Solar Energy: A Panacea - Analysis of US Energy Production and Future

This report provides a comprehensive overview of solar energy in the United States, examining its current state, advantages, and disadvantages. It details the significant growth of solar power, with a substantial increase in installed capacity and job creation since 2008. The report explores the role ...Read More

Solar Energy: A Panacea

Introduction:
Solar power is more accessible, inexpensive and predominant in United States. Since 2008,
U.S. connections have produced 35 fold to an approximated 62.5 GW today. This power has
sufficient volume that it is sufficient for 12 million normal American Households. In the
starting of 2014, the normal price of PV panels is released closely 50%.
On the basis of present scenario, solar energy markets are growing quickly around the nation
and solar electricity is now financially competitive in comparison with the conservative
energy resources in various federations such as, Hawaii, California and Minnesota (Webber,
Rhodes & Upshaw, 2019).
Solar energy had enhanced the solar jobs by approximately 160% since 2010, which were the
9 times of national average job evolution rate in past five year’s data. However, more than
242,000 solar labours are working recently in United States. It is the second largest
manufacturing subdivision in United States ("Solar Energy in the United States").
Solar energy production and extraction on the basis of overall energy sources
percentage:
U.S. uses various energy sources and technologies for electricity generation. The
technologies and sources have changed over the time and some of the resources are utilize
more than others (Prăvălie, Patriche & Bandoc, 2019).
In U.S., three main categories for electricity production are fossil fuels, nuclear energy and
sustainable energy resources. Most of the electricity generation is done by using fossil fuels,
biomass, nuclear, geothermal and solar thermal energy. The other main electricity generation
sources are hydro turbine, gas turbine, wind turbine and solar photovoltaic etc. (Otanicar,
DeJarnette & Brekke, 2019).
On the basis of the figure.1 shown below, there are several energy resources which are
utilized for electricity production. The sustainable energy sources were about 17% of entire
U.S. electricity production in 2019.
The figure.2 shown below elaborates about the U.S. electricity production from renewable
energy resources from 1950-2019. On the basis of the graph, solar energy provides
approximate 2% of total U.S. electricity in 2019. PV and solar thermal power are two major
categories of solar electricity generation. OV conversion generates the electricity by getting

the sunlight directly into the photovoltaic cell ("U.S. Energy Information Administration -
EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis")
Figure.1 U.S electricity production by different energy resources retrieved from ("U.S.
Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis")
Figure.2 U.S electricity production by renewable energy resources in 1950-2019
retrieved from ("U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent
Statistics and Analysis")

Renewable energy has the capability to meet the requirements of energy production with a
much lesser ecological footprint (Liu, 2018).
It can support to ease the other processing issues for example, energy security by the
contribution in diversified and distributed energy infrastructure. In United States,
approximately 80% of the energy comes from fossil fuels. However, this estimation is 8.3%
for nuclear and 11% for renewable resources ("U.S. Renewable Energy Factsheet").
The future projection for energy consumption is shown below by the figure.3.
Figure.3 Future estimation of energy consumption on the basis of previous data
retrieved from ("U.S. Renewable Energy Factsheet")
Pros and Cons of Solar energy:
Advantages of Solar energy:
There are a lot of benefits, which are observed in United States, are shown below:
 Minimization in Carbon footprint
 Reduction in electricity bill (Couty et al., 2017).
 Enhancement in home value
 Earn money back in the investment
 Reduction in electricity prices

 Positive impact on public health (Wiser et al., 2016).
Disadvantages of Solar energy:
There are many disadvantages as well for using the solar energy; some of them are show
below:
 Not ideal in case of move from the place
 Lower electricity prices = Lesser savings
 Local solar installers are hard to find
 Not suitable for each roof type
 Buying the panels can be expensive
 Energy production capacity loss (Hadar, Arditi & Kikinis 2016).

Identification of problem and Assumptions for final paper
The final paper assumption is based on the influence of natural gas costs on solar energy
applications in future. The BAU scenario utilizes the cost forecasting from the U.S. energy
information administration’s AEO 2017 except the clean power strategy. That assumed the
project power sector natural gas costs enhance from $2.92/ million BTUs in 2016 to $5.73 in
2050.
If in case the natural gas prices scenario get lower, then it can be possible to use costs from
the AEO’s “ High oil and Gas Resource and Technology” scenario. It accepts high assets
obtainability and minimum prices and projects power sector natural gas costs only enhancing
marginally to $3.82/MMBtu by 2050.
When the natural gas costs are minimum than prediction, more renewable volume is
essentially built up in future. By 2050, sustained reduction in gas costs could enhance a
supplementary 58GW of solar PV and 47 GW of wind on top of BAY projection or
estimation.
Two major elements drive this enhancement. Firstly, the lower costs of natural gas impact the
extra coal power plants to become retire and uneconomic. In this case, the lower prices of
natural gas cause an extra 26GW of coal needs by 2050. When these plants stop working,
there capability must be constructed with new assets, and sustainable resources are becoming
the inexpensive accessible option. Secondly, the reduced gas costs cause extra natural gas
plants to come online, by proposing a particular quantity of grid elasticity. It permits the extra
sustainability to integrate into the system.
However, the new federal policies have the capability to show the disadvantages of solar
system but the clean energy rebellion is already underway. These technologies are already
price inexpensive and it will only endure to become more modest in the future. The future is
optimistic for sustainable in the US.

References
Couty, P., Lalou, M. J., Cuony, P., Cotture, S., & Saade, V. (2017). Positive energy building
with PV facade production and electrical storage designed by the Swiss team for the
US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2017. Energy Procedia, 122, 919-924.
Hadar, R., Arditi, S., & Kikinis, D. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 9,312,697. Washington, DC: U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office.
Liu, Z. (2018). What is the future of solar energy? Economic and policy barriers. Energy
Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy, 13(3), 169-172.
Otanicar, T. P., DeJarnette, D., & Brekke, N. (2019). U.S. Patent Application No. 16/074,954.
Prăvălie, R., Patriche, C., & Bandoc, G. (2019). Spatial assessment of solar energy potential
at global scale. A geographical approach. Journal of cleaner production, 209, 692-
721.
Solar Energy in the United States. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2020, from
https://www.energy.gov/eere/solarpoweringamerica/solar-energy-united-states
U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis. (n.d.).
Retrieved April 3, 2020, from
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php
U.S. Renewable Energy Factsheet. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2020, from
http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-renewable-energy-factsheet
Webber, M. E., Rhodes, J. D., & Upshaw, C. R. (2019). U.S. Patent No. 10,255,393.
Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Wiser, R., Mai, T., Millstein, D., Macknick, J., Carpenter, A., Cohen, S., ... & Heath, G.
(2016). On the Path to SunShot-The Environmental and Public Health Benefits of
Achieving High Penetrations of Solar Energy in the United States (No. NREL/TP-
6A20-65628 LBNL-1004373). EERE Publication and Product Library.

Annotated Bibliography
Couty, P., Lalou, M. J., Cuony, P., Cotture, S., & Saade, V. (2017). Positive energy building
with PV facade production and electrical storage designed by the Swiss team for the
US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2017. Energy Procedia, 122, 919-924.
In this article, a framework of the Solar Decathlon 2017 in Denver, Colorado is analysed. The
analysed micro-grid is modelled and simulations are performed by using the hourly
meteorological data. The initial outcomes, which are measured in BIPV production during the
building commissioning is compared with the simulated production at Fribourg.
Hadar, R., Arditi, S., & Kikinis, D. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 9,312,697. Washington, DC: U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office.
In this article, methods and systems are disclosed for removing the leakage from the solar
modules. Hence, this article elaborates about the method and the system for addressing the
solar energy production capacity loss due to the field build up between glass and cell and
frame assembly.
Liu, Z. (2018). What is the future of solar energy? Economic and policy barriers. Energy
Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy, 13(3), 169-172.
The essential limitations and features of solar energy are reviewed in this article. This
analysis from various aspects elaborates that the essential global challenges in solar energy
development are technical constraints, climatic challenges, and unwillingness of investments.
Otanicar, T. P., DeJarnette, D., & Brekke, N. (2019). U.S. Patent Application No. 16/074,954.
This article elaborates a method and equipment for the mutual production of high temperature
electrical energy and thermal energy from solar irradiance. It includes a PV cell laminated
with a metal extrusion device and a transparent channel in front of another PV cell.
Prăvălie, R., Patriche, C., & Bandoc, G. (2019). Spatial assessment of solar energy potential
at global scale. A geographical approach. Journal of cleaner production, 209, 692-
721.

This article elaborates about the epicentre countries with absolute DNI and GHI superb class
regions such as, USA, Mexico etc. are the most favourable for the large scale installation of
PV solar systems. This technology is currently very important technologies used in the solar
energy production.
Solar Energy in the United States. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2020, from
https://www.energy.gov/eere/solarpoweringamerica/solar-energy-united-states
This is the governmental website of Energy efficiency and renewable energy in USA. It
provides the solar energy usage data on the basis of past and present condition.
U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis. (n.d.).
Retrieved April 3, 2020, from
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php
This is the governmental website of US energy information administration. It provides the
solar energy application data in comparison with the other energy sources, such as, fossil
fuels, wind energy etc. It also elaborates the percentage of application for various energy
sources on the basis of present and past data.
U.S. Renewable Energy Factsheet. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2020, from
http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-renewable-energy-factsheet
This blog shows the prediction about the future usage of solar energy in USA. This is the
factsheet which elaborates the future prediction by using the graph.
Webber, M. E., Rhodes, J. D., & Upshaw, C. R. (2019). U.S. Patent No. 10,255,393.
Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
In this article, a system, method and the computer program product for optimally placing PV
arrays to maximize the value of energy production is analysed. Incident solar radiation for
different placements of the PV arrays accommodating various tilts and azimuths is estimated.
Wiser, R., Mai, T., Millstein, D., Macknick, J., Carpenter, A., Cohen, S., ... & Heath, G.
(2016). On the Path to SunShot-The Environmental and Public Health Benefits of
Achieving High Penetrations of Solar Energy in the United States (No. NREL/TP-
6A20-65628 LBNL-1004373). EERE Publication and Product Library.

This article elaborates about the public health and the ecological benefits for achieving the
higher penetration of solar energy in USA.