Solar Energy in the United States: Development, Challenges and Future Prospects

Sanzana Tabassum,Naeem Mohammad,Shidhartho Roy,Eklas Hossain,Ashraf Ul Islam,Debopriya Roy Dipta,Nafiu Nawar,Sumayya Rahman,Tanvin Rahman

doi:10.3390/en14238142

Abstract

The ambitious target of net-zero emission by 2050 has been aggressively driving the renewable energy sector in many countries. Leading the race of renewable energy sources is solar energy, the fastest growing energy source at present. The solar industry has witnessed more growth in the last decade than it has in the past 40 years, owing to its technological advancements, plummeting costs, and lucrative incentives. The United States is one of the largest producers of solar power in the world and has been a pioneer in solar adoption, with major projects across different technologies, mainly photovoltaic, concentrated solar power, and solar heating and cooling, but is expanding towards floating PV, solar combined with storage, and hybrid power plants. Although the United States has tremendous potential for exploiting solar resources, there is a scarcity of research that details the U.S. solar energy scenario. This paper provides a comprehensive review of solar energy in the U.S., highlighting the drivers of the solar industry in terms of technology, financial incentives, and strategies to overcome challenges. It also discusses the prospects of the future solar market based on extensive background research and the latest statistics. In addition, the paper categorizes the U.S. states into five tiers based on their solar prospects calculated using analytical hierarchy process and regression analysis. The price of solar technologies in the U.S. is also predicted up to 2031 using Wright’s law, which projected a 77% reduction in the next decade.

Highlights

The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy (RE) has gathered significant momentum over the past decade
With increasing government incentives, declining cost, and concerns for sustainable energy growth, harnessing solar power has become a widespread reality in the U.S and is gaining popularity as a reliable and effective renewable energy sources (RES) that can be a potential substitute for fossil fuels
This paper aims to bridge the gap between the disjunct studies and present a complete case study of solar energy in the U.S Since solar energy has been accelerating in the U.S at an unprecedented rate and is likely to dominate the energy mix very soon, a lot of new researchers are entering the field of solar energy without having a holistic idea about the field

Summary

Introduction

The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy (RE) has gathered significant momentum over the past decade. Due to the expanding industrialization and growing population, the global energy demand is expected to continue to increase by 50% between 2018 and 2050 [1]. This soaring demand is being matched by the increased combustion of fossil fuels, which still dominate the energy mix and come with drawbacks, such as depleting reserves, increasing prices due to carbon tax, emission of harmful by-products, such as CO2, NOx, SO2, and mercury, and the failure to limit the global temperature rise under the 2 ◦C target of the Paris Agreement [2]. With increasing government incentives, declining cost, and concerns for sustainable energy growth, harnessing solar power has become a widespread reality in the U.S and is gaining popularity as a reliable and effective RES that can be a potential substitute for fossil fuels

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