The US has rich natural resources and states in the southwest region have sufficient sunshine with an annual average of over 2,200 hours. Western states in the US have been introducing large-size solar projects, helping new installations in 2012 to reach 3.3GW, an on-year growth of 78.6%. However, as the California Solar Initiative (CSI) is about to reach its installation target, and competition from other energy resources has been rising, new solar installations in the first quarter of 2013 only reached 537MW in the US, less than market expectations.
Digitimes Research predicts total new solar installations in the US may only reach 3.5-3.8GW in 2013.
California began stimulating solar demand through policies in 2007. By 2012, accumulative installations in California accounted for 36% of total installations in the US. California hopes to achieve a goal of 33% of total electricity generated from renewable energy sources by 2020. However, while CSI is about to reach its installation goal, the state government has yet to announce new programs. According to the CSI website, the program has a goal to install approximately 1,940 MW of new solar generating capacity with a total budget of US$2.167 billion between 2007-2016.
The US solar energy sector has been seeing rising competition from low price natural gas. In addition, solar trade war have been causing solar PV systems to be less cost competitive. Furthermore, problems with the stability of grid connections continue to surface. In the future, for the US to continue developing the solar market, the country needs to face trade barriers, set up ongoing policies, and find ways to compete with low price energy sources.
