The U.S.A. solar age

In 2006, solar power made up less than one per cent of the United States of America’s electricity generation. Today scientists report that by 2050 solar could mark an end to the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions. However, in order to understand how this means of green electricity generation currently exists within the U.S. and how, given its seemingly great potential, it has not been embraced more early on, our story goes back to 1993.

Solar basics: U.S. potential

Today the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) has set 2030 targets for 10-15 per cent of the nation’s total energy from solar power, but back in 1993 a report released by the department marked the beginning of truly appreciating quite how much potential the energy source had to offer. This report found that domestic solar resources, which for the purposes of this report were assumed economically viable, could offer 586,687 Quadrillion BTUs [British Thermal Units]. Although this did not necessarily lead to an immediate surge in harnessing solar—come 2007 energy obtained directly from sunlight still came in at less than 0.5 of the total nation’s energy produced—it did help to put solar on the radar. The year 2008 is really hailed as solar’s year of emergence, as it is in a number of other global locations, and marks the real beginning of solar power growth for the U.S..

A report titled the “2008 U.S. Solar Industry Year in Review” by the Solar Energy Industries Association claimed that solar capacity reached 8,775 megawatts, a 17 per cent growth, for 2007. A more recent report from Clean Edge, the researching company, and Co-op America, now claims that solar could meet 10 per cent of the U.S. energy needs by 2025— spread out with two per cent stemming from concentrated solar power facilities (CSP) and eight per cent from photovoltaic’s (PV). In part, this estimation is down to the U.S.’s background in solar technology which, despite perceivable lacking in utilising it, has seen the nation develop some of the leading technologies and facilities we know well today.

America’s role in solar development

Two solar technologies which have a particular history in the U.S. are parabolic trough and solar tower facilities. The oldest solar power plant in the world is actually the SEGS thermal power plant in California, and at 64 megawatts the Nevada Solar One plant is one of the largest in the world. As a state, California is a good example of the burgeoning appreciation and boost through legislation currently underway in the U.S. because it now requires its utility companies to provide 20 per cent of their power from renewable energy. Also importantly, the great sunshine states such as California and New Mexico enjoy make using parabolic trough facilities a great option. As of 2008, the U.S. government has invested $17.6 million in the Solar America Initiative’s “PV Incubator” funding incentive plan which, essentially, funds prototype PV facilities and aims to make them commercially realisable by 2015 where possible. This is a promising move by the government, which suggests a wish to continue pioneering solar technology development while further harnessing it internally. The Solar America Initiative is part of the wider Federal Advanced Energy Initiative aimed at making PV solar models commercially competitive to other existing grid-integrated electricity sources by 2015. On a similar time frame and more localised scale, California once again paves the way for solar with its California Solar Initiative aimed at producing 3,000 megawatts of brand new solar electricity by 2016. The year-goals in place today further reflect the turning point in policy and programs to bolster solar which really date back to, and have grown from, around 2008.

U.S. solar news now

This month the Obama Administration has pledged $2 billion in loan guarantees to the expansion of solar projects which, according to Obama, not only allows the nation to pursue goals for greener and independent energy generation, but also makes room for mass job generation. One project which has received a great deal of attention in this is the Abengoa Solar project, of Arizona, which could now become the world’s largest solar facility when it reaches completion in 2013.

“After years of watching companies build things and create jobs overseas, it’s good news that we’ve attracted a company to our shores to build a plant and create jobs right here in America. In the short term, construction will create approximately 1,600 jobs in Arizona,” Obama told press.

“What’s more, over 70 per cent of the components and products used in construction will be manufactured in the USA, boosting jobs and communities in states up and down the supply chain.”

The U.S. private sector produced 83,000 jobs in June, 2010, in line with the making of job generation into a key issue on the government’s radar. Abengoa alone could create 5,000 jobs and power 70,000 homes. This is part of solar becoming more commercially competitive and realising the dual benefits in harnessing this energy source now. Job generation, whilst not necessarily a direct part of appreciating solar, is a great example of a potential outcome as the U.S. government continues to work towards its 2030 energy targets and, in the process, improve quality of life for its people.

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