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US solar installations reached a record in 2020, as the favorable economy, supportive policies and strong demand in the second half of the year offset the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
Installations grew 43% year-over-year during 2020, reaching a record 19.2 gigawatts of new capacity, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Solar Energy Industries Association and Wood Mackenize.
During the fourth quarter alone, the US added just over 8 gigawatts of capacity – a new quarterly record. To contextualize the number, throughout 2015, 7.5 gigawatts were added. One gigawatt is enough to supply nearly 190,000 households. The USA currently has 97.2 GW of total installed solar capacity, enough to supply around 17.7 million homes.
California, Texas and Florida were the top three states in annual solar additions for the second year in a row. Virginia and North Carolina complete the top five.
After a slowdown in the second quarter, due to the interruption of pandemic land operations, residential solar energy recorded a record sales pipeline in the second half of the year, driven by customers interested in residential improvements. The report’s authors believe that the momentum in the second half of the year probably continued in 2021.
In the solar power line, annual additions to capacity increased by 65% over the previous year.
“The recent two-year extension of the investment tax credit (ITC) will lead to greater adoption of solar energy by 2025,” said Michelle Davis, senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie, referring to tax credits extended in December as part of the relief. coronavirus and government spending package.
According to the report, the two-year extension of credit at its current level will lead to a 17% increase in forecasts for the deployment of solar energy between 2021 and 2025.
In the USA, solar energy represented 43% of all new electricity generation capacity added in 2020, its largest share of new generation capacity. In many places, solar energy is now the cheapest form of new energy.
“Sales of residential solar energy continue to exceed expectations, as loan providers launch attractive products, interest in home improvements increases and customers who suffer from power cuts due to extreme weather events are looking for energy resilience,” he said. the report.
For the first time, the SEIA and Wood Mackenzie report also looked at growth forecasts until 2030, projecting that the United States’ solar market will quadruple its size from current levels by the end of the decade.
Growth is expected to spread across markets as customers, utilities, states and corporations push to decarbonize the network. President Joe Biden called for an emission-free energy sector by 2035 as part of its $ 2 trillion infrastructure and climate package unveiled last July.
“An attractive savings for distributed, utility-scale solar energy, coupled with decarbonisation commitments from multiple stakeholders, will result in a remarkable installation fee of more than 50 GWdc by the end of the decade,” added Davis of Wood Mackenzie.