Solar Market Will Double This Year
Wednesday, Mar 09 2016
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By
Justin Baca
The U.S. solar energy market will grow a stunning 119 percent this year, says the U.S. Solar Market Insight Report 2015 Year in Review, which was released today. While 2015 yielded a historic 7.3 gigawatts (GW) of new photovoltaic (PV) capacity, the industry's hard-won extension of the solar investment tax credit (ITC) is expected to support more than 93 GW of additional PV capacity over the next six years.
In just the next two years alone, the amount of solar capacity that is projected to be installed in the U.S. is roughly the same amount that has been installed ever since the beginning of time to now.
These numbers will make PV the top contributor to new electricity generation capacity in 2016. Here is what else we can expect during the long-term ITC extension:
- By 2020, nearly 100 GW of solar capacity will be operating in the U.S.— enough to power 20 million homes and provide 3.5 percent of the nation’s electricity.
- Growth in the solar market over the next five years will lead to the addition of 220,000 jobs. By 2020 roughly 420,000 people will work in the U.S. solar industry.
- By 2020, the U.S. solar industry will complete $30 billion worth of installations annually— nearly double the value of installations in 2015, despite expectations of continued price declines.
At the end of 2015, roughly 960,000 homes in the U.S. had installed a solar PV system. We anticipate celebrating the millionth system before we release our next report.
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