In 2010, we will cross the threshold of 10 gigawatts of
photovoltaic solar installed globally in a single year -- a
record-setting and once-inconceivable number.
Rewind to ten years ago: the total amount of photovoltaics
installed in the year 2000 was 170 megawatts. Since then, the solar
photovoltaic industry has grown at a 51 percent annual growth rate,
and 170 megawatts is now the size of a healthy utility installation
or a small solar factory. As Andrew Beebe mentions below, Suntech
has a single building with a one-gigawatt capacity.
Photovoltaic module pricing has made radical progress, as well,
moving from $300 per watt in 1956, to $50 per watt in the 1970s, to
$10 per watt in the 1990s, to $2 per watt today. It's not exactly
Moore's law, but it is that drop in pricing, chicken-or-egg with
policy and technology, that is driving this industry. Pricing of $1
per watt is not that far off.
Ten gigawatts is a significant milestone for the PV industry, but
it warrants some perspective:
- That's the total power that five or six nuclear power plants
generate -- and there are about one hundred nuclear plants in
the U.S alone.
- The
wind industry installed 27 gigawatts in 2008,
38 gigawatts in 2009 and has a total installed base of more
than 158 gigawatts compared to PV's installed base of about 20
gigawatts. 2010 will see more than 200 gigawatts of installed
wind and the Global Wind Energy Council expects that to double
to 400 gigawatts by the end of 2014.
A few more points about today's PV market: From a demand
standpoint, it's healthier, with less reliance on "savior" markets
and feed-in tariff hot spots. Note the diminishing reliance on
Germany as solar savior in the chart below and get many more details
in
Shayle Kann's recent PV demand analysis.
From a supply standpoint, the market is less healthy --
over-supplied and ripe for consolidation.
Still, the 10-gigawatt-PV-installed mark will occur, barring
disaster, sometime in October. Our calculations put it at 2:15 PM
on October 13. It's a milestone worth noting and a stepping stone,
as Jeff Wolfe notes below, on the way to 100 gigawatts installed in
2020.
Here are some reflections on the achievement from some of the
technologists, entrepreneurs and investors making it happen:
Steven Strong, President
Solar Design
Associates
My first ‘big opportunity’ out of engineering school in 1973 was
landing a job working for the oil companies as an engineer on the
Alaskan pipeline. In early October (of 1973), the Arab / Israeli
“Yom Kippur” war broke out and, within days, precipitated the first
world oil embargo. The Western world was broadsided and convulsed
with the stark realization of how dependent we were on OPEC oil. At
that time, the U.S. imported ~15% of its oil -- today that figure is
~70%.
The very next week, as the war raged on and gasoline lines grew in
every Western city, the scientists, engineers and researchers who
had perfected photovoltaics for space-based power systems came
together in Cherry Hill, New Jersey to begin to explore how this
life-affirming technology could be used for terrestrial electric
power. This first world colloquium on “Photovoltaic Conversion of
Solar Energy for Terrestrial Applications” was planned for months
and just happened to take place as the world was gripped by the
first OPEC oil embargo.
The convergence of these two events was an epiphany for me as the
stark contract of these two energy sources and the future they
portended became clear: Clean, Inexhaustible, Free, Life-Affirming
v. Polluting, Finite, Costly and a Devil’s Bargain. I could not
stop thinking about it. The prospect, however nascent, of
leveraging my engineering skills to build a career in solar energy
became increasingly compelling.
As the world price of oil skyrocketed from $3/bbl to over $12,
ALYESKA (the pipeline consortium) furiously threw money at the
design and construction effort. The pipeline was attractive at $3/
bbl and now ‘their’ Alaskan oil would fetch over four times that
amount! It was a heady time in Alaska -- greed stoked with
patriotism marshaled a military-like campaign to Get the Pipeline
Done and get “our oil to market.” With unlimited overtime and
performance bonuses, our weekly pay exceeded most people’s regular
monthly salaries.
Was going to the end of the earth to extract the last of the
fossil fuels the best use of my budding skill set? Despite the
bonanza, I resigned from my pipeline position and, not really
knowing any better, founded Solar Design Associates in the spring of
1974 to offer design services in energy-autonomous buildings and the
engineering and integration of the renewable energy systems to power
them. About this same time, Dr. Joseph Lindmeyer was founding
Solarex -- one of the first U.S. PV companies. Crystalline PV was <
$30 / Wp, and the Japanese government inaugurated their “Project
Sunshine,” a high-level, coordinated, 25-year program with the goal
of commercializing PV for widespread, cost-competitive terrestrial
use by the year 2000.
In 1975, the U.S. government authorized NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) and their Lewis Research Center (LeRC) to pursue a
major development program for terrestrial PV, Bill Yerkes launched
Solar Technology International, and Ishaq Shahryar founded Solec
International. Tyco labs grew crystalline EFG ribbon and Exxon
expanded operations at Solar Power Corp. By 1977, PV modules had
come down into the $20 / Wp range and total annual PV production
exceeded 500 kWp worldwide, which was heralded as a major milestone.
In 1978, we designed and fielded the world’s very first
utility-interactive PV system (outside the fence of the government
labs) -- a 5 kWp system here in Quincy, MA that was used to power
the pumps and controls of a 7,500 sq.ft. solar thermal system -- and
went on to design and constructed the world’s very first zero-net
energy, solar-powered, utility-interactive residence here in
Carlisle, MA in 1979. The rest, as they say, is history.
Julia Hamm
President & CEO
Solar
Electric Power Association
It's hard to believe that I've been involved with the solar industry
for 11 years now. What makes me a veteran in the solar realm still
leaves me as a newcomer to the larger electric industry. But in
those years, I've seen the U.S. solar market blossom and believe we
are just now on the verge of the true mainstreaming of PV.
When I first started working with electric utilities back in 1999,
the topic of solar almost never reached the executive level. Today,
many large utilities across the U.S. have a Vice President of
Renewables, and solar is an important part of their energy supply
strategy for the near- and long-term. Solar is now a frequent topic
of discussion in the utility boardroom and office of the CEO. PG&E,
a single utility, has already announced plans for more than 1.5 GW
of utility-side meter PV projects to come online between now and
2016. That does not take into account other future large-scale
project plans yet to be announced and the significant amount of PV
that will continue to be integrated into PG&E's grid by its
customers. Most exciting about what is now happening is that it's
no longer only California utilities that are recognizing the value
and importance of PV. Utilities from New York to Oregon to Hawaii
are preparing for PV to represent a significant portion of their
energy supply in the not-too-distant future. To successfully
integrate a high penetration of this intermittent resource will
require utilities to alter the status quo when it comes to business,
technical, and regulatory matters, but they are stepping up to the
plate to prepare for this challenge.
Historically in the U.S., the relationship between the utility and
solar industries has been an adversarial one, but today that is
changing. In order for PV to make a significant contribution to the
world's -- and the nation's -- CO2 reduction challenge, the actions
of homeowners and business owners alone installing rooftop solar
won't get us there fast enough. Utilities are the key to wide-scale
installation and integration of significant levels of solar
electricity on both the small-distributed-rooftop scale and the
large-central-station-power-plant scale.
Barry Cinnamon, CEO
Akeena Solar
In 1985, according to Doc Brown in Back to the Future,
you needed a nuclear reactor to generate 1.21 gigawatts (pronounced
"jiggawatts").
So what's changed since then, or since 2001, when I got back into
solar?
1. Except for First Solar's success with thin film for large ground
mounts, the basic technology hasn't changed. Crystalline panels
were working in 1985, and are still working great now. It's an
evolution of technology, not a revolution. I expect forms of
crystalline panels to continue to dominate the market --
particularly for Distributed Generation.
2. Now that prices for panels have come down and are no longer the
biggest cost factor, increased attention is being paid to
installation costs. There are enormous improvements that can be
made in this area (such as our Westinghouse panels) -- and in the
amount of paperwork that is required. It's a hell of a lot easier
to save $0.20 per watt on installation/paperwork costs than to
reduce panel costs by the same amount.
3. In the words of George Westinghouse, AC is better than DC. To
keep the metaphor going, it's Back to the Future, with AC panels
becoming the dominant technology for rooftop solar -- for both cost
and safety reasons. No more High Voltage!
4. Incentives. I've never met an incentive I didn't like -- as long
as it got traction in the market. The Federal ITC and California
rebate programs are the two most successful incentives in the U.S.
Other states have tried programs, but their lack of consistency has
resulted in a damaging series of starts and stops. So far, here in
the U.S., we've been too chicken to establish a long term feed-in
tariff that will actually works. Germany did it, Ontario is doing
it -- but when we try, we set the FIT at a level that is either too
low to gain traction (like in California) or we create a program
that is hobbled by inadequate funds (e.g., Gainesville, Fla.).
5. Obviously, I'm a fan of branding -- especially when the
underlying product is a commodity. Just about anyone can make a
cheap, tasty soda, but unless it's called Coke or Pepsi, it's a
struggle to get people to buy it.
Ron Kenedi, Vice President
Sharp Solar Energy Solutions Group
Thirty years ago, the solar industry was a pre-niche market -- a
gleam in peoples’ eyes.
It was a market borne of absolute necessity, primarily for use in
remote areas or for the space program. There were experimenters and
folks who were working off-grid who wanted to use the technology.
And a few survivalists, as well -- solar was a technology that could
help them live remotely.
My first customers in solar were industries that needed solar for
remote applications like off-grid living and working. This included
ranching and industrial applications such as monitoring and
telemetry of oil platforms and gas flows; lighting, call boxes,
signage, water pumping, village power and water delivery. Solar was
also used in recreation, to help power RVs and boats. And today,
many of those original applications are still going strong.
Back then, we didn’t even contemplate the concept of 10 gigawatts.
Solar modules were 50 or fewer watts, and arrays were about 2 or 3
modules. Every thing was so much smaller.
Including the paychecks.
I remember when my business passed the $1 million mark.
Interestingly, a lot of those people who were working in the solar
business decades ago are still in the solar business. That’s a
credit not only to the technology, but to the commitment of the
people in this business. The original believers. People who were
drawn to solar because of their lifestyle and their system of
beliefs.
Everything was a lot smaller at the outset; there were very few
people were working in solar, and everyone knew each other. Today,
as opposed to the beginning, we have a gigantic industry with growth
that’s got no end in sight. We now have a lot of people in the
business who want to make their mark in this industry. People who
want to see science in action, further their careers -- and make
money.
The uses of solar are quickly evolving. We’re seeing tremendous
growth in grid applications. Solar is now powering homes and
businesses -- and now it’s providing technology for power plants.
Julia Curtis, Director, Business Strategy and Government
Relations for Solar at
BP
Solar needs to be more than a small but bright glimmer in our
energy mix. Milestones are important, and the U.S. is still behind
other countries for solar installations: the United States should
achieve 10 gigawatts of installed solar by 2015, and given the solar
resources and energy needs of the U.S., this is an achievable goal.
The U.S. solar market lacks the level of political consistency that
is necessary, and with the Treasury Grant Program set to expire at
the end of this year, there is a push to meet the start-construction
deadline of December 31, 2010. However, extending this deadline is
critical to reaching the 10 GW goal, and will help create jobs in
this rough economy. It is through one united voice that solar PV can
reach this goal, and begin to take on a significant portion of
America's growing energy demand. As with all energy sources,
government policy and incentives are critical to growing the market.
Solar energy clearly provides clean, reliable energy -- so why can't
we do a lot more?
Both China and India made headlines with solar projects in 2009,
including BP joint venture manufacturing plants to help expand their
solar power capacities to 20,000 megawatts by 2020. However, the
largest area of job creation in the energy sector is through the
installation of distributed generation solar. It will take policies
like net metering, interconnection standards, financing programs
like PACE and other state and federal clean energy leading programs,
and feed-in tariffs to meet this goal. We need bigger goals,and
long-term, consistent policies to help hedge against volatile and
increasing energy prices, creating more energy independence.
Paul Maycock, PV Energy Systems, solar pioneer with 40 years in
the industry
In 1995, I forecast 8 to 10 megawatts in 2010 with an average
price of $2.00 per watt. The sad part is that the world market is 90
percent subsidized, especially in Germany. The real milestone will
be when we reach installed costs of $2.00 per watt. This will result
in "grid parity," where PV with net metering is equal in cost to
retail price in many of the markets of the world (though probably
not in Germany). I forecast this will happen in 2015, especially by
First Solar.
See Part 1 of this series
here.