Share This
 |
| Cheap Solar Panels |
Many investors will no doubt look to U.S. solar industry, especially
after the encouraging results in 2009, which showed that U.S. solar
industry, even despite the recession, still managed to come up with more
than respectable 37% growth. This equals to around 17,000 new jobs in
U.S. solar industry, and this year is expected to be even better, with
many big time players in solar industry already describing this year as
the "breakout year".
The main contributor behind this growth were federal and state
incentives coupled with significant drop in solar panel prices (30-40%
lower prices). Without these incentives solar industry would really be
helpless on domestic energy market because it still lacks
cost-competitiveness with fossil fuels (for instance solar energy is
still in average six times more expensive than the coal, which is the
cheapest fossil fuel).
But not everything is rosy, and the main problem of U.S. solar
industry still remains manufacturing solar energy technologies. Although
the official data will show that domestic manufacturing achieved a 7%
growth last year, this is nowhere near enough to compete with China,
that convincingly leads the way as the world's largest solar panel
manufacturer.
Not only that U.S. is far behind China but is also behind Europe, and
even Japan, as U.S. is current share in manufacturing equals only to 7%
of the global market. This is the segment where U.S. solar industry
will have to put the most efforts to compete on global level. This was
likely the biggest reason why number of US businesses turning to solar
power was 2% down in 2009 when compared to 2008, with 207MW of new
installations compared to 211MW in 2008.
Still, overall looking, the future U.S. solar energy prospect looks
very good, and the demand for solar power is growing at very high rate.
This is mostly because there was significant drop in solar panel prices,
and if we are to believe the latest predictions the solar panels prices
will continue to fall, thus becoming acceptable energy option for much
more people.
If we look at the data by U.S states then we can see that California
continues its dominance in solar power installations by adding 220MW of
new solar power capacity in 2009. California still accounts for around
two thirds of all American solar generating capacity 1,102MW of total
output but is good to see that solar power is also becoming popular
clean energy option in other states like New Jersey, Arizona, Florida
and Colorado.
U.S. solar power sector should definitely look forward to very bright
future, but along the way U.S. solar industry still needs to solve some
rather important issues, mostly how to better compete with China in
manufacturing solar power technologies.