Report: U.S. Solar Market is Thriving

[jpak]

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/pbull/report_us_solar_market_is_thri.html

Solar is hot. With a foundation of consistent, long-term deployment policies at both the federal and state levels, solar PV in the U.S. is leading an unparalleled price decline on the strength of enduring high demand from U.S. consumers.

This and many other observations on the state of the solar market and industry in the U.S. can be found in the sixth release of the Dept. of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab's (LBNL) annual report on the state of the U.S. solar industry, Tracking the Sun VI: An Historical Summary of the Installed Price of Photovoltaics in the United States from 1998 to 2012.

Key takeaways from this year's report include:

Solar module price declines are the biggest contributor to the overall installed cost drop from 2008 to 2012.
International comparison of the U.S. to other countries with similarly sized solar portfolios shows that there is substantial room for non-module price declines in the U.S.
Solar incentive programs at the state level on the whole have performed well: tracking price declines, maintaining project size diversity, and fostering sufficient developer competition.
However, installed costs of solar still varied greatly from state-to-state, showing that different state-level policy drivers can have a big impact on state and local markets and costs.

Telling the story in 5 figures:

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[diane in sf]

1. I like the trend of that graph!

[cprise]

2. Its an odd thing

All this cheerleading at US solar growing from a tiny speck to something like a pebble. US demand is still quite low and all one has to do is look at the rooftops around them to realize it.