In 2019, U.S. shipments of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules, also referred to as solar panels, reached a record-high 16.4 million kilowatts (kW), 2.9 million kW more than the previous record of 13.5 million kW set in 2016.
In 2019, U-Solar Clean Energy Solutions Pvt. Ltd. installed India’s largest building integrated vertical solar PV system at a data center in Mumbai. The system, with a capacity of about 1 MW, has been installed by integrating solar panels on all four walls of the facility, covering over 5000 square feet of facade area.
The most recent count from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Monthly Solar Photovoltaic Module Shipments Report proved a sluggish start in January 2020 for the solar industry, followed by a steep incline of shipments in March. The burst of the most impressive numbers ever of solar modules shipped was in March, with manufacturers shipping approximated 2.05 gigawatts of PV modules that month.
A rather meaningful piece of energy news went almost unnoticed in recent weeks. The Abu Dhabi Power Corporation announced the lowest tariff for solar energy in the world. The new record came as the winning bid for the upcoming 2 GW solar power plant, the Al Dhafra Solar PV project, set the world’s most cost-competitive tariff for solar PV energy, at USD 1.35 cents/kWh.
Too much cleantech news is a good thing, but it sometimes means I need to stuff a bunch of big stories into one article. Following some roundups of autonomous driving news and battery & EV charging news, here’s one more roundup of some cool cleantech stories no one wanted to take and write full pieces about. This one is 100% focused on solar power.
Borrego Solar Systems and sPower worked with the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom this year to manifest the first theme park on the West Coast powered by solar energy. In this case, the solar will account for 80% of the park’s energy usage. One difference in this theme park’s solar installation from other similar installations is that it will be powered by one of the most substantial solar carport installations in the country.
Tracking the Sun (PDF) is an annual report from Berkeley Lab on installed solar panel prices and other trends among grid-connected, distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the United States. Primary authors of this year’s report were Galen Barbose and Naïm Darghouth.
A few weeks back, Tennessee’s Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (CMA) became the first US airport powered by 100% solar energy.
The Portuguese energy secretariat has secured 1.15 GW of solar development at an average cost of €20.33 ($22.53 per megawatt-hour), representing an investment of about €800 million or $887 million.
One of the bids was made at €14.76/MWh ($16.44/MWh), which was declared a new world record for low solar bidding, according to Portugal’s Journal Económico.
Some people have asked when the prices will stop falling. Their understanding is that the decline in price really is unpredictable, and they believe that no definitive answer can be made about what source of energy will be least expensive in the future. In some important ways, they are wrong. The declines are predictable, to a degree.
