America Will Add 1 Gigawatt of Solar Every Month Between Now and the End of 2016

[jpak]

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/america-will-add-one-gigawatt-of-solar-every-month-between-now-and-the-end

The solar rush in America is on. With every company moving as quickly as possible to finish projects before federal tax credits get slashed at the end of 2016, U.S. installation figures aren't going anywhere but up -- at least for the next year and a half.

Yet again, the latest quarterly figures from GTM Research and SEIA show unabated growth for utility-scale and small-scale PV projects.

Residential deployment in the second quarter was up 70 percent over last year. The utility sector also saw a growth spurt as more projects outbid natural gas, and developers pushed to complete projects in order to qualify for tax credits. There were 729 megawatts of utility-scale projects closed in the second quarter of 2015 -- part of a 5-gigawatt portfolio of power plants under construction. The non-residential sector was down in the second quarter, but a budding pipeline of community-scale projects may change that.

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Over the next 18 months, GTM Research expects the solar industry to complete 18 gigawatts of new projects. The math on this one is pretty easy -- a gigawatt per month on average. It wasn't until 2010 that the solar industry installed more than 1 gigawatt of PV in a single year.

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[Kelvin Mace]

1. Just did my part

by adding a 7.15 kW array. Waiting for the local power company to issue final approval so I can turn it on.

[hunter]

2. These are "when the sun is shining" gigawatts?

That's not the same as big ugly fossil fuel or nuclear power plant continuous gigawatts.

Quite a few solar systems are going up over parking lots in our city.

I think charging electric cars under the shade of these panels while they work would be a good deal.

Many of our neighbors are installing solar on their roofs.

It will be interesting to see how long these roofs and solar panels last.

Re-roofing jobs are going to get a little more complicated.

[GliderGuider]

3. American solar installations kill Chinese farmers.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31478-china-s-communist-capitalist-ecological-apocalypse

In March 2008, Li and other farmers in Gaolong, a village in the central plains of Henan Province near the Yellow River, told a Washington Post reporter that workers from the nearby Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Company had been dumping this industrial waste in fields around their village every day for nine months. The liquid, silicon tetrachloride, was the byproduct of polysilicon production and it is a highly toxic substance. When exposed to humid air, silicon tetrachloride turns into acids and poisonous hydrogen chloride gas, which can make people dizzy and cause breathing difficulties.

Reckless dumping of industrial waste is everywhere in China. But what caught the attention of The Washington Post was that the Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Company was a "green energy" company producing polysilicon destined for solar energy panels sold around the world. Indeed, it was a major supplier to Suntech Power Holdings, then the world's leading producer of solar panels, and Suntech's founder, Shi Zhengrong, topped the Hunrun list of the richest people in China in 2008. (1)

Silicon tetrachloride is an unavoidable byproduct of polysilicon production. But reckless pollution of farm villages is not unavoidable. Today, China is the only country in the world where such criminal behavior and cynical disregard for the health and lives of farmers and workers has become standard practice on a national scale by governments at every level, even as the government's own environmental agencies decry such behavior and struggle, mostly in vain, to stop it. As one Chinese researcher told the Post, "If this happened in the United States, you'd be arrested." But in China environmental regulations are regularly flouted by state-owned and private industries with the connivance of government officials at all levels while protesting farmers, workers and environmental activists are arrested, jailed, beaten or worse, and their lawyers with them.

Polysilicon production produces about four tons of silicon tetrachloride liquid waste for every ton of polysilicon produced. In Germany, where Siemens produces solar panels, pollution recovery technology is installed to process the silicon tetrachloride waste and render it harmless. But such environmental protection technology is expensive. In 2008, the cost to produce polysilicon safely was about $84,500 a ton in Germany and would not have cost much less in China. Chinese companies have been producing it for $21,000 to $56,000 a ton, saving millions of dollars a month, by just dumping the toxic waste in rural areas on helpless village communities.

Cancer villages, anyone?

Nongovernmental organizations count at least 459 villages spread across every province except far-western Qinghai and Tibet. In one village, 80 percent of the population is said to have died from pollution-induced cancers since 1991. (41) There are villages where almost every child is lead-poisoned. (42) Dumping of toxic chemicals and heavy metals extends even to remote corners of China. In neo-tropical Yunnan Province, investigators have found "rampant chromium dumping" polluting rice paddies and drinking water.

Nnadir has it right. Solar-crazed american yuppies don't give a shit about the consequences of their actions. Oh well, so long as you feel good about yourselves, it's all OK. Right?

[RiverLover]

4. The article you link here is fascinating, and what I get from it is we could stop all production

of solar panels in China and it would still be a toxic mess. You cherry pick one problem, and ignore the rest.

[GliderGuider]

5. The problem I "cherry-picked" was the one that addressed the topic of the OP.

China can serve as a the poster child for nearly every ecological and social problem besetting humanity right now. Including the world's financial mess, whose imminent resolution is also beginning now in China.

[Finishline42]

6. Solar has this problem when they are built - but coal and natgas has this problem

Solar has this problem when the panels are built - but it's something that can and should be dealt with at the manufacturing site. The same could be said for the power plant sites for coal, natgas and nuclear. The difference being that coal, natgas and nuclear pollute every day of every year that they are used from the mining of their fuel to how the fuel is used to produce power. The fuel for solar (and wind) is free and inexhaustible.

[GliderGuider]

7. I know. And nuclear power has its problems, and hydro is an ecological horror show.

What we need to do about the problem is very simple.

STOP USING SO MUCH ENERGY.

The problem is not in the energy sources we have available as in the insane amount of energy the world uses. Once global energy use of all kinds has declined by 90% it won't make much difference were we get it.

How do we do that? Nothing special is required. We simply wait. The fragility and wrong-headedness of the world's economic and financial systems, coupled with climate chaos are about to take care of it for us.

[Finishline42]

8. I agree

Go to Architecture2030.org - 47% of the energy used in the US is in heating and cooling of buildings. Change the standards for new and renovated buildings and you reduce the amount of energy needed.

I find it interesting that our demand for electricity has been reduced to pre 2008 levels. It's not what the utility companies want to hear.

Solar on houses deals with peak demand and it also reduces the amount of cooling needed - shields the roof from heat transference to the attic - something like 10% savings.