U.S. Residential Solar Just Beat Commercial Installations For The First Time

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/31/3443520/us-residential-solar-beat-commercial/



The first quarter of 2014 was another big one for the U.S. solar industry, with 74 percent of all new electricity generation across the country coming from solar power. The 1,330 megawatts of solar photovoltaics (PV) installed last quarter bring the total in the U.S. up to 14.8 gigawatts of installed capacity — enough to power three million homes, according to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

In addition to being the largest quarter ever for concentrating solar power, a method of large-scale solar generation that uses a unique ‘salt battery’ to allow the solar plant to keep producing power even when the sun goes down, it was also the first time in the history of SEIA’s reports that residential solar installations surpassed commercial in the same time period. 232 MW of residential PV were installed in the first quarter, compared to 225 MW of commercial solar.

The remarkable growth of rooftop solar across the U.S. is sparking battles in multiple states as customers, utilities, and the solar industry wrestle with how solar customers should be compensated for the excess power they send back to the grid and whether they should be charged additional fees for maintenance and other costs incurred by the utility. And those fights will likely spread, considering more than one-third of the residential PV installations in the first quarter came online without any state incentive, another first.

Solar-friendly policies like incentives are particularly important for ensuring middle class families are able to adopt solar power for their homes. And, as a recent analysis by the Center for American Progress found, it’s middle class families that are driving the rooftop solar revolution in the U.S., with “more than 60 percent of solar installations are occurring in zip codes with median incomes ranging from $40,000 to $90,000.”