As Solar Energy Scales Up—How Soon until it's Ubiquitous?

Tina Casey shares news of the huge scale that the solar industry has achieved in recent years: "The US solar industry has engineered a 1200% increase in utility-scale capacity since 2008, according to a new blog post from the Energy Department."

The article's title—"Nothing Can Stop the US Solar Juggernaut Now"—implies a long-term pattern that will persist beyond the current "hiccup" (as Casey describes it) in the price of oil. The Obama Administration even has a plan to bring the cost of solar energy into parity with fossil fuels, called the SunShot initiative. Casey declares that SunShot has been "so far so good," but a lot more work remains to be done to make solar " not only competitive but ubiquitous."

Along those lines, the Energy Department last week announced $59 million of new funding to support the solar industry. According to a press release announcing the funds, "[the] Department is making $45 million in funding available to quickly move innovative solar manufacturing technologies to market, and is also awarding more than $14 million for 15 new projects to help communities develop multi-year solar deployment plans to install solar electricity in homes, businesses, and communities." Casey provides additional insight into those programs in the article.