One of your large utility company has just announced that they want to close 9 GW of coal generation. They simply no longer need it. That’s a honking big piece of success.

(I think you’ve got one state that’s lagging, something like our SE states.)

When there’s enough solar on the grid to service sunny-hour demand the price of daytime electricity will fall. We’re already seeing that in Germany with only a modest amount of solar on the grid.

The larger grid is going to have late night wind ‘for cheap’ and all the solar it can use. I suspect they’ll move to TOU billing, charge little for late night wind and sunny hour solar, then make their money off the non-Sun/wind hours.

I think the lucrative FiT for end-user solar will become a thing of the past. It’s role is about completed in places like Germany. The solar industry is established and installation costs have been brought down to very reasonable levels.

I suspect the grid will be able to supply the storage and backup that solar owners will need for less than they can provide themselves. The grid will have cheap wind and hydro. And the grid will more likely be able to use the cheapest storage such as pump-up hydro, flow batteries and (possibly) liquid metal batteries that just won’t be usable at the end-user level.

The road that this paves will end with regional Energy Lords as America’s national debt will lead us into poverty as a nation. No longer doing anything for the national good of what once was a great nation united in common cause and belief in the Constitution, slowly becoming the fictional nation of Panem of the Hunger Games.

Germany solar WDG is working for them only for the reason that they have money and the will of a nation to succeed, despite the fact that the US Federal Pyramid Reserve refuses to surrender Germany’s requested 640 tons of Gold.

Germany has made great strides in streamlining the process of bringing clean local energy online through, making its solar market decidedly more efficient than the U.S. solar market. Fortunately, forward-thinking utilities in the U.S. are already leading the charge by streamlining the development of cost-effective DG through CLEAN Programs.

Los Angeles, the nation’s second largest city, recently rolled out its CLEAN LA Solar Program to bring 100 megawatts (MW) of local solar online. Since opening the first 20 MW tranche in February, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) has received applications totaling more than 115 MW – signaling strong demand for solar DG and correct pricing. To the east, Georgia Power – an investor-owned utility serving more than two million customers – is bringing 190 MW of cost-effective, local solar power online in its service territory by 2016 through a CLEAN Programs. Also this month, Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) expanded its Clean Solar Initiative from 50 MW to 150 MW, sending yet another signal that WDG is a readily available and cost-effective market segment.

With the U.S.’s vast solar resources, there’s no question that solar energy is a viable resource. By implementing smart policies like CLEAN Programs, the United States can quickly and cost-effectively accelerate the transition to clean local energy.

China inverter

http://www.sungoldpower.co.uk/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/01/current-solar-module-efficiency-nowhere-near-its-potential-especially-thin-film-solar-cpv-chart/