Tag Archives: Grid Alternatives

In its Largest Quarter Ever, U.S. Solar Market Saw Nearly 2 MW of PV Installed Per Hour in Q3 2016

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BOSTON, Mass. and WASHINGTON D.C. - The United States solar market just shattered all previous quarterly solar photovoltaic (PV) installation records. According to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) Q4 2016 U.S. Solar Market Insight report, 4,143 megawatts (MW) of solar PV were installed in the U.S. in the third quarter of the year, a rate of one MW every 32 minutes. That pace is even faster today, as the fourth quarter will surpass this past quarter’s historic total.

“Coming off our largest quarter ever and with an extremely impressive pipeline ahead, it’s safe to say the state of the solar industry here in America is strong,” said Tom Kimbis, SEIA’s interim president. “The solar market now enjoys an economically-winning hand that pays off both financially and environmentally, and American taxpayers have noticed. With a 90 percent favorability rating and 209,000 plus jobs, the U.S. solar industry has proven that when you combine smart policies with smart 21st century technology, consumers and businesses both benefit.”

The report points to an “unprecedented rate of project completion” in the utility-scale segment as a key growth driver. In fact, the utility-scale segment represented 77 percent of solar PV installed in the third quarter of the year. GTM Research anticipates that a massive 4.8 gigawatts (GW) of utility PV projects will come on-line in the fourth quarter of the year – that’s more than was installed across the entire utility PV segment in all of 2015.

“Driven by a large pipeline of utility PV projects initially procured under the assumption of a 2016 federal ITC expiration, the third quarter of 2016 represents the first phase of this massive wave of project completion – a trend that will continue well into the first half of 2017,” said Cory Honeyman, associate director of U.S. solar at GTM Research.

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PwC: 72% of corporate renewable energy leaders are actively pursuing more

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A recent survey of U.S.-headquartered businesses, the majority of which have been active in buying renewable energy, revealed that 72% of respondents are actively pursuing additional purchases.

The appetite among the respondents has grown significantly: 63% of companies have become more inclined to purchase renewable energy in the past six months, according to the survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Among those who have made a purchase in the past, an even larger majority — 85% — intend to make additional purchases in the next 18 months.

Calling the growth in corporate purchases one of the biggest developments in the renewable energy marketplace, PwC said it conducted the survey of 63 "major" commercial and industrial companies, most of which have large energy footprints and have made purchases in the past, to better understand what is driving the growth.

Not surprisingly, what PwC found was that business interest has been primarly driven by a desire to meet corporate sustainability goals and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; 85% of companies actively seeking more renewable energy cited this reason. Other popular drivers included attractive returns on investment, cited by 76% of respondents, and a desire by companies to limit their exposure to energy price variability, cited by 59% of respondents.

As for how the companies surveyed plan build out their portfolios of clean power, four-fifths are expect to use multiple types of transactions, an offsite power purchase agreement and an onsite financial investment, for example. The survey also found that while onsite PPAs remain most popular — chosen by 67% of those actively pursuing procurement — more than half, 58%, intend to purchase traditional offsite PPAs, and 30% plan to pursue offsite virtual PPAs. The responses also point to an increase in offsite versus onsite purchases, PwC said in a report outlining the findings.
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