Dec 8 2009
U.S utility photovoltaic (PV) market has surged high in the past 18 months despite recession and slowdown in the energy sector investments. At present only 77 MW of utility-driven PV projects are operating. More than 4.8 GW of utility-scale PV projects are in the pipeline as announced by U.S. utilities. According to the study conducted by Emerging Energy Research, the U.S utilities will play a key role in the solar PV market.
Four main factors are responsible for ramping up the solar energy generation and adopting PV technology by U.S. utilities as per the study: substantial reduction in costs in the PV sector; regulatory pressures at the national and state levels; unstable fossil fuel prices and carbon-di-oxide emission concerns; and PV’s can be located at any site thus allowing utilities adopt different strategies. U.S. utilities will be generating an additional 21.5 GW of power through solar PV between 2009 and 2020 according to the EER study. Between 2011 and 2015, the U.S. PV market surge ahead from 2 GW in the year 2011 to 12 GW in the year 2015 mainly led by utilities. This is more than 460% increase.
Reese Tisdale, EER Solar Research Director, said that PV technology allows the utilities to be installed by them at any location and scaling, unlike other centralized energy generation technologies such as wind, concentrated solar power, natural gas, and geothermal. Reese Tisdale added that utilities will be leading the PV market even if the market in the residential, commercial, and centralized segments declines.
Source: http://www.emerging-energy.com/