PV utility market: Huge demand, opportunity next 10 years

We know that solar project costs are going down, both because of decreases in material prices and then subsequent increases in efficiency that drive savings, and as that news spreads wider and gets in the right hands, solar will demand will spread far and wide. At least that’s the thinking.

Let’s look at the numbers. A recent research study by ReportLinker, an award-winning market research solution, points to the opportunity coming up for ground mounts in particular. The aptly titled “Ground Mount PV Utility Market by Installation and by Country – North America Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 – 2022” says the ground mount PV utility annual installation in North America stood at 3,381.4 MW in 2013 and is expected to reach 17,589.7 MW by 2022, expanding at an average annual growth rate (AAGR) of 20.1% between 2014 and 2022. Revenue generated through installations of ground mount PV utility projects in North America was valued at $7.3 billion in 2013 and is projected to approach $20 billion by 2022 at an AAGR of 11.5% between 2014 and 2022.

The research study (which you can purchase here) is designed to analyze the ground mount PV utility market in North America. The market is calculated in terms of annual capacity installations (MW) and revenue (USD Million). The report includes the key market dynamics affecting the demand for ground mount PV utility in North America, analyzing the market drivers, restraints and opportunities and providing a cost analysis of the ground mount PV utility projects in North America. In this cost analysis segment, ReportLinker analyzed the price of both fixed-axis and one-axis projects along with the cost of electricity for utility-scale PV projects in the U.S. and other North American countries.

Plus, there is the rest of the energy landscape and the ramifications to the world and society from their continued use. According to State of the World 2015 contributing author Nathan John Hagens, a former hedge fund manager who teaches human macro-ecology at the University of Minnesota, nations are papering over those costs with debt. Higher energy costs are leading to continued recessions, excess claims on future natural resources, and more-severe social inequality and poverty.

The relatively low cost of energy extraction compared to the benefits obtained from fossil fuels has been perhaps the most important factor in the industrialized world’s economic success. Historically, large quantities of inexpensive fuels were available even after accounting for the energy lost to extract and process them. But, as remaining fuels become less accessible, higher energy costs will have ripple effects through economies built around continued large energy-input requirements. Rising costs will endanger highly energy— intensive industries and practices-including the energy sector itself— as well as widen and deepen poverty as everything becomes more expensive.

“Despite having ‘plenty of energy,’ higher physical costs [of extraction] suggest that energy likely will rise from a historical average of 5 percent of GDP [gross domestic product], to 10— 15 percent of GDP or higher,” writes Hagens.

In the short term, nations are taking on growing debt to avoid losses in GDP— an indicator of the economic health of a country. Since 2008, the Group of Seven nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have added about $1 trillion per year in nominal GDP, but only by increasing their debt by over $18 trillion.

However, continued use of credit to mask the declining productivity of energy extraction is unsustainable. For each additional debt dollar, less and less GDP is generated, and, at the same time, our highest-energy-gain fuels are being depleted. Energy is becoming more expensive for the creditor in the future than for the debtor in the present.

“We have entered a period of unknown duration where things are going to be tough,” writes Hagens. “But humanity in the past has responded in creative, unexpected ways with new inventions and aspirations.” While policy choices such as banking reform, a carbon and consumption tax, and moving away from GDP as a proxy for well-being are good long-term ideas, “we urgently need institutions and populations to begin to prepare…for a world with the same or less each year instead of more.”

Worldwatch’s State of the World 2015 investigates hidden threats to sustainability, including economic, political, and environmental challenges that are often underreported in the media.

— Solar Builder magazine

[source: http://solarbuildermag.com/news/pv-utility-market-huge-demand-opportunity-next-10-years/]