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SEIA: 2015 is just the beginning of America’s solar boom; Capacity to quadruple to nearly 100 GW by 2020

2015 will go down as a banner year for , SEIA President and CEO Rhone Resch, sums up in the U.S. Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA; Washington, D.C.) blog.
SEIA expects new U.S. installations to reach a record-breaking 7.4 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2014. “And yet, the 2015 record is already looking like a distant memory, compared to what is to come”, says Resch.
According to SEIA, America’s cumulative solar capacity will quadruple in size from just over 24 GW of total capacity to nearly 100 GW by 2020. By that point, there will be enough solar installed to power 20 million American homes.
New Solar Era thanks to ITC extension
Sustained growth for one of America’s solar industry was solidified last week when Congress passed a bipartisan spending bill. This seemingly routine legislation is historic because it brings the solar industry to the forefront of the conversation about American energy, Resch emphasizes.
Instead of the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) dropping down to 10 percent for commercial users and zero for residential users at the end of 2016, Congress took action that will help solar drive America toward its clean energy future.
The bill included modifications to the tax code that extended both the residential and commercial sections of the solar investment tax credit (ITC). Specifically, there is a long-term extension for both residential and commercial solar users with a gradual phase down over the next five years, as well as a permanent 10 percent tax credit for commercial users.
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GTM Research: Grid-scale energy storage balance of systems costs will decline 41% by 2020

Today, grid-scale storage balance of system (BOS) costs average USD 670 per kilowatt. These costs include hardware like inverters and containers, soft costs like customer acquisition and interconnection, and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) expenses.
According to the latest report from GTM Research (Boston, Mass., US) “Grid-Scale Energy Storage Balance of Systems 2015-2020: Architectures, Costs and Players”, costs will fall 41 percent over the next five years. GTM Research forecasts average grid-scale energy storage BOS costs to dip below USD 400 per kilowatt by 2020.
Batteries have the most room for price declines; Largest BOS decline to come particularly from inverters
“While batteries remain the most expensive component of an energy storage system and have the most room for price declines, savings will be found across projects’ entire value chain,” said Luis Ortiz, lead author of the report.
GTM Research expects the largest BOS decline to come from hardware costs, particularly inverters. Storage inverters are significantly more expensive than inverters, but the next five years should see that gap shrink. However, due to their bidirectional nature, storage inverters will likely always be more expensive than their solar counterparts.
The next most attractive area for BOS cost reductions is in soft costs, GTM Research notes.
“Soft costs have been an area targeted by U.S. solar developers as a ripe territory for significant improvements in the near future, and similar gains are expected to kick in for storage projects closer to 2020,” said Ortiz.
The report cites customer acquisition (project origination for utility-scale projects) as the area of soft costs with the greatest opportunity for reductions as best practices and momentum build up in a successful industry.
Finally, EPC costs like site preparation, rigging, shipping, engineering and installation, make up the smallest share of BOS costs and aren’t expected to drastically shrink. GTM Research forecasts these costs to fall six percent per year through 2020.
The report provides a component-level breakdown of storage BOS costs, and identifies factors for large variances in BOS costs observed across storage projects.
“As the (non-pumped hydro) energy storage industry is very nascent with limited history of deployments, we reinforced our projections by comparing against trends in solar PV industry in its early years of deployment,” said GTM Research Senior Storage Analyst Ravi Manghani.

http://www.solarserver.com/solar-magazine/solar-news/current/2016/kw01/gtm-research-grid-scale-energy-storage-balance-of-systems-costs-will-decline-41-by-2020.html