US Home Solar Approaching 1 Gigawatt
October 22nd, 2014 by Zachary Shahan
Solar market research firm NPD Solarbuzz has stated that it expects the US home solar market to reach 1 gigawatt in early 2015.
At least through the end of 2016, when the solar investment tax credit (ITC) is set to expire, Solarbuzz sees strong growth in the US home solar market. Until then home solar demand looks set to grow faster and faster, with costs still falling and awareness expanding at a rapid rate.
Furthermore, there are more and more home solar loans on the market, with increasingly attractive rates. Some we’ve covered in recent months come from Mosaic, SunPower*, Dividend Solar, and SolarCity.
At the moment, the dominant leaders in the home solar market are SolarCity and Vivint Solar. They have very successfully leveraged $0 down solar leasing and power purchase agreements in order to become the big players. Those options are becoming less attractive as competitive home solar loans come out. But they are still ~70-80% of the US home solar market. SolarCity has just made a big move into the solar loan space (see link above), but Vivint doesn’t offer that option at all. I assume it will before too long.
With strong moves into the home solar loan option, it’s hard to see anyone overtaking these two companies, at least any time soon. But there are still plenty of other great home solar companies competing on the marketplace, such as Sungevity, Sunrun, and SunPower.
Image Credit: SunPower
*Full Disclosure: I own stock in SunPower. Nonetheless, it did not affect my perspective in this story.
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About the Author
Zachary Shahan is the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular cleantech-focused website in the world, and Planetsave, a world-leading green and science news site. He has been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and he has been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, and wind energy since 2009. Aside from his work on CleanTechnica and Planetsave, he's the founder and director of Solar Love, EV Obsession, and Bikocity. To connect with Zach on some of your favorite social networks, go to ZacharyShahan.com and click on the relevant buttons.
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