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US solar installations reached a record high in 2020 as the favorable economy, supportive policies and strong demand in the second half of the year offset the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Installations grew 43 percent year-over-year in 2020 to a record 19.2 gigawatts of new capacity, according to a report released Tuesday by the Solar and Wood Mackenize Industries Association.
In the fourth quarter alone, the US added just over 8 gigawatts of capacity – a new quarterly record. To put the number in context, throughout 2015, 7.5 gigawatts were added. One gigawatt is enough to power about 190,000 homes. The US currently has 97.2 GW of total installed solar capacity, enough to power about 17.7 million homes.
California, Texas and Florida were the top three states for annual solar additions for the second year in a row. Virginia and North Carolina completed the top five.
After a slowdown in the second quarter, as ground pandemic operations ceased, the residential solarium recorded a record sales pipeline in the second half of the year, boosted by customers interested in home improvements. The report’s authors believe that this momentum in the back half of the year will probably continue until 2021.
In terms of solar utility, annual 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, a senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie, referring to the tax credits granted in December as part of coronavirus aid and government spending package.
According to the report, the two-year extension of the loan to its current level will lead to a 17% increase in the forecasts for the implementation of solar energy between 2021 and 2025.
In the US, solar energy accounted for 43% of the new electricity generation capacity added in 2020, most of the new generation capacity. In many places, solar energy is now the cheapest form of new energy.
“Residential solar sales continue to exceed expectations as loan providers launch attractive products, interest in home improvement increases and customers suffering from power outages due to extreme weather events are looking for energy resistance,” the report said.
For the first time, the SEIA report and Wood Mackenzie also looked at growth forecasts to 2030, projecting that the US solar market will quadruple in size from current levels by the end of the decade.
Growth is expected to spread to markets, as customers, utilities, states and corporations do their best to decarbonise the network. President Joe Biden has called for an emissions-free electricity sector by 2035 as part of his $ 2 trillion infrastructure and climate package, introduced in July last year.
“A compelling economy for distributed and utility-scale solar energy, along with decarbonisation commitments from many stakeholders, will result in an installation rate of over 50 GWdc by the end of the decade,” added Wood Mackenzie’s Davis.