• The California Energy Commission reported—via its blog on Sept. 23—that the state’s solar energy production increased by 350 percent in 2013. The latest Tracking Progress report for renewable energy shows solar thermal and photovoltaic (PV) systems installed so far in 2014 have the capability of producing 825 megawatts a year of electricity, and an additional 1,650 megawatts of capacity is being built. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, one megawatt of solar power in California can power an average of 216 homes per year. A chart on the commission’s blog shows California produced more than 4,000 megawatts of solar power in 2013. The majority of that wattage came from photovoltaic systems, which capture the sun’s light and turns it into electricity. The Energy Commission attributes part of the growth to an 80 percent drop in the cost of photovoltaic panels since 2008, “which has helped make large-scale PV plants more feasible,” the blog post said. State programs such as the New Solar Homes Partnership are also providing incentives for homeowners who install residential solar. The program’s goal is to install 360 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity by the end of 2016, and the Energy Commission has distributed more than $100 million in incentives, with another $80 million reserved for pending New Solar Homes projects. “We have seen large-scale solar development in our state for many years, but 2013 data make clear that the dramatic transition to large scale solar is now changing California’s energy portfolio,” the blog post said.
This article appears in Oct 2-9, 2014.
