Solar Panel Orders Point to Clean Energy Boom From US Climate Law
The full effects of the Inflation Reduction Act have yet to be felt, but a look at one major solar company’s order book suggests huge demand.
Employees install new solar panels on a solar farm.
Photographer: Chris McGrath/Getty ImagesOver the past five decades, the US has installed about 140 gigawatts of solar power generation capacity, enough to provide more than 3% of its power. That is just a start: Between now and the end of the decade, the country might add three times that much .
It might seem fanciful to expect a market to quadruple in size in only eight years. But for that we can thank President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and its generous, decade-long subsidies for both clean energy manufacturing and generation in the US. Adding 360 gigawatts of solar in eight years does not require an exceptional year-on-year growth rate, though it does require investment. And it will certainly need a speeding up of the often-fraught process of interconnection that brings new projects onto the grid.