Question

discuss the status of photovoltaic power plants in the United Status. Include in our discussion the power ratings of the solar power plants and their locations

Cite the references.

Answer 1

Solar power is more affordable,accessible & prevalent in the US than ever before. In the twelve months through February 2018, utility scale and distributed solar power generated 55.6 terawatt-hours (TWh), 1.37% of total U.S. electricity. During the same time period total solar generation, including estimated distributed solar photovoltaic generation, was 80.6 TWh, 1.98% of total U.S. electricity. This is enough capacity to power the equivalent of almost 200,000 American homes.In addition, more than 65,000 homes and businesses added solar water heating (SWH) or solar pool heating (SPH) systems. This was double the 435 MW installed in 2009 around the U.S.Since 2010, the average cost of solar PV panels has dropped more than sixty percent and the cost of a solar electric system has dropped by about fifty percent.

The largest solar thermal power plant in the world is the 392 MW Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, in California. It deploys 173,500. Heliostat with two mirrors focusing solar energy on boilers located on centralized solar power towers.

Desert Sunlight solar project in the town of Desert Center, Calif., near Joshua Tree National Park. Built by First Solar, the project generates enough electricity to power 160,000 average California homes.

The Mojave Solar Project is a 280 MW solar thermal power facility in the Mojave Desert in California,completed in December 2014.

the Department of Energy reported last year that it expects to make a profit of $5 billion to $6 billion from the program. The department funded five traditional, large-scale solar farms, and Desert Sunlight marks the last of those projects to go online.

Markets for solar energy are maturing rapidly around the country, and solar electricity is now economically-competitive with conventional energy sources in several states, including California, Hawaii, Texas, and Minnesota. Moreover, the solar industry is a proven incubator for job growth throughout the nation. Solar jobs have increased about 123% since November 2010, with nearly 209,000 solar workers in the US.

Increased solar energy deployment offers myriad benefits for the United States. As the cleanest domestic energy source available, solar supports broader national priorities, including national security, economic growth, climate change mitigation, and job creation. Solar’s abundance and potential throughout the United States is staggering: PV panels on just 0.6% of the nation’s total land area could supply enough electricity to power the entire United States. PV can also be installed on rooftops with essentially no land use impacts. Concentrating solar power (CSP) is the other method for capturing energy from the sun, and seven southwestern states have the technical potential and land area to site enough CSP to supply more than four times the current U.S. annual electricity demand.

Despite this impressive progress, significant work remains before solar becomes as affordable as conventional energy sources and meets its full potential throughout the country. Solar hardware costs have fallen dramatically, but market barriers and grid integration challenges continue to hinder greater deployment. Non-hardware solar “soft costs”—such as permitting, financing, and customer acquisition—are becoming an increasingly larger fraction of the total cost of solar and now constitute up to 55% of the cost of a residential system.Technological advances and innovative solutions are still needed to increase efficiency, drive down costs, and enable utilities to rely on solar for baseload power.