The Energy Disruption Triangle

CHAPTER FOURUtility-Scale Solar Takes Off

There are few, if any, other industries that are undergoing a transformation as rapid and as large as that of the electric power industry. One of the biggest influences and changes has come from the solar power industry, both residential and utility-scale solar. In this chapter I am going to focus on the transformation the power industry is undergoing as a result of the rise of utility-scale solar.

What exactly is utility-scale solar? I'll get into that in greater detail further on in this chapter, but generally speaking, it's any installation greater than 1 MW in size that supplies power to the grid at the utility level, rather than at the distribution level. Utility-scale installations are also known as solar parks, solar ranches, or solar farms. Like any other large power plant, a utility-scale solar plant is designed to feed the power it produces directly into the electrical grid. The connection is generally at a higher voltage than a residential solar installation.

A few decades ago, no one would have predicted that by 2016, more people would be working in the US solar industry than in the oil and natural gas sectors, but it's true. As you can see from Figure 4.1, employment in the solar energy sector overtook that of the oil, gas, and coal sectors during 2015.

FIGURE 4.1 ANNUAL SOLAR JOB ADDITIONS COMPARED TO OIL, GAS, AND COAL ...