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Solar: Rapidly Growing Markets

• Solar technologies are likely to follow similar market penetration commercialization paths to that of other high technology products such as the fax machine, the cellular telephone and the personal computer.

• There are now more than 10,000 homes in the United States that are entirely powered by solar energy.

• Over 60% of solar technology sales are exports. Sales are primarily to developing countries, which comprise over one-third of the earth's population.

• Worldwide sales of photovoltaic products totaled over 90 megawatts in 1996, up 14% from 1995. US firms have a 43% share of this $1 billion global market.

• The annual US Market for PV on buildings could top $2.5 billion in the next 10 years with Japanese and European markets having similar potential.

• The potential U.S. market for photovoltaics is nearly 9,000 megawatts. At a low estimate of $3 per watt, this translates into a $27 billion market in the US alone.

• The fastest growing markets for photovoltaic systems include the utility, rural electrification, telecommunications, and military sectors. These market sectors are expected to require more than 1,200 megawatts of PV by the year 2000.

Solar Thermal Energy

• The U.S. spends more than $13 billion-a-year on energy for home water heating. That is the equivalent of 11.4 barrels of oil per household, more than the amount of oil (in the form of gasoline) burned by a medium-sized automobile driven 12,000 miles.

• There are more than one million solar hot water heating installations in the U.S.

• More than 300,000 solar pool heating systems have been installed in the United States, providing efficient heating to residential and commercial swimming pools around the country.

• Over 700 megawatts of solar thermal electric systems should be deployed by the year 2003 in the U.S. and internationally. The market for these systems should exceed 5,000 megawatts by 2010, enough to serve the residential needs of 7 million people (or a state larger than Georgia) which will save the energy equivalent of 46 million barrels of oil per year.