Solar Industry Posts Strong Growth in 2008

Solar Industry Posts Strong Growth in 2008
Amanda Worley
March 20, 2009
4:04 pm

News from Kate Galbraith on NY Times, March 19, 2009

After seeing the solar industry boom by 17 percent in 2008, supporters are apprehensive by the hard hit the financial crisis brought. Rhone Resch, the president of Solar Energy Industries Association said briefly to journalists, “We’re not immune to the recession at all. This first quarter has been brutal.” Growing 44 percent over total installed capacity through 2007, photovoltaic capacity had shown potential as a major energy source. Solar pool heating, already the largest solar sector, added slightly less capacity last year.

The industry got an enormous boost from provisions in last year’s bailout bill and also this year’s stimulus, which, according to Mr. Resch, contained 19 different provisions for aiding solar power. The hope is that Congress would soon pass more policies to help the industry, in particular, a national renewable electricity standard, which would require the country to get a certain percentage of its electricity from renewable power, and set a deadline for doing so. Close to a dozen states currently have a “solar carve-out” policy, which requires a certain percentage of renewable resources to come from solar, written in their state-level renewable standard policies.
The solar industry hopes for this carve-out because their product remains one of the most expensive forms of renewable energy. Producing power from photovoltaic panels can cost three times as much as producing electricity from the wind.
It’s upsetting to me that solar costs three times as much as other resources, but I hope that won’t turn people against it. Since not all renewable resources are at the same level of maturity and potential, one can expect the cost to vary. Solar costs more, but is the largest potential resource by two times magnitude. So supporting it while it reduces cost is very valuable to all of us. We learned that ethanol from corn is not as good as we hoped, and we will learn that wind blows more at night and is less valuable right now than more costly solar during the time when we want more electricity, during the day and in summer. As we move toward a CO2 free, sensible energy infrastructure, we will see the strides made, were well worth the cost.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/solar-industry-posts-strong-growth-in-2008/#more-3019