Solar Power In Us 2016

And in 2014 sunpower acquired solarbridge technologies adding high performance microinverter technology that offers system design flexibility and less expensive installation.

Solar power in us 2016. In 2016 solar jobs in north. Not only does north carolina have a lot of solar energy with 2 087 mw of capacity capable of powering 223 000 homes it s also creating a lot of solar jobs. But capacity is growing exponentially. Solar power in the united states includes utility scale solar power plants as well as local distributed generation mostly from rooftop photovoltaics as of the end of 2019 the united states had over 71 3 gigawatts gw of installed photovoltaic capacity.

In 2016 it is forecast to install 14 1gw. Nearly 500 pv generating units totaling 8 gigawatts gw were added to the electric grid in 2016 making it the second most common technology installed in 2016. Solar produced just 0 6 of us electricity in 2015 compared to 4 7 for wind and 33 each for coal and natural gas. This is enough capacity to power the equivalent of 12 million average american homes 1.

Ironically the numbers for the end of 2016 are buoyed by policy uncertainty. In 2018 utility scale solar power generated 66 6 terawatt hours twh 1 66 of total u s. The pv market grew 97 over 2015 installing 14 8 gwdc from over 370 000 individual installations. By any measure 2016 was a record year for solar in the united states.

Solar power is more affordable accessible and prevalent in the united states than ever before. Average construction costs reached 2 436 per kilowatt kw in 2016 down from 3 705 kw in 2013. In 2013 sunpower acquired greenbotics to offer robotic solar panel cleaning products and services for large scale solar power plants. For the first time solar represented the largest new source of electricity generating capacity beating out both natural gas and wind for new capacity additions.