WASHINGTON: Revenue generated from installations of solar PV in the U.S. reached $22.6 billion in 2015, according to a new report by Navigant Research. The market has demonstrated a 21% increase over 2014, and nearly tripled from 2011.
The report highlights the current most positive trends of the U.S. solar market, such as technology cost reduction, renewable energy targets at the state level, business model innovation and federal tax policy. Notwithstanding the less positive tendencies like the ongoing fight over the net metering rules, the analysts forecast more than 70 GW of new solar capacity additions, both large-scale and distributed, between 2016 and 2022, bringing the number of cumulative installations above 100 GW.
In general, the advanced energy market in the U.S. has grown 29% over the past five years, reaching $200 billion. To put this figure into perspective, the nation’s clean power market has double the revenues generated by the beer industry, has outgrown the huge pharmaceutical manufacturing sector and has nearly caught up with the wholesale consumer electronics market.
Advanced energy building efficiency is the largest segment of the U.S. advanced energy market, with $63.6 billion in revenue, and 50% growth over the past five years. Solar PV is the second largest segment; wind energy is third, with $14.4 billion in 2015, up 75% over last year.
As the U.S. energy storage market more than tripled by capacity in 2015, its revenue grew 12 times over 2014, to $734 million. Battery prices have fallen by between 40% to 60% in the past 18 months. According to Navigant Research, new installed energy storage systems are expected to grow globally from 196 MW in 2015 to 12.7 GW in 2025.
Globally, the advanced energy market has reached $1.4 trillion. It has doubled that of airlines ($710 billion), surpassed fashion ($1.2 trillion) and is now almost equal to worldwide spending on media (US$1.6 trillion).
