By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

A new Deloitte Global report, “Global Renewable Energy Trends,” indicates solar and wind are becoming the preferred electricity-generation sources worldwide.

There are three key reasons for the increase: price and performance parity with fossil fuels; better grid integration infrastructure and improving technology. In other words, solar and wind are now cost-competitive with fossil fuels and are delivering the same performance. As that continues (and other technologies like blockchain come into play), Deloitte expects the trends to continue.

“Demand for renewable energy sources has grown tremendously in recent years,” says Marlene Motyka, Deloitte U.S. and global renewable energy leader and principal, Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP. “Governments, communities, emerging markets, and corporations increasingly understand that renewables are sustainable and affordable, and they want them included in current and future procurement plans.”

Most exciting, the report indicates that although wind and solar are already among the least expensive energy sources available globally, they are nowhere near reaching peak deployment. As costs continue to fall and accessibility increases, the demand for renewables is growing rapidly, driven by:

Smart renewable cities:

Migration to the world’s cities has encouraged many cities to take a “smart” approach to their infrastructure using sensor technology and data analyatics to improve the quality of life, competitiveness and sustainability for their residents. As it happens, solar and wind are at the center of many of these developments because they help answer the challenges posed by constructing “smart cities,” including depollution, decarbonization and resilience while enabling clean electric mobility, economic empowerment, and business growth.

Community energy:

Piggybacking of community solar, storage and management systems allow communities more flexibility in adding renewables. They allow on-grid cities to power themselves off te gird, and off-grid communities can keep their investments local, building economies based on the electrification of areas that had previously been electricity-free.

Emerging markets: Though the innovation in solar and wind have traditionally been considered the province of wealthier nations, that is increasingly less the case. Emerging markets are developing renewables at a pace that will soon overtake that of the developed world. As a result, emerging markets are where the innnovations are now coming from – innovations, by the way, that could eventually help developed countries, too.

Corporate involvement: As we’ve seen in the United States, corporations are also leading the renewable energy revolution, With the advent of power purchase agreements (PPAs) and aggregation (for smaller corporations), two thirds of Fortune 1000 companies have set renewable energy targets – meaning this revolution has hit the C-Suite and could be unstoppable as they race to outdo each other in their commitment to solar and wind energy.

“Wide-scale integration of renewable energy sources is no longer a question of if, but when,” Motkya said. “Countries such as China, the United States, and Germany have already reached price parity for certain renewable sources. With prices continuing to drop, developed countries and emerging markets alike have the ability to integrate renewables into their grid systems to ensure competitive advantage.”

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Though the overall solar market declined in Q2 of 2018, there was good news to be had in the utility-scale and residential sectors. Those are the headlines from the Q2 U.S. Solar Market Insight Report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Woods MacKenzie Power & Renewables (WKPR) (formerly GTM Research).

As some predicted, the decision by the Chinese to halt their domestic market sent component prices into a nosedive, which allowed the utility-scale solar market to procure nearly 8.5 GW of solar in the second quarter. Lower than expected tariffs – starting at 30% – also contributed to the surge.

But even the residential solar, which had struggled in recent quarters to the tune of a 15% contraction in 2017, is showing increasing stability, according to the most recent numbers.

“Once lower-than-expected module tariffs were announced in January 2018, developers and utilities began announcing new projects,” Wood Mackenzie Senior Analyst Colin Smith writes in the report. “As we move toward 2019, we expect to see continued procurement growth as developers look to secure projects they can bring online before the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) steps down to 10 percent in 2022.”

In the residential sector, 577 MW were installed in the second quarter of the year, which were flat compared to the previous quarter as well as year on year. According to WKPR, “declines in previous quarters were less a symptom of the tariffs but instead a result of customer acquisition challenges and the scaling back of several large installers. The report points to the leveling out of the market as a sign that customer acquisition challenges may be subsiding. Emerging residential state markets like Florida and Nevada posted large gains in installations and helped the segment rebound.”

In other words, as SEIA President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper said, the tariffs have had some effect on the solar industry, but it is too strong to stay down for long. Indications are that the second half of 2018 will remain strong, and that 2019 could be a rebound year.

Other key findings from the report include:

• In Q2 2018, the U.S. market installed 2.3 GWdc of solar PV, a 9% year-over-year decrease and a 7% quarter-over-quarter decrease.
• In the first half of 2018, 29% of all new electricity generating capacity brought online in the U.S. came from solar PV.
• For a second consecutive quarter, the residential PV sector was essentially flat on both a year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter basis – an encouraging sign of market stabilization after a year in which the market contracted 15%.
• Non-residential PV fell 16% quarter-over-quarter and 8% year-over-year.
• Corporate procurement of utility PV through physical PPAs, virtual PPAs, and green tariffs has grown to account for 12% of projects in development.
• Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables forecasts flat growth in 2018 vs. 2017, with another 10.9 GWdc of new PV installations expected.
• Total installed U.S. PV capacity is expected to more than double over the next five years. By 2023, more than 14 GWdc of PV capacity will be installed annually.