During President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address last night, he touted the historic growth of clean energy in America and how solar is leading the way to a future that is powered by 21st century technologies.

Since he took office in 2009, the cost of solar energy has dropped by more than 70 percent, there’s 30 times the amount of solar generation and the U.S. solar energy industry has created 173,000 American jobs.

Listen, seven years ago, we made the single biggest investment in clean energy in our history. Here are the results. In fields from Iowa to Texas, wind power is now cheaper than dirtier, conventional power. On rooftops from Arizona to New York, solar is saving Americans tens of millions of dollars a year on their energy bills, and employs more Americans than coal -- in jobs that pay better than average. We’re taking steps to give homeowners the freedom to generate and store their own energy -- something, by the way, that environmentalists and Tea Partiers have teamed up to support ...  Now we’ve got to accelerate the transition away from old, dirtier energy sources. Rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future -- especially in communities that rely on fossil fuels. 

The Obama administration will leave a strong legacy of championing clean energy. Come 2017, solar energy growth will continue because it is affordable, improves the air we breathe and creates strong American jobs

Over the next 12 months, solar companies expect to hire a total of 30,000 new people into the solar workforce, 13 times the projected 1.1 percent increase in employment in the overall U.S. economy over the same period. These workers will help solar quadruple in size from just more than 24 gigawatts (GW) today to nearly 100 (GW) of total capacity by the end of 2020.

With this historic growth, solar will make America a world leader in clean energy.As an industry, SEIA looks forward to carrying out President Obama’s vision for solar development during his final year in office and well beyond.

Check out some of last night's chatter around the #SOTU on Twitter below: