US Market Hits PV Stride

The US market is bustling with PV projects, and Solar Millennium is getting ready to capitalize where the market is most favorable. “Solar Millennium responds quickly and pragmatically to market conditions, and at the moment the California market favors PV technology,” Solar Millennium CEO Christophe Wolff said. In 2011 alone, at least four projects in the US totaling around 1,850 MW of power have nearly all used PV technology.

The Blythe CSP plant, located in California’s Mohave Desert, will see its first 500 MW converted into PV. Germany’s Solar Millennium said that while PV has been decided on for phase one of the 1,000 MW plant, it has yet to confirm what technology will be used for the second 500 MW phase. California passed legislation that forced state utilities to use 20% of their power from renewable energy sources, and as a result, the price of PV panels dropped by nearly 50%.

This also allows companies to finance projects via commercial banks instead of organizations like the World Bank. For instance, Solar Millennium will see the majority of its financing coming from a commercial bank instead of through loan guarantees from the US Department of Energy. Loan guarantees, like the ones from the World Bank or a country’s Department of Energy, are used when prices of technology remain costly which can also lead to problems acquiring financial mechanisms through conventional banking systems.

Solar Millennium said it still sees strong demand for concentrated solar power, also referred to as solar thermal power in markets such as Africa, the Middle East, India, China, and Southern Europe.

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