US on the up: report reveals US market increased installs by 69% year-on-year

Sep. 21, 2011 - Síle Mc Mahon - pv-tech.org

A report released by GTM Research and Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) suggests that the solar PV market in the US has continued on its current upward trend, installing 314MW of solar power in Q2’11, an increase of 69% on Q2’10. The market has garnered a larger portion of the total global market and looks to be still on track to install 1.75GW of PV in 2011, according to GTM Research and the SEIA’s latest quarterly ‘US Solar Market Insight’ report.

“The second quarter data illustrates that the U.S. solar industry continues to be one of the fastest growing in America,” said Rhone Resch, president and CEO of SEIA. “More than 100,000 Americans are employed in solar, twice as many as in 2009. They work at more than 5,000 companies – the vast majority being small businesses – across all 50 states.”

Although the utility and commercial markets grew by 37% and 22% respectively in the second quarter, the residential sector saw a 5.7% drop at 60MW installed. The CPV and CSP markets are relatively healthy, with 600MW currently under construction and a pipeline of over 7GW.

“The potential expiration of the 1603 Treasury program, along with current malaise in major markets such as New Jersey and Pennsylvania, threatens to slow growth in 2012,” said Shayle Kann, managing director of Solar at GTM Research. “Still, with increasing market diversity and the continued emergence of the utility-scale solar market, we anticipate that the U.S. market share of global installations will triple over the next four years.”

The US Solar Market Insight: 2nd Quarter 2011 report, co-authored by GTM Research and SEIA, is available on subscription.