FORTY-FIVE minutes west of Las Vegas, dejected sinners may encounter a sight to lift their sunken hearts: a sea of 347,000 mirrors, reflecting the rays of the desert sun on to boilers mounted on three 460-foot towers. The Ivanpah solar-thermal plant (pictured), which opened in mid-February, is the largest of its kind in the world. Fully ramped up, it will deliver around 377 megawatts (MW) of power to 140,000 homes in southern California. Its backers compare it to the nearby Hoover Dam; an astronaut claims to have spotted it from the international space station. It is a striking sight, even if the heat from its heliostats has roasted dozens of unfortunate birds alive.Solar power in America is growing rapidly, albeit from a small base (see chart). Last year it represented 29% of new electricity capacity, behind only natural gas at 46%. Solar output has more than doubled during Barack Obama’s time in office; GTM, a research firm, reckons it will grow another 26% in 2014. The Department of Energy wants solar to provide 27% of America’s electricity by 2050, up from less than 1% today.
Though dazzling, Ivanpah and large plants like it will not generate much of this growth. The federal loan guarantees that allowed their creation have expired. More important are photovoltaic solar cells, a rival technology that converts sunlight directly to electricity. Their cost has fallen so quickly that in many places retail electricity customers are saving money by placing panels on top of their houses or businesses; 200,000 have done so in the past two years. And there is a lot of room to grow. “There’s no market saturation in any state; not even close,” says Lyndon Rive of SolarCity, a solar-installation firm. Even David Crane, the boss of NRG, co-owner of Ivanpah, says that photovoltaic installations are the future.
Last year sun-soaked California accounted for over half of America’s new photovoltaic installations. That, say solar fans, shows that the sector can thrive even after it loses its subsidies. (The $2.2 billion California Solar Initiative, which gave cash to homes or firms that went solar, has largely expired.) Solar is also blossoming in unexpected places like Massachusetts and North Carolina.
A bigger test will come in 2017, when the federal government’s solar-investment tax credit drops from 30% to 10% (unless Mr Obama can convince Congress otherwise). Still, says Shayle Kann at GTM, this will be no “death knell”; it will simply eliminate some marginal projects. And by then there may be a revival of Ivanpah-style solar-thermal plants, as energy-storage technologies improve and utility firms look to them to provide steady power throughout the day.
Yet even if solar power is a boon to consumers, it threatens some utilities. Energy has traditionally been generated centrally, distributed over power lines and sold to consumers. Distributed solar power—generated from rooftop panels—undermines that model (see article). The Edison Electric Institute (EEI), a trade group, warns that distributed generation could do to energy companies what the internet did to newspapers.
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