article cites updated levelized cost of energy data that shows clean energy continues to beat fossil fuels on economics, at a faster pace and in more locations than ever before.
Why the U.S. government consistently underestimates the global growth of renewable energy
When the official numbers we rely on are wrong, the whole story can be wrong. This January article in The Hill suggests that is what appears to be happening with forecasts from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). With both solar and wind power nearing two crucial tipping points, the EIA must correct their serious blind spots, implausible assumptions, and errant renewable energy outlooks of the past.
Trump issues 30 percent tariffs on imported crystalline silicon (cSi) photovoltaic modules and cells
Targeting imports from Chinese manufacturers, President Trump imposed 30 percent tariffs on all cSi imports. The tariffs will decline in 5 percent increments over a four-year span, ending at 15 percent by 2022. In a concession to U.S. companies who assemble imported solar cells into modules, the first 2.5 gigawatts of cell imports each year are exempt. GTM Research estimated that a 30 percent tariff pencils out to roughly 10¢ – 15¢ per watt, which could reduce utility-scale solar installations by 9% according to this January Utility Dive article.
FERC unanimously rejects Department of Energy proposal to subsidize coal and nuclear plants
In a long awaited ruling, the five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission unanimously voted down Secretary Rick Perry’s plan to provide cost recovery for plants with onsite fuel supplies, according to Utility Dive. The January decision notably rejected calls from coal and nuclear plant operators to enact short-term support for struggling power plants, instead turning to regional grid operators to assess how best to enhance the resilience of the power system.
FERC sees 20.6 GW of coal capacity retiring and 115.5 GW of new wind and solar by 2020
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has released its November 2017 Energy Infrastructure Outlook which paints a picture of a generation mix in flux, according to this January Utility Dive article. It is unclear how the findings will factor into FERC’s upcoming decision on the Department of Energy’s controversial proposed rulemaking for coal and nuclear supports.