POWER June 2021 - 20

SOLAR POWER
Positive Signs Support
Solar Sector
Government support, lower costs, and technology advancements are among the
bright spots as rapid growth continues.
Darrell Proctor
S
olar power has long been part of
the global push for renewable energy,
and power industry analysts
say it may only have scratched the surface
of its potential. Solar led all power
sources in terms of added generation
capacity in 2020; a March report from
the Solar Energy Industries Association
(SEIA) says the U.S. added a record 19.2
GW of new capacity last year, a 43% increase
from 2019. The group said utilityscale
installations in 2020 experienced a
65% increase from 2019.
The story is much the same worldwide.
Analysts predict 20% growth in
China this year, as much as 30% growth
in the U.S., and have said India, Latin
America, and the Middle East all could
see as much as a 60% increase in solar
deployment in 2021.
U.S. solar installations are expected to
quadruple from current levels by 2030,
according to the SEIA report. The group
said the U.S. today has more than 97
GW of installed solar power generation
capacity. SEIA said that in the last three
months of 2020, the U.S. installed just
more than 8 GW of new generation capacity,
a record for any quarter, and more
than all the capacity-7.5 GW-added in
2015. And U.S. growth, certainly at least
in the next few years, will be supported
by new tax credits and subsidy incentives
from the federal government.
" The American Jobs Act (AJA) proposes
approximately $2 trillion for infrastructure
and climate change, " said Mike
Bammel, managing director at JLL, which
provides advisory and capital structuring
services for renewable energy developers.
" Although the AJA must go through
the legislative process, it is encouraging
for the solar power sector. The federal
government can use its purchasing power
to drive innovation and clean energy,
which in part would target rehabilitating
and retrofitting schools, veterans' hospitals,
and federal buildings, for example. "
The recent two-year extension of the
federal investment tax credit (ITC) for
solar projects is expected to support
20
1. Commercial and industrial facilities are increasingly producing their own power, often
from solar. Distributed Solar Development (DSD) designed and installed this rooftop array at
City Center Bishop Ranch, a shopping center in San Ramon, California. The solar installation
at the site produced about 2.15 GWh of electricity in the past year. DSD in late April said it
had broken ground on a solar-plus-storage installation at the nearby Bishop Ranch business
park. Courtesy: DSD
installations (Figure 1) at least through
2025, analysts have said. That ITC, coupled
with increasingly lower costs for
solar power, should help solar maintain
the top spot in terms of new electricity
generating capacity.
" Solar now has support across the political
spectrum, and 'solar installer' has
been one of the fastest-growing jobs in
many states over the past few years, "
said Billy Parish, CEO of Mosaic Solar, a
California solar financing company. " Currently,
only about 2% of homes have solar,
so we have decades of significant job
creation opportunity in solar construction
and installation. "
New Technologies
The rapid development of new technologies
has a major role in solar's expansion.
The use of perovskite, a crystal-based
mineral consisting of calcium titanium
oxide, could bring efficiency improvements;
the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory has confirmed perovskite can
convert more incident solar energy into
electricity than traditional silicon cells.
www.powermag.com
Research into molten salt, which can
transport heat in solar power systems, is
helping with solar efficiency and storage
capacity, while reducing costs.
The introduction of module-level power
electronics (MLPE) to inverter topology
has been an important innovation.
By moving functionality to the panel level,
this distributed inverter topology has
brought new value, providing more energy,
high-resolution monitoring, design
flexibility, and enhanced safety.
" Software will be the ultimate disDillon,
chief
rupter, " said James (JD)
marketing officer of Tigo Energy, a global
company that develops MLPE solutions
to enhance safety, increase energy production,
and decrease operating costs of
photovoltaic (PV) systems. " Beyond software,
storage technology must get better,
and fast. The demand is staggering
and there are far fewer competitors than
the inverter and panel space. "
Dillon told POWER " rapid improvements
in [storage] technology are required
to overcome the most logical
problem
with
solar-the
technology
POWER | June 2021

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POWER June 2021

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