California’s contributes to the Growth of the Solar Industry

According to GTM Research, the move is going to account for a 14 percent growth alone from 2020 to 2023. The California Energy Commission approved the proposal on May 9, as part of an update to the state’s Building Energy Efficiency Standards. Starting in 2020, the codes will apply to all new residences on buildings under three stories. That includes townhomes, condos, apartments, as well as single-family homes.
 

Boost of Residential Solar Sales

For the U.S. solar industry, the new standards are expected to boost residential solar sales 14 percent over a four-year timeframe from 2020 through 2023, according to a new analysis from GTM Research. That's an upside of nearly 650 megawatts (DC) compared to GTM's base-case forecast for the residential solar segment.

The industry is set to grow more than that. It is just that the solar industry is going to get an automatic boost just so they can put solar panels on all the new homes being built in the state. The mandate starts in 2020 and the numbers will jump when everything starts Jan 1, 2020.

It is important to note that this forecast only includes solar on new single-family homes, whereas per the new code the California Energy Commission (CEC) has mandated solar for every new residential unit, including apartments and condominiums.

Community solar

In fact, new single-family homes represented only slightly more than half the new units built in 2017, meaning that the mandate could result in hundreds of megawatts of solar each year in addition to that included in this forecast update. Put another way, California already adds solar to more than 100,000 projects a year, without counting new homes. That means that there might be a lot more growth in the industry than 14 percent. Even GTM research admits that the data is hard to find, so there is not a lot of concrete data showing how much this new mandate will influence growth in the industry.

The code does provide some flexibility to meet this requirement using community solar, so it is probable that this additional solar will be a mix of larger rooftop systems and community solar. It is hard to say how much this will shake up the industry. No one really knows how much it will cause prices to drop, or how many solar installations will grow overall in the state. The one thing that everybody can agree on is that this move is good for the state as well as the country. When electricity first came to people through the grid, some people preferred to stay with the times and used candles, but eventually, they plugged in. Even though solar is more popular than ever, there are plenty of people who don’t want it.

California keeps surging past most states in regards to solar jobs. In the released “Solar Jobs Census 2017” report revealed that California employed 86,414 people in the solar industry last year. This number is almost eight times the number of solar workers in Massachusetts, ranked second with 11,530 jobs. The Solar Foundation article notes that installation of systems are a large portion of solar employment at 46,489 jobs. Manufacturing of renewable energy products ranked second with 11,683 jobs, sales and distribution at 11,476, and project development with 10,000. Lastly, additional jobs within the industry support 6,765 jobs.

Eventually, when renewable electricity generation becomes the norm, it is the people who are dependent on oil and coal who will be behind the times. Eventually, they will join the solar revolution. For more information, click here. 

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