A report issued by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) showed that the U.S. solar market grew 67 percent from 2009 to 2010. 
Dollar growth grew from $3.6 billion to $6 billon. California installed the most panels last year with 258.9 megawatts added followed by New Jersey at 137.1 and Nevada with 61.4. The top ten states after these three were Arizona, Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas. According to SEIA the U.S. now has in place 2.6 gigawatts of solar capacity. The biggest factors for solar growth came from public utilities that built solar specific plants. SEIA attributes the investment on the part of public utilities to the Department of Energy loan program that provided funding to build these new solar plants. Future build outs could depend on the DOE’s continuation of said program. Still, despite growth, the U.S. actually fell behind other countries in 2010 in terms of global photovoltaic installation. The U.S. was home to only 5 percent of the world’s installed photovoltaics in 2010, compared with 6.5 percent in 2009. The SEIA attributed this to the European solar boom caused by government incentives that pushed countries like Spain, Italy, and Germany to install more solar plants. Congress must continue to back the DOE loan program for installing solar plants in this country, and if possible extend it to wind, geothermal, and biofuel. Let’s remove the federal funding for the oil companies and give it to clean energy initiatives.
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