Solar Growth Impressive

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Even in a recession, the solar energy industry grew strongly last year by 37 percent. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) recently released the 2009 U.S. Solar Industry Year in Review.

Overall U.S. solar electric capacity, including both photovoltaic and concentrating solar power installations, increased by 37 percent. This level of new capacity put the total above 2 gigawatts. This was driven primarily by strong demand in the residential and utility-scale markets, state and federal policy advances and declining technology prices. Solar industry revenue skyrocketed, too, reaching $4 billion, a 36 percent increase over 2008.

"Despite the Great Recession of 2009, the U.S. solar industry had a winning year and posted strong growth numbers," said Rhone Resch, SEIA president and CEO. "When the President looks back at how stimulus dollars were invested, he's going to see that solar was one of the best returns on investments in 2009 for the American taxpayers."

The industry also added 17,000 new jobs from coast to coast, bringing employment to 46,000 U.S. workers, with an additional 33,000 jobs in other sectors.

Photovoltaic, grid-tied installations grew by 38 percent with utilities tripling their rate of grid-tied PV capacity additions from 22 megawatts to 66 megawatts. The total utility-scale pipeline (across all solar technologies) reached 17 gigawatts. Residential capacity doubled from 78 megawatts to 156 megawatts.

Resch said he expects another strong year in 2010, with the industry starting to think in terms of gigawatts, not just megawatts. The utility market would be one reason why.

The concentrating solar power (CSP) sector had three new plants come online in 2009. Cumulative CSP capacity in the U.S. reached 432 megawatts with a development pipeline totaling more than 10,000 megawatts.

The United States, at 481 megawatts, ranked fourth in new solar electric capacity in 2009, behind Germany, at 3,000 megawatts, Italy, 700 megawatts, and Japan, 484 megawatts. The U.S. in cumulative capacity, 2,108 megawatts, also ranked in fourth place behind Germany, Spain and Japan.

With federal stimulus dollars still working their way through the system, growth might continue for at least through this year.

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