DOE charts progress on SunShot goals, identifies solar opportunities

by Brianna Crandall — May 27, 2016 — The U.S. Department of Energy released on May 18 the On the Path to SunShot reports, a series of eight research papers examining the state of the U.S. solar energy industry and progress toward the SunShot Initiative’s goal to make solar energy cost-competitive with other forms of electricity by 2020.

The United States has over 10 times more solar capacity installed today compared to when the SunShot Initiative was launched in 2011, and the overall costs of solar have dropped by 65%. The solar industry is currently about 70% of the way toward achieving the Initiative’s 2020 goals.

The new reports explore the lessons learned in the first five years of the 10-year Initiative and identify key research, development, and market opportunities that can help to ensure that solar energy technologies are widely affordable and available to power millions more American homes and businesses.

The SunShot Initiative was created with the goal to reduce the cost of solar energy technologies by 75% within a decade across the residential, commercial, and utility-scale sectors.

A recurring theme in the studies is that sustained innovation across all levels of the industry — from cell efficiency improvements, to faster and cheaper installation methods — will help to achieve the Energy Department’s SunShot goals.

The On the Path to SunShot series, developed in collaboration with leading researchers from national labs, is available on the DOE Web site.