Solar is on its way to revolutionize the world energy. From small home devices to endless solar plants.
With solar use growing from year to year residential homeowners now have a choice of very budget options to go solar.
As of now, solar is a 17-billion-dollar (per-year) market, looking to double within the next 5 years. No wonder it generates jobs. Many well-paid jobs.
People across the nation enjoy the benefits of solar. Some states are just suited better for installing a system. Others offer better returns because of local electricity rates.
Top five states by installed capacity:
Residents of Massachusetts and Rhode Island have the quickest payback period in the country (4 years). Followed by New Jersey, New York, Washington D.C. and Hawaii (6 years).
Total US estimated capacity – 69,1 GGW, enough to power over 13 million homes.
Not only private individuals, but also corporate users are understanding the benefits of solar. Below is a list of top five companies by deployed capacity:
There’s still a lot of potential in growing commercial use, as even major players plan to install more solar in their stores. For example, only 11% of Costco warehouses have it installed and only 11% of Kohl’s.
Apple, for example, has a plan to launch a 20 MW operation in their new datacenter in North Carolina.
Today, even despite their best wishes to use solar power, many consumers don’t have access to it. Reasons can be many: some of them rent, live in apartments or have roofs, unsuitable for solar installation. Many can’t afford upfront costs of a rooftop installation.
Thanks to community solar projects, they can still benefit from renewable energy.
Currently, 40 states have at least one utility-scale solar plant the offers shared use to these consumers.
Within the next five years a total of 3.5 GW capacity of community solar projects will be online, enough to power about 700,000 homes.