The U.S. showed an impressive result in developing its alternative energy sector. The country has added 2.6 gigawatts (GW) of solar photovoltaics in the 3rd quarter of 2019, the SEIA report said.
While Thursday’s figures in the report are encouraging, there is clearly still work to be done for solar in the United States. President Trump still doesn’t believe in green energy and prefers to support fossil fuel.
The figures, released Thursday morning, come from the most recent U.S. Solar Market Insight Report from Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).
According to it, the American photovoltaic refers to a way of directly converting light from the sun into electricity. In a period from January to October 2019, both photovoltaic and concentrating solar power in the US hit 71.3 GW. The solar farms add 2.6 GW of photovoltaics to the total.
Meanwhile, concentrating solar plants are developing as well. These installations are using mirrors to concentrate the sun’s energy to drive traditional steam turbines or engines that create electricity.
Solar energy sector is empowering the US national energy matrix
The 2.6 GW of capacity added during the third quarter represents a 45% increase compared to the third quarter of 2018 and a 25% increase compared to the second quarter of 2019, the SEIA said.
Breaking the figures down, the third quarter saw the U.S. residential market install 712 megawatts (MW) of solar. California led the way in this market, installing almost 300 MW.
Figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that utility-scale electricity generation sites in the U.S. produced around 4,171 billion KWts hours in 2018.
In fact, Donald Trump’s favourite fossil fuels were responsible for 63.6% of this generation, while renewables accounted for 16.9%. Breaking the EIA’s numbers down further, solar’s contribution to the total was just 1.5%.
