As we mentioned on Friday’s post, the information from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s most recent annual report has the solar community quite excited, for many reasons. Today we want to continue to share the major information provided in the study and the responses it has received from an important voice in the solar industry.

The solar report’s major points can be summed up as, ‘solar is booming and the costs are coming down.’ However, more specifically, there are four major points to take from the report. Vote Solar summarizes these points as:

• The cost of going solar fell significantly for consumers over the past 18 months. The average pre-incentive cost of residential and commercial solar PV systems decreased 17 percent in 2010, the most significant annual reductions since Lawrence Berkeley National Lab began tracking data. Costs declined another 11 percent in the first half of 2011.
• Market-building policies are effectively driving costs down. Reductions in the costs of installation labor, balance of systems, overhead and other non-module costs fell 18 percent from 2009 to 2010. This is significant because, unlike module costs, which are largely determined by the global market, non-module costs are most readily impacted by state and federal policies that accelerate deployment and remove market barriers.
• U.S. solar incentives are delivering an increasing return on investment.  As a result of lower per watt costs, the average size of direct cash incentives from states and utilities as well as dollar-per-watt value of the federal tax incentive have both steadily decreased since their peak.
• Increased market scale would likely achieve additional near-term cost reductions. The average installed cost of small residential PV installations in 2010 was significantly lower in Germany ($4.2/W) than in the United States ($6.9/W), where cumulative grid-connected PV capacity in the two countries through 2010 totaled roughly 17,000 MW and 2,100 MW, respectively.

Not only are all these things promising, but they could change things even quicker than we think. As Carrie Hunt, president of Solar Alliance, states: “Solar is ready to play a significant role in our nation’s energy economy. It’s reliable, it’s scalable, it’s safe, and now we’re seeing that it’s cost-competitive with conventional electricity resources in many parts of the country. The American solar industry has achieved these tremendous cost reductions and economic benefits while still supplying less than 1 percent of our national energy mix. Just imagine what the coming years could have in store if theU.S. solar market is allowed to continue its robust growth.”

Many other players in the industry have said similar things in response to the report. Everyone, within the community, seems to agree that the report means solar is now a big player in the new energy economy due to innovation and the benefits of clean energy.

Key Information from Lawrence Berkeley Nation Lab’s Annual Solar Report is a post from: Boots On The Roof

Google continues to make headlines with its green energy initiatives. Lately it’s been about the various wind projects in which Google is investing. Then there was the nearly $200 million solar plant in the Mojave Desert. Now  it’s being reported that Google is going to invest $280 million toward home solar projects.

Google’s plan is to create a fund that will finance solar installations nationwide.  SolarCity will apparently reap the benefits of said renewable energy fund, having formed a partnership with the Internet giant.

“This is our largest clean energy project investment to date and brings our total invested in the clean energy sector to more than $680 million,” said Rick Needham, Google’s director of green business operations. “We continue to look for other renewable energy investments that make business sense and help develop and deploy cleaner sources of energy,” wrote Needham.

And here’s a little company benefit that I’d like to see more companies offer; part of that partnership with SolarCity offers Google employees a discount on a home solar package.  

Google has been in the news a lot lately, what with their multi-MULTI-million dollar investments in wind farms from Oregon to New Jersey.

“Energy drives our businesses, and we want our energy to be clean,” said Needham. “Over time renewable energy will be cheaper than fossil fuel. We’re doing what we can to make that happen faster.”

Sources:

Yahoo News

CNN

Google Investing In Home Solar is a post from: Boots On The Roof