A new report from the Baker Center for Public Policy just released a fabulous new analysis comparing incentives for solar with historical incentives for fossil fuels, including this chart:
No energy technology goes from laboratory to market overnight. As the report puts it, innovators and early adopters only constitute 16 percent of total technology adoption. Then there is a ‘chasm’ before mainstream adoption by the remaining 84 percent. What subsidies do, in bridging this chasm, is ensure that while “not all companies that enter the market early flourish … the industry itself can succeed.” Federal incentives have classically supported new energy resources during the average 30-year period between early adoption and full technology adoption.
The Baker Center found that “federal investment in solar technologies has been modest in a long-term historical context relative to other energy technologies.” As the above diagram shows, solar has not only received far less total subsidization, but it is receiving it at the point where technologies are supposed to be receiving support:
Incentives are working
How do we tell if incentives are working? The Baker Center rightly argues that the basic purpose of subsidization is to bring a technology across the “chasm” and into mainstream adoption. This being the case, the best policies are stable and long-term, giving investors strong policy signals that build confidence in the technology. As their findings show, the incredible growth rate in solar capacity over the last few years (see below) all took place while the federal investment tax credit and state renewable energy standards were in place. Tack on falling prices for PV, and you get a 77 percent growth rate in the period over the last five years. This growth is spurring more innovation in manufacturing and deployment, helping push solar PV toward grid parity at a rapid rate.
Growth in Solar PV will create jobs
Did I say jobs? I meant hundreds of thousands of jobs. The report finds that between 200,000 and 430,000 direct, indirect, and induced jobs will come from the solar industry in 2020. A recent solar jobs census found that there are already 100,000 Americans working in the sector. The connection is clear: more demand and lower costs are accelerating employment in the installation, maintenance and manufacturing of solar PV.
According to this report, solar gives you more bang for your buck — providing “more jobs per megawatt-hour than any other energy industry.”
There are also implications for global competitiveness. In 2010, the United States was a net exporter of solar PV to China, with a $1.9 billion trade surplus. If we can keep our stake in the global PV market, we will create an additional 67,000 jobs by 2030 through increased exports.
– source thinkprogress.org