Recently, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) released their annual report for 2008. The report details show a promising future for solar energy, although the current financial crisis has had an impact. However, the United States does still lag behind some European countries and even China in some areas of solar energy, but the report does show promise for the U.S. solar sector.
The report states that the solar energy capacity in the United States is now 17 percent greater than it was in 2007. The greatest growth was with photovoltaic solar power. The photovoltaic capacity in the United States increased 44 percent in 2008. Another area of solar power that grew quickly was solar hot water installations.
The largest solar sector is solar pool heating, which saw a slight decline in 2008 versus 2007 numbers. No large scale projects began production in 2008, which hampered further increases in the solar sector.
The president of SEIA, Rhone Resch, warned that the 2008 numbers were not comparative to current 2009 numbers due to the financial crisis. Resch stated: “We’re not immune to the recession at all. This first quarter has been brutal.”
Last year’s bailout bill and the current stimulus bill under the current Obama administration has included provisions for assisting the solar energy sector. Mr. Resch states that there are a total of 19 different provisions for assisting solar energy. However, Mr. Resch hopes more will be done for the industry.
The SEIA hopes in the near future there will be a national renewable electricity standard. Such a standard would require the entire country to get a pre-determined percentage of energy from renewable energy. Such a standard could also pinpoint certain percentages for different sectors, such as a particular percentage for wind and a different percentage for solar etc.. Twelve U.S. states already have such standards in their state renewable policies.